Standard V. Administration and Finance

V.4 The school's administrative and other staff are adequate to support the executive officer and faculty in the performance of their responsibilities. The staff contributes to the fulfillment of the school's mission and program goals and objectives. Within its institutional framework the school uses effective decision-making processes that are determined mutually by the executive officer and the faculty, who regularly evaluate these processes and use the results.

The School’s leadership comprises the Dean, the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Research, and the Director of Administration.

The School currently has the following senior staff positions:

Director of Constituent Relations, 2.5 years of experience in this school and 5+ years of development experience at other institutions.
Director of Distance Education, eLearning Partnerships and Outreach (appointed September 2012), 5+ years of experience in distance education, program design, and teaching at other institutions
Director of External Relations, 7 years in this position, 23+ years in public relations and marketing
Manager of Information Technology and Networking, 13+ years in this school
Manager of Student Services, 5 years in this position, 12 years of experience at other institutions
Manager of Personnel and Administration, 1 year in this position, 20 years of experience in the university as an administrator

See SCH 19 for the job descriptions for these senior staff positions

In 2006, in anticipation of the School’s reorganization, the Dean and Associate Dean began to hire staff to take responsibility for specific sectors including student services, marketing, proposal writing, grant administration, data management, IT management, program administration, school-wide management, faculty services and personnel management. Existing staff were assigned to specific task areas that would best serve the school and new staff were hired to provide professional services. These staff hires and realignments were designed to relieve faculty of administrative tasks, permitting them to spend their time and effort on teaching, advising, program design, and research. Three of the administrative staff have earned degrees from the iSchool, which assists them in program management and planning.

Directors/managers – 7 leadership staff
Recruitment/Admissions/Student Services – 3 professional staff
Program/Administrative – 6 staff
Financial/Grants administration – 3 staff
Information Technology – 2 staff
Special programs – 1 staff (Director of the iSchool Inclusion Institute)

See Appendix SCH 11 for an administrative organization chart for the iSchool.

Decision Making Processes

Since 2007, the iSchool has implemented a representative management style, with final responsibility held by the Dean. The faculty, staff and students elect representatives to serve on the SIS Council, which serves as the primary voice of the faculty, staff and students with regard to various governance functions within the school.  The eleven voting members of the council:

1. Act for and represent the faculty, staff, and students in making recommendations to the Dean on major issues of the School;
2. Serve as the School’s planning and budgeting committee for the University’s Planning and Budgeting System;
3. Develop and/or review policies, guidelines, and procedures that support or affect scholarship, research, teaching, and service;
4. Develop and/or review policies, guidelines, and procedures in areas of governance, such as personnel, terms and conditions of employment, budget plans for the School, resources, and diversity enhancement;
5. Establish committees as needed to develop and implement policies and procedures related to the above areas;
6. Coordinate the activities of its various committees, receive the reports, and act upon the recommendations of those committees; and
7. Consult with and advise the Dean and/or the representatives of the Dean regarding issues of concern to faculty, staff, and students.

All Council meetings are open to all faculty, staff and students. A number of iSchool faculty regularly attend and observe Council deliberations, often participating in discussions following interests and need. See Appendix SCH 5 for the official By-laws of the SIS Council.

In addition, the School has several profession-based advisory groups to ensure that the School’s educational offerings meet the needs of the professions. The Industry Advisory Council and the Telecommunications Advisory Council meet regularly to suggest enhancements to the academic programs. There has previously been an advisory group for the APRM specialization, tasked with offering curricular advice and practical experience recommendations; this group is being reconstituted during 2012-13, following the revisions to the APRM curriculum.

