The Trail

Issue date: 3/9/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Paul Wicks Students upset with technological services on campus look to OIS for answers. However, OIS has been struggling to make a positive working environment for their staff and many employees have quit out of frustration with the Office. As of now OIS is without a CIO and a Director of Technology.

Students frustrated with technological services on campus may not have their woes alleviated for another semester. The Office of Informational Services (OIS) currently lacks a permanent Chief Informational Officer (CIO), a position formerly known as Associate Vice President for the Office of Information Services.
Since the departure of Norman Imamshah, the Associate VP of OIS, late last October, the future of OIS has been uncertain.

Theresa Duhart, Interim Team Leader and Director of Technical Services, has been holding down both of her positions, attempting to keep things running. However, OIS needs leadership more than anything else.

"The CIO is a critical position for the university," said Sherry Mondou, Vice President for Finance and Administration. "Before proceeding to search for candidates, we are being thoughtful about the characteristics we want in a CIO."

To do so, Mondou has either been meeting or making plans to meet with the various technological groups on campus. These include Student Technology Advisory Board (STAB), Technology Planning Group (TPG), Library, Media and Information Systems (LMIS) and the President's Cabinet. Through these meetings, Mondou hopes to synthesize the different needs and desires of campus groups into a position description so that a search can commence to find a replacement CIO.

So far, the list of characteristics includes vision and planning, communication, leadership abilities and execution.

"A CIO should be able to mobilize people around shared goals to further the mission of the university," Mondou said.

However, the CIO will have to do more than that. Last semester, five high-ranking students quit their jobs at OIS because of the work environment, and because they felt their input wasn't being considered at all.

Continued...

Page 1 of 4 next >

Article Tools