OhioLINK Update

The following summary is attributed to Ray English with some edits by PK…. thanks Ray.

Most of the call was Chancellor Fingerhut introducing John Magill and going over the points in his memo delineating John’s charge as Interim. Magill made comments about how much he appreciated the opportunity and how much he was looking forward to the job, including meeting all stakeholders.
Paul said that LACCC was eager to meet with John at his earliest convenience and Ray asked about the process to be used in the development of an oversight board. Magill said he was looking forward to meeting with the various OL constituencies. The Chancellor said he wants Magill to work on governance with us in consultation with him to reach a consensus that we could all agree on.

One surprise. Rob McGee of RMG Consultants was on the call. Paul asked about that and the Chancellor explained that his memo and invitation to the conference call had gone to many people he’d been talking to about OhioLINK and that no role for McGee had been established.

The Chancellor just distributed this announcement:

To: OhioLink Stakeholders
From: Chancellor Eric Fingerhut
Re: Appointment of Interim Director
Date: March 31, 2010

OhioLink Executive Director Tom Sanville has informed me that today will be his last day in that position. I would like to once again thank Tom for his many years of service to OhioLINK and higher education in Ohio, and wish him well in his future endeavors.

As most of you know, I have appointed a search committee to identify Tom’s permanent successor. That committee, co-chaired by Lev Gonick of Case Western Reserve University and Dr. Victoria Montavan of the University of Cincinnati, has already had its first meeting. I am grateful for their work as well.

I am pleased to announce that I am appointing John Magill, Chief Strategic Officer in the office of Policy Research and Strategic Planning for the Ohio Department of Development, as Interim Director of OhioLINK. John will assume his duties on April 1, 2010, and continue until the permanent director takes office. I have had the opportunity to work with John on many matters through the close cooperation between the Ohio Board of Regents and the Department of Development, and have found John to be a thoughtful, passionate, creative public servant. John serves on the board of OARNet, is an OhioLINK user, a passionate library advocate, and is very knowledgeable about the role of technology in helping spread the availability of knowledge to all of our citizens. John is well respected by the Governor, the Governor’s cabinet, and legislative leaders, and by the leaders of the other educational technology agencies in state government with which OhioLINK partners. I am confident that he will be able to use these relationships and knowledge to aggressively advance the interests and needs of OhioLINK during this interim period.

I have charged John with the following goals for his tenure as Interim Director:

1. Work closely with the OhioLINK staff, maintain current operations and address issues that arise in the normal course of business;
2. Work with OARnet staff to continue the implementation of the shared infrastructure;
3. Work with OhioLINK stakeholders and the Chancellor to finalize the parameters of the new OhioLINK oversight board;
4. Participate in the Chancellor’s Educational Technology Council meetings representing OhioLINK; and
5. In consultation with OhioLINK staff, stakeholders, external experts and interested parties, develop an indeterminate number of “white papers” identifying potential future strategic options for OhioLINK to be available to the permanent executive director, the newly appointed oversight board, and the Chancellor for their consideration.

I know John will be reaching out to all of you as OhioLINK’s stakeholders for your input. In the spirit of our conversations these last few weeks, however, I wanted to make available an opportunity to share with John and me any thoughts you may have as John assumes his duties. To that end, I have scheduled a conference call for this afternoon at 4:30 p.m. on which both John and I will participate.

Thank you for all of your support of OhioLINK and for your continued partnership as we move forward.

The following is a list of the members of the Search Committee for the Executive Director of OhioLINK:

Victoria Montavon, Dean and University Librarian, U Cincinnati
Ray English, Director of Libraries, Oberlin College
Susan Scott, Warner Library Director, Ohio State – Newark
Pat Losinski, Executive Director, Columbus Metro Public Lib
Richard Rubin, SLIS Director, Kent State U.
Lev Gonick, VP, Info Tech Services/CIO, Case WRU
Brice Bible, CIO, Ohio U
Steven Angle, Provost, Wright State University
Michael Sherman, Vice Provost, Ohio State
Karen Wells, Provost/VP A & Learning Services, Sinclair CC
Robert, Helmer, President, Lourdes Colege
JoAnne Podis, VP A. Affairs, Ursuline C
Robert Massie, CEO, Chemical Abstracts
Richard Stoff, Founding President, Ohio Business Roundtable

OHIO FACULTY COUNCIL RESOLUTION ON OhioLINK

OFC reaffirms the need to maintain the stability of core services that OhioLINK provides for faculty and students;

OFC reaffirms the need for new services provided by OhioLINK, but not at the expense of its core services;

OFC applauds the Chancellor for recognizing constituent concerns and working with the OhioLINK constituencies to improve its services while maintaining its core services.

This resolution was passed at the February 12, 2010 meeting and sent to the Chancellor.

