Executive Summary

This proposal recommends that the title of “Director of Information Technology” be changed to “Chief Information Officer” and that the CIO be made a permanent member of the President’s Cabinet. 

The significant components of this report are as follows:

The task force unanimously supports the proposal’s recommendations noting that we see no immediate need for changes in salary of in staffing.  We recommend that the recommendations be implemented at the beginning of the next academic year.

Introduction

            Technology has emerged as a core component of higher education playing a central role in all areas from development to student relations, and, most importantly, academic mission. In today’s environment, information technology resources (staff, hardware, software, networks) touch everyone in the institution and require large amounts of funding to research, manage, maintain, and replace.  As technology’s role has evolved, so has its organization. Trends related to the management and control of the exponential growth of technology within higher education have come and gone, but, as we enter the new millennium, recent trends represent a gradual but evident paradigm shift in the organization of information technology leadership in higher education.  This paradigm shift is fueled by the explosion of available technologies, uses of technology in teaching, learning, and administration, and inevitably, costs of technology acquisition and maintenance.

Background

            The assumed organizational model in higher education is the traditional power pyramid with authority vested in the hands of a small group of central administrators.  As a result, many information technology offices follow corporate management models and are designed for hierarchical decision-making.  In sharp contrast to industry, however, much of American higher education is characterized by a participative style of management.  Though it is not currently the most common model, increasing numbers of campuses are moving toward an information technology organizational structure that consolidates academic and administrative computing, telecommunications and instructional media services under a chief information officer (CIO).  This individual usually has ready access to the institution’s decision makers and is as much a part of the executive management structure as institutional culture permits.  An examination of IT organizational models at institutions of similar size and mission to Saint Mary’s reveals a variety of structural responses, including traditional and innovative approaches.  (A complete summary of findings and list of schools examined is contained in Appendix A.)   Key findings of this research include:

The scope of IT services (in addition to academic and administrative computing) typically includes instructional technology, network services, and telecommunications.  Consolidation of IT services with the college library is less common.

The best choice for Saint Mary's College

            In the past, every substantial change in the tools used to gather, analyze, and transmit knowledge has allowed people to interact and think in new ways and has profoundly altered the character of social institutions.  We are in a similar moment of change; information technology has and will continue to alter both the institutional frameworks of education and the ways in which we teach and learn.  Today the task of becoming a reflective citizen, a skilled worker, or an able participant in a global society cannot be separated from the environment of information technology and, consequently, Saint Mary’s cannot afford to treat IT as a mere addendum to its educational mission; we cannot afford to ignore the changing environment that has led many to alter their IT organizational structure. 

            The question then becomes which organizational model is most appropriate for Saint Mary’s College. In the early 90s a number of institutions integrated their IT departments with their library. “Greater than the sum of its parts: the integrated IT/Library organization” by Chris Ferguson et. al. (Ferguson, et. al.,  EDUCAUSE Review, May/June 2004) articulates the primary reasons given for these mergers.  However, none of the cited reasons is pertinent to Saint Mary's College; they include 1) vacant leadership in both positions, 2) duplication of services and costs (which does not exist at Saint Mary’s given the fact that Saint Mary’s library system is located and supported by the Library Systems Department at the University of Notre Dame), 3) and strong leadership within IT and library middle managers (a non-existent group in both our library and the Office of Information Technology). Furthermore, the challenges cited (short-term costs and the difficulty of merging two endeavors with differences in philosophy and training) make such a merger a poor choice for Saint Mary’s.  Our solution would seem to lie elsewhere.

Proposal

            After having carefully considered the research and information presented above and after much discussion, we unanimously make the following recommendations:

            •           the title of the current position, Director of Information Technology and Telecommunications, should be changed to that of Chief Information Officer

            •           this position should be made a permanent member of the President’s Cabinet. 

This position would continue to report to the Vice President and Dean of Faculty in order to keep the academic mission of the College central to the vision of technology at Saint Mary’s and increase its effectiveness as a visionary leadership position.  We also believe that our current leadership in this Director’s position is a strong fit for this new role and expanded charge.  These recommendations should be implemented with the start of the 2005-2006 academic year.  We do not recommend any additional staff or restructuring inside the Department of Information Technology.

Appendix B contains a description of this position’s expanded charge and leadership role as we interpret it from the current College Strategic Plan

Rationale

            Information technology at Saint Mary's College has moved from the role of supportive services to a position that is central to our educational mission and to the process of teaching and learning; its leadership must reflect this dynamic.  We must change our thinking about information technology so that, in the words of Bob Hodge, President of Foresight Consulting and former CIO of Taylor University, “information technology is treated as an asset rather than as an expense.”  Affecting such a profound shift in thinking is no small task and will be rendered difficult if not impossible without an administrative leader that is empowered to shape the College’s investment in technology and its uses across the institution. Because of the pervasive nature of technology in all areas of the institution and because of the foundational technological expertise needed to understand and communicate current and emerging technology information to leadership, trends toward creating a CIO position that is a part of the executive cabinet have been emerging over the past seven years.   Since IT cuts across all areas of the College, it is vital that this administrator engage directly with leadership from all areas of the administration; a representative with other duties is inadequate to the task.  A Chief Information Officer who reports to the Vice-President and Dean of Faculty and serves on the President’s Cabinet is best able to articulate, promote, and pursue a mission-driven vision of information technology at Saint Mary’s College. This placement and charge allows technology leadership to be more closely involved with institutional planning, budgeting, and operational effectiveness at the highest levels and thereby more fully realize the potential of technology within the organization.  This also allows executive leadership to understand, give input to, and take part in the technological direction that is driven by the educational mission of the institution.  Most importantly, a CIO will be able to help the College more fully discover and use technology as a strategic advantage in an ever-changing educational and administrative environment.  S/he should have a highly visible professional profile that will enhance his or her ability to help our internal and external constituencies envision Saint Mary’s College as a leader in the area of women and technology.

Cost / Benefit

            There are no costs attached to this proposal.  Its benefits, while difficult to quantify, are significant.  The primary benefit of an appropriate and more effective IT leadership position is that it will enable Saint Mary’s College to imagine and pursue a vision of information technology that has the potential to renew our commitment to pioneering change.  Such a vision is effectively outlined in the strategic proposals that the tltr have submitted to SPAC.