Ithaca College

As previously announced by Vice President Carl Sgrecci in his Intercom announcement on August 18, Information Technology Services (ITS) has undergone a reorganization effective September 1, 2009.

This reorganization has been achieved by rearranging and consolidating existing units within ITS into three new groups, taking advantage of some synergies among those units.  In the wake of the retirement of Bernie Rhoades, the director of network and communication services (NCS), we have eliminated NCS as a separate department. NCS will be combined with systems administration and computer operations into a new department, entitled Infrastructure and Communication Services (ICS). A nationwide search for a director to lead this new group is already underway.  

In the meantime, Michael Taves will serve as acting director. Computing systems have little value without networks to link them one to another, and to the global Internet. A natural technical synergy has developed between the NCS staff and the systems administrators and computer operators. They are mutually interdependent for systems deployment and technical troubleshooting, and we should benefit from them all being in the same group.  This arrangement should also provide the opportunity for even greater efficiency in the acquisition, setup, configuration, connection, support, backup, and recovery of our critical information infrastructure components.

The "Web" unit within what was Web, Systems and Departmental Services (WSDS) has been combined with units of Information Systems and Services (ISS) into a new department to be called Enterprise Application Services (EAS). With the announced retirement of Rick Chandler, director of ISS, I have asked Dave Weil to assume leadership of the new EAS unit and he has accepted the challenge. Combining the Web team with the application development and business intelligence teams creates new opportunities to leverage the talents of each of those units toward developing a single, cohesive environment within which to deploy and support enterprise application and reporting tools.

The departmental services unit of the former WSDS will report directly to me, as will the information security office, as has been the case since its inception.

Technology and Instructional Support Services will remain intact and will continue to be led by Michael Taves.

For most readers, your method of interacting with ITS will remain unchanged. Calls for assistance should continue to be directed to the ITS Help Desk at 274-3282, where they will be answered or routed to the appropriate unit for resolution. The ITS main office number remains unchanged at 274-1000. 

Those of you who manage portions of campus enterprise applications (e.g. Parnassus, Homer, Advance, ARGUS, etc.) will now interact with Dave Weil as the director of EAS. I know that Dave has already begun to reach out to many of you for introduction and to better understand your needs.