Members of my leadership team met earlier today with staff from Strategic Resources and Support to discuss structural changes that will affect three departments. These changes are part of our continuing work to more effectively deploy our resources and support to our core mission of student success and research support. I wanted to take a moment to provide you with a summary of those changes.
A focus on sustainability
Senior Vice Chancellor and CFO Kelly Fox
The name and focus of the Office of the Vice Chancellor of Infrastructure and Safety will be changing. Going forward, the office will be renamed the Office of the Vice Chancellor of Infrastructure and Sustainability (VCIS), reflecting how our campus is a leader and innovator in how it operates, builds and advocates for sustainable practices.
David Kang is a passionate and visionary leader in this area, as well as facilities and construction, and I intend this change will enable him to lead the Boulder campus to accomplish great things in the field of sustainability.
In fact, earlier this week, David was at the Second Nature 2018 Higher Education Climate Leadership Summit in Arizona to talk about how research universities, including CU Boulder, will take on an expanded role in accelerating local, regional and national action on climate change. And Heidi VanGenderen, CU Boulder's first chief sustainability officer, hired last year, will continue to play an important role in guiding all sustainability efforts.
Transportation Services
As we incorporate sustainability into future campus infrastructure planning, I am also reorganizing Parking & Transportation Services in order to move Transportation Services to the new version of VCIS. With our Buff Bus program and use/maintenance of university vehicles, Transportation Services will continue to play a key role in how we make our campus greener. And so it makes sense to move this department under VCIS.
We are in the process of hiring a transportation director who will oversee this department and report up through Facilities Management. Parking Services, led by Tom McGann, will continue reporting to Carla Ho-a, associate vice chancellor for finance and business strategy.
New office of integrity, safety and compliance
To allow the VCIS organization to truly concentrate in the areas of facilities and sustainability, I am moving the police department to a new focus area: the Office of Integrity, Safety and Compliance. Louise Vale will serve as the interim associate vice chancellor, reporting directly to me. Louise has many years of experience as a senior administrator at both CU Boulder and the CU Anschutz Medical Campus, where her responsibilities included management of campus police departments.
Another area of focus for this new division will be integrity and compliance. We will hire a director of integrity and compliance, reporting to Louise, who will act as a "compliance concierge" to help get our campus community answers and resources they need for compliance questions. We have found that, with such a large university, it can sometimes be hard to navigate where to go for guidance on policies, procedures and compliance. This office will have a focus on creating a collaborative team to support the many compliance functions occurring across campus. This office will develop a community of practice for CU Boulder's various compliance professionals and will be a resource for those offices, as needed.
Melissa Zak resignation; EH&S reporting structure
Unrelated to these organizational changes, Assistant Vice Chancellor of Safety Melissa Zak has informed us that she is planning to resign from her role due to family reasons. I would like to thank Melissa for her five years of dedicated service to the campus as deputy chief of police, chief of police and assistant vice chancellor of safety. She has been an incredible advocate for campus safety and helped to guide our response and recovery amid the devastating 2013 floods and many other incidents big and small.
The unit leaders of the Police Department and Environmental Health & Safety (EH&S) had reported to Melissa. With her resignation, EH&S Director Brandon Boger will now report directly to VC David Kang. And, as previously mentioned, the police department will report to interim AVC Louise Vale.
Kelly Fox,
Senior Vice Chancellor and CFO
