Remarks of Executive Vice President Frank B. Campanella
Annual University Convocation
Sept. 3, 1998
The Boston College Office of Public Affairs
Boston College Chronicle  
Contact: smthsen@bc.edu
Date Posted: 9-15-98 
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[NOTE: These are transcribed excerpts from the Convocation 
address]
	...I just have two things I want to talk about.  One is 
Delta and I want to get through that rather quickly...After 
two years in the planning phase this fall we'll be getting 
into new phases, into implementation phases of Delta.  This 
is the tough part, but this is where the savings are.  If you 
recall the two major strands of Delta are the business 
process redesign and management review process.  Under 
business process redesign there are two projects: one is the 
student services project and the second the local support 
centers.  
	With the student services project, just to give you a 
quick update, the Registrar's Office, the Student Accounts 
office, Student Loans office, Collections Office, and 
Financial Aid offices have now been combined into one 
organization.  Louise Lonabocker has been named the director 
of that organization.  Bernie Pekala has been named financial 
strategist for all of the complexities of the ever-changing 
federal and competitive world of financial aid.
	New information services are available online to 
students, and let me give you an example, this year for the 
first time through Agora services, students can add money to 
their meal card, which is their ID card, online.  The first 
day this service was available, last Monday, 1200 students 
added a half a million dollars to their meal card without any 
human intervention whatever.  In the past they would have had 
to stand in line 1,200 deep in order to get that same 
service.  The organizational units are presently located in 
More Hall, will be brought to Lyons in the fall semester, and 
during that summer we will renovate Lyons to accommodate them 
as permanent quarters.  
	Brenda Ricard has been named the director of the local 
support centers and she's been meeting with vice presidents, 
deans, directors and hammered out a process that we hope to 
implement there.  Technology consultant positions have been 
posted internally, and a number of candidates have replied.  
The local service centers will be critical not only with the 
rise in technology consultants, but as we get to implement 
the new human resource system, which I will talk about later.  
The training of people to work with the new human resource 
system will be done through the local service centers.
	In the second strand of Delta, the departmental 
management reviews will be using something called activity 
value analysis.  We completed two pilot studies earlier this 
year, calendar year, and they will save the university 
$400,000 when we implement it.  The plans in the 
implementation do not include the layoffs of any people.  In 
round one we have just about completed four studies, and 
those will be completed and reported on this fall.  We will 
also initiate eight new studies in round two.  They will be 
launched this fall.  Tom Devine and Pat Bando led two of the 
studies that have already been completed on top of carrying 
out their other responsibilities on campus, also in an 
outstanding fashion.  We have allowed them a kind of 
retirement for the time being, anyhow, but I expect we will 
be using them again.  I want to thank them for their 
considerable efforts.
	Of all of our systems that are impacted by the year 2000 
problem, the one the system that we have to go out and 
replace is the human resource system.  That translates into 
the payroll system, the benefits system, the hiring and 
promotion, performance review and compensation, and training.  
We have selected PeopleSoft as the software of that system we 
would use. IBM has been selected as the implementation 
partner.  We expect, our plan is to go to implementation this 
year and have the system up and running by July 1 so that we 
can shake it down between July 1, 1999 and the year 2000.  
	Let me talk a little bit about information technology.  
Going back a little bit, by the time the term "information 
age" began to be used in the late seventies, I had been 
convinced that information technology and the missions of 
universities were inextricably linked.  During the '80s here, 
I must say it was an uphill battle to slowly but deliberately 
build our IT capabilities.  I well recall the arguments 
against it.  "Why invest in IT?  Perhaps the dollars are best 
spent on graduate student stipends."  Or,  "Why design and 
build a network, when not everyone here has a PC?"  But we 
did invest in IT, and we did build a network.  Today IT 
clearly and directly is required within this university to 
support the university vision and initiatives.  
	The demand internally play outs, as I see it, in four 
ways.  In most academic disciplines IT is required to support 
our growing research agenda.  Second there is a growing 
interest and opportunity to use IT in and outside the 
classroom to augment learning and teaching.  Certainly 
Delta's goal in transforming the way we administer this place 
is also totally dependent on IT.  And, finally, as we look to 
the future, IT experts must evaluate, select, and employ new 
technologies in ways that will benefit all aspects of this 
university's mission.  
	Last spring I became increasingly concerned about our IT 
organization in two ways.  There were clear indications of 
morale problems and there were performance issues --
performance issues that I see started in two ways.  There was 
considerable technology expertise in the IT organization, but 
it did not appear to be effectively deployed.  This is what I 
think was probably the cause of the morale problems.  The 
second performance issue was that every new user demand, and 
they were growing at an excellerated rate, was just being 
piled on to an already stressed organization in the absence 
of any plans to match demands and resources.  There were also 
issues related to respect and trust both within and outside 
the IT organization.  While these might be harder to grasp, 
they were just as real to the people who are involved.  At a 
point at the end of the semester I determined that an 
intervention was required.  
	Adam Crescenzi, who is a good friend of Boston College, 
the co-founder of CFC Index, and he consults world-wide on IT 
organizational issues.  First I consulted informally with 
Adam about my concerns, but later in July I asked him to 
undertake a review of IT.  Stripped down of the management 
jargon, his charge was two-fold.  What, if anything, was 
wrong?  If some things are wrong, how do we fix them?  Adam 
and his colleagues interviewed eighteen people, both inside 
and outside the IT organization during the month of July and 
early August.  The people that were interviewed were selected 
by Leo Sullivan, myself, Marty Smith, and Bernie Gleason.  
