Over the last several months, the Division of Finance and Administration has been conducting a strategic review of its organizational structure in the context of anticipated stress on the overall level of financial resources that will be available in the years ahead.
Even with the favorable results in terms of the number of students that will be enrolling at the College next week, we expect that the ability and willingness of families to pay the price of private higher education will continue to be an issue as we move forward. Affordability will put pressure on us to keep the rate of increase in our tuition lower, and at the same time, make more money available for financial aid. The result will be slower growth in the net amount of new money to support College operations. Therefore, we believe we must find ways to use the resources we will have, be they human or financial, even more effectively than we have in the past. To that end, the following changes in the organization of our division are currently in the process of being implemented.
I am pleased to be able to share with you that Robert Cree has been promoted to the position of associate vice president for business and finance. In this new and expanded role, the Offices of Financial Services and Budget will report to Robert, along with the restructured units of General Services. Bob Mudge plans to retire in September, and Purchasing as a central function will be dissolved and the responsibilities reassigned to other areas. This will reduce the number of units reporting to me from seven to four, each headed by an associate vice president: Human Resources, Facilities, Information Technology Services, and Business and Finance. I will continue to chair the All-College Budget Committee and the budget preparation process.
Information Technology will be realigning its services among three units versus the current four. Technology Instructional Support Services, headed by Mike Taves, will remain essentially unchanged and will be comprised of User Support Services, Field Services, and Project Management. A new unit, Infrastructure and Communication Services, will consolidate all the services that support our system and network hardware and operations, which include telephone and network services, system administration, and enterprise operations. With the impending retirements of Rick Chandler and Bernie Rhoades, the search for a director of this newly formed unit will get underway shortly. Dave Weil will direct the third unit, Enterprise Application Services, which will put all the front-line personnel associated with our major applications, like Parnassus and Homer, along with the web team, under common direction. This should streamline the performance of those applications from delivery of the software to using it on the web. The units that will now be under Dave's leadership will include web development, the programmer analysts, database administration, and business intelligence. Dave Weil, Mike Taves, and the new director of infrastructure and communication services will report to Ed Fuller, as will the information security and departmental services personnel.
The Office of Facilities, under associate vice president Rick Couture, is consolidating the Facilities maintenance responsibilities previously held by the retiring Bill Drake with the capital project oversight functions currently handled by Steve Dayton. Steve will direct the combined unit. In addition, what has been referred to as the "bridge shift," which has reported for work between the third and first shifts in Facilities Services, has been dissolved, and personnel affected have been absorbed into existing vacancies on other shifts. Gail Wagner will be moving to Facilities, where she will conduct procurement activity primarily, but not exclusively, for Facilities.
This is a general overview of the changes that are currently underway. There are many more details concerning how you should direct your requests for services, etc. These issues will be addressed shortly in communications from the respective associate vice presidents.
While some elements of this strategic review have been exciting for us, others have been extremely difficult. Through not filling some lines open due to retirements, regular vacancies, and actual severances, our division has reduced its overall employment level by 16 positions as a result of this process over a relatively short period of time. This amount of change is never easy for the individuals who are leaving or for their colleagues who remain with the College. Therefore, we ask for your patience as we work our way through these changes and adjust to our new ways of doing business. Thank you.
https://www.ithaca.edu/intercom/article.php/20090818164801912