LTS Organizational Changes

Dec. 19, 2016

Dear Colleagues:

This fall, I formed an LTS Organizational Structure Task Force charged with making recommendations on whether the roles of University Librarian and Chief Information Officer should remain combined or be split into two positions.

The recommendation of the Task Force is to divide LTS into two separate organizations with the University Library under the University Librarian reporting to the Provost, and Technology Services under the Chief Information Officer reporting to the Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration. As to the division of the organization it was recommended that:

  • A group of individuals (5) currently in administrative roles serving both organizations will have their final affiliation addressed when these recommendations are implemented.

  • The Maker Lab, support for statistical and data analysis, and the Getz Lab will become part of the Library’s portfolio. These functions/spaces are associated with four staff members who support them.

  • All other individuals will remain within their current functional areas.

  • It was recommended that this change take place January 1, 2017.

Stew Uretsky and I have agreed to accept the Task Force recommendations as presented, with the following caveat. Further discussion about the Academic Technology unit will proceed in a slightly more nuanced manner. For this group, in the immediate term we will move them as recommended into Technology Services. However, we will re-assess the long-term placement in six months. During this period, we will move forward with the process to appoint a CIO and University Librarian, we will reach out to the affected individuals to get their input, and we will document more fully the specific roles, constituencies served, and inter-dependencies of the activities/functions in the area of academic technology.

The operations and services of the Library and Technology Services will continue as they were. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact Matthew Sheehy (Sheehy@brandeis.edu), interim University Librarian or Jim La Creta (jlacreta@brandeis.edu), interim Chief Information Officer.

Best,
Lisa Lynch

Lisa M. Lynch
Provost and Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy
Brandeis University
781-736-2101