Bob Burke of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Ohio arranged a conference call with Chancellor Fingerhut on Wednesday, February 10. Participating in the call, in addition to Bob, were five library directors and one chief academic officer from the independent schools. At the beginning of the call the Chancellor underscored the importance of OhioLINK and expressed his desire to correct the problems that arose as a result of the recent technological reorganization. The participants on the call expressed concerns relating to OhioLINK, stressed the importance of the independent colleges to the OhioLINK program, and also emphasized the need for a reconstituted governing board. They also expressed appreciation to Chancellor Fingerhut for his willingness to listen to the concerns of the library directors and work to address them.
Ray

The Chancellor is working on selecting an interim Ex. Director. I don’t know where he is in that process nor his target for naming one but I know he is working on it.

Vicki Montavon reports that, as co-chair of the search committee for the permanent Executive Director, she recently had a conversation with the Chancellor. He is also ready to announce the final search committee.

The Chancellor said that he was looking forward to receiving the governance report from the OhioLINK membership. I had an opportunity to tell him that his office had the report and that it was on his Chief of Staff’s (virtual) desk. His Chief of Staff is on vacation so it may take until she is back in the office next week for it to be delivered to the Chancellor.

Ray English reports that senior leadership of the independent Colleges had a telephone conference with the Chancellor about OhioLINK and that it went as other conversations had gone.

Available here.

As the by-product of an LACCC conference call this morning the following actions were taken:

1. A list of three names were sent on to Chancellor Fingerhut as recommendations for the Interim Executive Director position. The decision of whether the names are to be made public is with the Chancellor.

2. A letter that communicates detailed recommendations on the future governance and management of OhioLINK as was promised to the Chancellor at the 1/25/2010 meeting has been sent. Attached to that letter is both the by-laws for a new OhioLINK governance board and a draft position description for the OhioLINK Executive Director.

These documents will be posted here after suitable time has passed for them to have been read and considered by the Chancellor.

Summary of the Meeting with Chancellor Fingerhut on Monday January 25, 2010 regarding the future of OhioLINK.

The meeting was attended by Chancellor Fingerhut and representatives of the OhioLINK membership: Library Directors Ray English, Oberlin; Douglas Kaylor, Sinclair CC; Paul Kobulnicky, YSU; Vicki Montavon, U. Cinn. and Susan Scott, OSU-Newark / Central Ohio Technical College, along with two CIO’s, Brice Bible, Ohio U. and Paul Hernandez, Wright State U. ; Provost (Anthony Perzigian, U. Cinn. ) and staff from IUC (Cindy McQuade) and OACC (Stephanie Franz).

The Chancellor listened to opening remarks about the need to stabilize the OhioLINK program and services, to continue the sense of trust and ownership that the membership has had in OhioLINK and to move forward successfully on the filling of the Executive Director position both on an interim and then permanent basis.

The Chancellor offered his sincere apologies for the situations that have caused membership concerns and reaffirmed his sense of responsibility for both what has happened and for moving us forward successfully. He also indicated that some parts of the transition were not carried out properly and that he was under-informed about some critical aspects of the move to the shared infrastructure. He is working to improve the transition.

We discussed the need to reestablish a governing board for OhioLINK, with strong representation from our chief academic officers, to ensure OhioLINK’s stability and alignment with the academic missions of our colleges and universities. The Chancellor was receptive to the creation of such a governing board and indicated that it could be formed via a directive from the Chancellor’s Office. He asked the library directors to submit to him a proposal regarding the structure of the board.

We then discussed the need to quickly identify an Interim Executive Director. The Chancellor said that he had been very active personally in soliciting possible individuals but had not had success. He asked the attendees for their assistance in identifying suitable candidates.

Most of the discussion focused on the search for a new Executive Director. The chancellor indicated that he was open to a Library Director as Co-Chairperson of the Search Committee. He was also open to our suggestions for the filling out of the rest of the Search Committee. We spent some time discussing the major expectations for the next executive director. The Chancellor indicated that we should think “outside the box” . High on his list of expectations were the ability to work collaboratively with the other OBR technology-related units and the ability to envision and implement new OhioLINK programs that may not have been part of the traditional OhioLINK suite of programs. With respect to new programs, the Chancellor used textbooks, integration with K-12 and distance learning integration as examples that are high on his list of priorities. The attendees indicated that we both agreed with those directions and we continue to see the need to manage OhioLINK’s core programs.

At the end of the meeting, the OhioLINK delegation committed to a quick follow-up communication that would provide more specific recommendations for the governing board development and the search for an Executive Director (both interim and permanent).

This is a short post to say that yesterday (1/25/2010) a small delegation of Librarians (Ray English, Paul Kobulnicky, Vicki Montavon and Susan Scott) along with two CIO’s (Brice Bible and Paul Hernandez), a Provost (Anthony Perzigian) and staff from IUC and OACC met for an hour with Chancellor Fingerhut. The meeting was considered as positive. More will be posted in a day or two after the attendees have had a chance to properly debrief.