As mentioned previously, the School benefits from the presence of a Board of Visitors. This group, which reports and advocates to the Provost on behalf of the School, has members from academic institutions, government, and industry. Annually, this group meets with iSchool administrators and faculty to review the School’s progress in achieving goals, to determine future strategic actions, and to identify resources needed. As of Fall 2012, the members of the Board of Visitors include:

Board of Visitor Members

Name	Title	Institution
Byrd, Gary D.	Director, Health Sciences Library	University at Buffalo The State University of New York
Elish, Herb	Chief Operating Officer	The College Board
Glunt, J. Roger	President	Glunt Development Co., Inc.
Hayden, Carla Diane	Executive Director	Enoch Pratt Free Library
Holtzman, David H.	President	GlobalPOV
Isler, William	Chief Executive Officer	The Fred Rogers Company
Kahn, Robert	CEO and President	Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI)
Lynch, Clifford	Executive Director	Coalition for Networked Information (CNI)
Macedonia, Michael	Chief Technology Officer	Systems and Technology Operations SAIC, Inc.
Matarazzo, James	Emeritus, Dean and Professor	Graduate School of Library and Information Science Simmons College
Moyé, Alfred L. (Chair, BOV)	Trustee, University of Pittsburgh Former Director, University Affairs (now retired)	Hewlett-Packard Company (retired)
Schaefer, Keith	Partner	Constellation Partners
Spiegelman, Barbara	Principal	Spiegelman Group
Strauss, Robert J.	Vice President of Marketing and Sales	Preservation Technologies, L.P.
White, Patrick E.	Partner	Foenix Group
Williams, James F., II	Dean of Libraries	University of Colorado at Boulder
Zales, Mary “Clare”	Retired, former Deputy Secretary for Libraries	Office of Commonwealth Libraries Department of Education

The decision-making process for academic matters is based on the input and design of the faculty. Faculty from the academic programs determine actions in faculty meetings, reporting to SIS Council on major program actions (to include addition of specializations or revision of admissions criteria). The Council will advise the Dean on implementation of such changes. If the program revision involves the addition of degree options or formalized specializations, the program faculty propose the revisions to the SIS Council, then to the Dean and Associate Dean. The Provost must approve all major degree program additions.

Administrative matters are considered by the School’s Dean, Associate Dean, and the Director of Administration, with input from the appropriate staff and faculty. In some cases, outside consultants are retained to provide expert advice, enhancing the School’s assessment and decision-making capabilities. Two recent efforts exemplify the judicious use of external consultants in evaluating and revising academic and administrative programs.

In 2011, the iSchool retained the services of the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) to assess the content and delivery of the online MLIS program through exhaustive surveys of current students (online and on-campus) and faculty (both permanent and adjunct). As a result of this evaluation, and after significant and lengthy consultation with faculty and SIS Council, the Dean determined to transition the program to Pitt Online, the University’s platform for online educational endeavors. This topic is addressed in more detail in Standard V.8.  See Appendix PRO 3 (available on-site) for the NCHEMS report on the effectiveness of the online MLIS program.

In 2009, faculty were awarded a grant from the IMLS to design and offer a post-Master’s certificate program in Health Sciences Librarianship. The IMLS provided scholarship funding for students enrolled in this online program. Upon completion of the grant program, an outside consultant provided an evaluation of the program elements and considered the potential need for such a program in the future. Based on the evaluators’ recommendations, the School will no longer offer the certificate program in its original form but is incorporating curricular elements into the Master’s program and revised CAS offerings. See Appendix PRO 4 (available on-site) for the consultant’s report.

These external evaluations were thoroughly reviewed by program faculty, the Associate Dean, the Dean, the Director of Administration, and the SIS Council before actions were taken based on the consultant’s recommendations.

The Dean, in consultation with the Associate Dean and the Director of Administration, determines necessary budget actions, reporting to SIS Council. Each fiscal year, the School receives an allocation from the University based on previous years’ financial activities as well as several modifications reflecting the institution’s goals and mission (including tuition rate modifications and tuition allocation to the school). The Dean and the Director of Administration develop a fiscal year budget to cover salaries, purchases, building modifications, and financial support of research and students. This budget is presented to the SIS Council and Program Chairs. In recent years, the University has required that the units plan for modest decreases in annual allocations to compensate for decreased state funding. The School carefully determined strategic cost-cutting measures to meet the required financial decreases with minimum disruption to academic and research activities within the school.

Planned adjustments have been removed.