- Target:
- Board of Trustees and administration of Southwestern University
- Region:
- United States of America
In his State of the University address on September 15, 2011, President Jake Schrum made the following announcement:
Our Smith Library Center and Information Technology Services will be merged into one unit that works together to provide technology in service to the liberal arts and which will further enhance our ability to make knowledge accessible to the learning community. We are achieving immediate savings of $250,000 from library operations. This unit will be run by a new Chief Information Officer who will report to me. A national search to fill this position will begin this fall, and I will place a high priority on finding a dynamic, forward-looking, thought [sic] leader to reposition our efforts in information services to complement our national leadership through NITLE. This model has been successfully adopted by some of the leading liberal arts colleges such as Occidental, Middlebury, and Rhodes.
While few would dispute that the increasingly important role of technology in today’s world has brought ITS and traditional library services closer together, the evidence that merging the two offers financial or academic benefits is scant and has been contested in prominent venues. Particularly in a Liberal Arts institution, where integration of knowledge and acknowledgment of specialized expertise exist in a delicate balance, such a consolidation should be undertaken only after careful study with an eye to the needs of our student and faculty communities and the curriculum as a whole. President Schrum’s proposal to remove the library from the academic chain of command (the Provost) and place it instead under his own administrative purview further reduces the likelihood of the restructuring not inflicting serious damage to the University’s core values and long-term health, both academic and financial.
We, the undersigned, are distressed by President Schrum’s announcement of a consolidation of the Smith Library Center and Information Technology Services (ITS) under a new Senior Staff Chief Information Officer (CIO).
Despite its importance to the academic function and curriculum of the University, this action was undertaken with little or no faculty consultation or other involvement; indeed, since the CIO would report directly to the President, the proposed restructuring would remove the Southwestern University libraries from the academic chain of command.
That move, coupled with the devastating reduction of the library’s Materials Budget by $250,000.00 during the current academic year, will inevitably diminish the role of both the Library and ITS in the University’s academic life. Without due consultation of the University’s academic experts and study of the potentials and pitfalls of such restructurings at peer institutions, this move could well adversely affect the academic programs, educational outreach, and standing of Southwestern University among peer institutions.
THEREFORE, we ask that the Trustees prevail upon President Schrum to:
(1) cut the library’s Materials budget for 2011 – 2012 by an amount comparable to the cuts requested of other academic and administrative units, rather than the announced 53%;
(2) suspend any progress toward the appointment and eventual hiring of a CIO until a thorough examination of the proposed consolidation is completed by a task force comprised of administrators, faculty, librarians, students, and technologists;
(3) constitute such a task force; and
(4) proceed with the proposed consolidation if and only if that restructuring is consistent with the findings of the abovementioned task force.
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The Save the Southwestern University Libraries petition to Board of Trustees and administration of Southwestern University was written by Anonymous and is in the category Education at GoPetition.