CIOs: the only competent university administrators

Abstract

Some interesting differences between the folks who become college and university vice presidents and the CIO equivalents who run IT infrastructures at universities. It is probably worth noting that higher-education institutions, especially public ones, have greatly different goals than private-sector organizations: Simply stated, private companies are in business to make money, and public education institutions are in business to spend it. Clearly, the skill sets required to accomplish these goals are different. Performance-based promotions are more common in industry. In successful companies, middle- and upper-level managers are mostly competent and competitive survivors who have proven themselves through quantifiable successes. This is so unlike higher education, where promotions often take place on the basis of meeting government quotas, being someone's good friend, being collegial, or just applying persistently for administrative positions somewhere, anywhere, until hired. Expecting a professor to become an effective administrator is like expecting an orange to become an apple. Higher education teaches people who become professors to be individual contributors. Graduate work and dissertations are a personal endeavor. Promotion within the ranks results exclusively from individual effort. Even teaching is an individual effort; as long as no student complains, instructors can do whatever they like in the classroom. So what exactly qualifies an ex-professor to take on personnel and budgetary responsibility in large, complex organizations? Unfortunately, the answer is nothing. In our 21st century IT-dependent world, failures in the IT department are highly visible to everyone, with very real consequences to the entire user community. It's no surprise that the only real insight of university administrators has been to hire CIOs who have real-world experience; someone has to.