Interim CIO’s Open Letter
In life, we seldom get to choose the problems we must face, their timing, or pace. I think it is safe to assume that nobody asked for the biggest economic downturn since the great depression and that nobody reading this newsletter wished to see Florida among the states hardest hit. We got both barrels anyway. Our cuts in IT at the central level were very substantial at $900,000. Cuts in distributed IT were all determined at the unit levels. I do not have a summary measure of those cuts, but I understand they were substantial too. But bad as the cuts were, I admit that I frequently worried that they would be worse.
However, UF IT will survive and will move positively forward in the future. As it did when we survived previous hits, moving forward now with both budget cuts and a new organization will require that we stay focused. Mostly, we need to stay focused on why our work and IT are vitally important to UF and why we committed to these jobs. That takes or brings us to the second subject of this letter, moving forward with the UF IT organization.
Dr. Jan van der Aa will lead and facilitate the change from the current Information Technology Advisory Council structure to the new governance model for UF IT.
Dr. Fedro Zazueta is leading the establishment of the new engagement structure. The most immediate thing you will see in this area is a new UF IT Web site due for prime time during the summer.
Perhaps the largest and most complex of the recommendations was the creation of an organization that integrates all IT at UF. I am leading that overall project, but there are two large subcomponents. The integration of IT at UF required some fundamental reorganization and our solution involved the establishment of a dual report structure linking core and distributed IT in the same organization. I have met with Senior VPs, and IT and other Administrative leads in IFAS, HSC, E&G and Administration over the last two months. In each case, agreements have been reached about the structure, methods and individuals involved in the dual report lines.
Also within the broad recommendation to create a UF IT organization is the development of two newly formed centrally reporting units. One is the new Office of Information Security and Compliance. That project is being led by Dr. Mike Conlon. The Information Security Manager’s unit that previously reported under Computing and Networking Services has already moved under the CIO. A plan for full development of the new unit consolidating HSC security is due shortly, and a staged implementation of the remainder of the plan will likely extend out over several months. In the near future, we will open a search for a Chief Information Security Officer to manage the new unit.
A second newly formed unit is University Systems, which involves combining enterprise applications (the three largest of which are ERP, Student Records, and the Course Management System) under one lead and reporting to the CIO.
Significant portions of three projects (a second off-site data center, improved support of academic instruction, and improved support of enterprise systems) will directly benefit from tech fee funds. Much planning work by Tim Fitzpatrick, David Burdette and others has already been done for the new data center, and the process for selecting an architect and builder is underway. In the best of timeframe scenarios, the new data center should be open for business in 14 months.
I close with a final note of appreciation to the UF IT community. This has been a rough year by any reasonable measure — bad budgets and a lot of change piled on top of each other. Through it all, I have found your professionalism and commitment to your jobs and UF admirable and reassuring. Providing high quality fundamentally important services like IT requires more than that talented people simply show up for work each day. It requires continuous extra effort and deep commitment, the kind I have seen effectively demonstrated in the UF IT community for many years. For that, and for the help and support you have always given me, please accept my enduring thanks.
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Tags: Academic Technology
Posted on Friday, July 10th, 2009.