Come for the Content; Stay for the Community: Clemson’s Kathy Wright Breaks Down BaseCAMP

By Apryl Motley - Technical Writer & Communications Lead, Internet2 Trust and Identity/NET+ Service

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

“I was very honored to be asked,” said Kathy Wright, systems programmer/developer at Clemson University, of the invitation she received to serve on this year’s planning committee for InCommon BaseCAMP.

“I wanted to contribute,” she continued. “The community to which I was introduced last year has helped me and my institution so very much in implementing the projects that we have going on.”

Kathy attended InCommon BaseCAMP last year with a colleague and found “it was incredibly illuminating about the InCommon Trusted Access Platform components and best practices for implementing them.”

From her perspective, if you’re dealing with identity and access management (IAM) issues, you should attend, especially if you are new to IAM. “BaseCAMP is for everyone,” she said. “If you are new to this space, regardless of whether you are an operator, a manager, or in leadership at your university, you will gain insight.“

In addition to the immediate insights attendees gain at InCommon BaseCAMP, Kathy extolled the long-term relationships forged during the conference. “You will be introduced to a community of people that you will be able to call upon and seek advice from in years to come,” she said. “That’s been my experience.”

As Kathy explained, the collegial nature of the conference provides the perfect environment for meaningful interaction among peers: “You go from a large group of people down to smaller and smaller groups, so you can make one on one contact with speakers and ask questions relevant to your own experiences.”

Opportunities for Q & A and other engagement also continue long after the conference. InCommon Academy will maintain an active Slack channel to encourage ongoing exchanges among attendees and speakers before, after, and during InCommon BaseCAMP. 

“The digital community is probably the most important takeaway I have from BaseCAMP,” Kathy said. “Being introduced into these channels gives you access to an array of experts across many different disciplines within the IAM community.”

Kathy hopes that the community will only grow as this year’s attendees come on board. “We want to see you there in class,” she emphasized. “We want to talk to you, hear about your IAM journey at your institution, and learn how we can help.”

Meet Kathy and other members of the 2022 InCommon BaseCAMP planning committee online, June 6 –10,!