When we launched the review in July, I wrote to everyone in 
IT to tell them what was up, reassure them, and to let them 
know that this would not be a long, drawn-out process and 
that we would expect to meet with them in September to 
discuss the outcomes.  I had a meeting with all of the IT 
staff yesterday afternoon.  
	The study did find a series of serious problems.  Leo 
Sullivan and I have worked with Adam and his team to develop 
a plan to deal with the problems and to move forward.  That 
plan involves four major decisions.  First, bring in, as soon 
as possible, new senior leadership for IT.  The President has 
approved a new position, Vice President for Information 
Technology.  Bernie Gleason has agreed to stay on as 
Technology Strategist, as leader in the creation and roll-out 
of these new Agora services and as technology advisor to 
Delta.  Due to the decision of our new senior leadership, 
Marty Smith was not able to see a role for himself that was 
consistent with his own career goals, and he has resigned.  
	Until a VP for Information Technology is appointed, I 
will act as Chief Information Officer.  My career has taken a 
number of strange turns over the years, but this I must tell 
you is among the strangest.  In order to do this, I will have 
to shed some of my existing responsibilities.  The President 
and I are in discussions about how best to do that.  	
	The second recommendation was to establish a transition 
executive steering group.  I have done that.  Joining me in 
that group will be Dave Burgess, Peter McKenzie, Leo 
Sullivan, Adam Crescenzi, who will join us as a consultant, 
and the President will join us as his schedule allows.  It is 
possible that we may add others to that group.  
	The third recommendation was to establish an Interim 
Management Leadership Group.  I have done that.  Four people 
have generously agreed to serve on that group:  Paul Dupuis, 
Denis Walsh, Jack Spang, and Rita Owens.  This group will be 
responsible for the management of the IT organization until 
the Vice President is appointed.  In that capacity, they will 
report directly to me.  That group has spent all day today 
with one of Adam's colleagues, working to identify transition 
issues and developing a transition plan.  Before I left I 
learned that they had completed that work.  I will meet with 
them tomorrow morning to review that plan.  Immediately 
thereafter they will develop a 30 day plan that will begin to 
respond to the problems and issues that were identified in 
the review.  
	The fourth recommendation is to reengineer Information 
Technology.  Here we are talking about addressing problems in 
the following areas:  work processes, technology architecture 
decisions, demand management, resource allocation, and 
project management.  
	We are aware that the market for CIOs in higher 
education is not a happy place today, nor are there many 
candidates, and the few candidates that there are seem to 
move around from university to university.  Therefore we are 
prepared to consider seasoned CIOs from outside higher 
education for an interim, up to two-year appointment, if that 
is necessary.  With Adam's and others' help we have already 
identified six possible candidates.  Of those, I have met 
with one, and I will meet with the second on Tuesday.  But 
beyond that, I will meet with each one to determine their 
level of interest and whether there is a fit.  If so, we will 
set up a process for interviews and selection.  The process 
will involve the Transition Executive Steering Group, that I 
mentioned earlier, faculty and others from the user community 
whom I will name shortly.  The President at the end of the 
day would like to see three qualified candidates.
	I said a little at the outset about my views of IT and 
its role in the university.  Let me put on my CIO hat and 
give you some further thoughts.
	There must continue to be an IT vision and strategies to 
support that vision.  These in turn must be aligned with the 
University vision and mission.  It is important that the IT 
vision be developed as carefully as the University's and it 
is critical that the vision be implemented in ways that 
preserve and protect the vision itself.  The strategies must 
recognize and respond to IT user demands and needs.  However, 
the vision can never be merely meeting the sum of all users' 
needs.
	A key word here is respond.  Under most conditions, I 
would expect that user requests for IT support for research 
or in the classroom or for administrative systems are 
informed by the overall vision and strategy of the University 
and of IT as well.  Conditioned on the availability of 
resources, the normal response to such a request would then 
be yes.
	"No" is also a response that must be kept within the 
feasible set.  This is not unlike the UAPC implementation 
process.  There are lots of right and good things that we can 
do.  We cannot afford to do all of them.  Beyond that, in 
order to do some well, we must say no to others, even though 
we might be able to afford them.  The IT response here, if 
no, must be communicated with an explanation.  That 
explanation may take many forms but essentially must 
acknowledge the user request and provide sound reasons for 
the no decision.
	As time goes on I'm sure I'll formulate more ideas that 
CIO's are supposed to have, but let me close with some good 
news.  Boston College has received for the second year an IBM 
Shared University Research grant.  This year it's for 
$750,000, combined with last year's it's a total of over $1.5 
million.  The purpose of the grant is to support research in 
the area of data mining in conjunction with our faculty 
working at IBM's Watson Research Facility.  The interesting 
and important part about receiving this grant is that we are 
the only university ever who is not a formal research 
university to receive this kind of funding from IBM.  And I 
think that's a feather in the hat of the technology 
organization as well as the faculty that worked with them to 
secure the grant.  Let me stop here and thank you for your 
attention, and I wish you all well as we begin the school 
year.