Books
The CIO’s role has never been more critical to the campus. As demographic decline, budget shocks, cyber threats, and AI converge into a single polycrisis, colleges are asking their technology leaders not only to keep the lights on but also to ensure the institution’s survival. The CIO Job Profile and Performance Model gives presidents, provosts, CFOs, search committees, and CIOs themselves a clear framework for the role — four levels of leadership, sixteen competencies, and ready-to-use tools for hiring, developing, and assessing the CIOs higher education institutions actually need. Burrell traces the CIO’s developmental journey through four maturity levels: the Informaticist, the Strategist, the Transformationalist, and the Integrative Ecosystem Architect. The model integrates essential competency areas, including cyber law, financial stewardship, pedagogy, and AI governance. This framework helps institutions evaluate, develop, and align their IT leadership with their core mission. Ultimately, it provides a blueprint for creating “Blended Executives” who do more than manage systems; they orchestrate resilient, human-centered digital environments crucial to a university’s long-term survival and success.
Dissertation
Burrell, Steven C., “IT Staff Turnover Intentions, Job Modification, and the Effects of Work Recognition at Large Public Higher Education Institutions” (2014). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1099.
Information Technology (IT) leaders in public higher education are under increased pressures to leverage innovations in technology to address their institution’s strategic imperatives. CIOs modify jobs by increasing responsibilities or changing the tasks that IT workers perform. IT staff who experience job modification are susceptible to lower job satisfaction and increased turnover intentions. IT leaders in other industries have successfully used work recognition to improve job satisfaction but there is limited research pertaining to these conditions among higher education institutions. This study sought to determine the perceptions and effects of work recognition and job modification on the turnover intentions of IT workers employed at 71 large, publicly controlled, higher education institutions. The researcher conducted a quantitative study using structured equation modeling to measure the potential moderating effects of recognition on job satisfaction, affective commitment, and perceived organizational support as predictors of turnover intention. The researcher found that work recognition was effective at moderating the effects of responsibility increase and task replacement on job satisfaction for IT workers with respect to their preferences of work recognition types. IT workers perceptions of the relative strength and duration of various work recognitions was also determined. The findings contribute to the study of turnover antecedents by providing new information on the relationship between extrinsic and intrinsic motivations and turnover intentions of IT workers at the institutions studied. The conclusions have implications for practice among CIOs in large public institutions regarding the importance and characteristics of work recognition as a tool for retaining IT staff.
Articles
Burrell, S. (October 18, 2021). The CIO as Quantum Leader. EDUCAUSE Review.
The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the higher education landscape and forced CIOs to lead through chaos and ambiguity. In this new environment, CIOs must foster technological change and transform culture to achieve sustainable digital transformation while promoting inclusion and diversity in service delivery, building dynamic cross-functional teams, and building institutional agility.
https://er.educause.edu/articles/2021/10/the-cio-as-quantum-leader
November 19, 2020, by Steve Burrell, Dan Harder and Jane Livingston
Members of the EDUCAUSE Enterprise IT Program Advisory Committee share their advice on how enterprise IT leaders can further institutional goals
The difficulties of consolidating HEIs into a new institution that is responsive to its aspirational mission are immense. This is partly due to the complexity of HEI organizations characterized by multiple subcultures, powerful external politics, competing interests, and a resistance to change. Achieving organizational alignment is a difficult challenge for the most seasoned leaders. Moreover, these leaders are under greater public scrutiny, handed improvement mandates, excel with diminishing resources, and expected to operate transparently. The transformational leadership model offers one of many good ways to examine leadership and the type of leader, and follower, who is ideally suited for today’s and tomorrow’s strategic environment.”
Leadership transitions can be stressful and uncertain. Fortunately, most of us do not have to prepare too often for new leadership. But at some point, during your career, your leadership will change, and you should be prepared to manage such transitions professionally and gracefully. This article provides some personal insights and is informed by some of my friends and colleagues who are or were presidents/chancellors of higher education institutions. More…
by: Mary Raitt Jordan in collaboration with Steven Burrell
This is a story about reliance and determination in the face of failed markets and the digital divide. And about a Hopi student who walked 8 miles, one way, to get a Wi-FI signal to do her homework.
Burrell, S. & Jones, L. (December 10, 2020). A Data and It Governance Journey: Finding Truth amid the quicksand. Educause Review. Available at https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/12/a-data-and-it-governance-journey-finding-truth-amid-the-quicksand
Developing an effective, efficient data governance process can be a long, strenuous task, but the result is well worth the struggle it requires…
by: Christine Fisher
The striking nature of the Grand Canyon State has molded life there, but not just wildlife. Located in Flagstaff, Arizona, Northern Arizona University (NAU) draws inspiration from its chiseled, mountainous location 7,000-feet above sea level.
Higher education institutions are under increasing pressures to graduate students at higher rates to meet legislative mandates and industry workforce needs. Institutions have turned to technological capabilities such as customer retention management systems to help them manage student success. Northern Arizona University (NAU) implemented the Salesforce CRM in 2016 and recast it as a student relationship management tool (SRM). This research study sought to understand factors leading to a successful Salesforce implementation and the ability to enhance job performance among users. Four of the five hypothesis developed for this research were supported and inform best practice concepts for SRM implementation. The model developed can be used for future research and could include measures of student outcomes with respect to applications of SRM.
This is a qualitative study of higher education women CIO’s and their experiences with overcoming gender bias in their careers. Recommendations for aspirational women IT leaders and advice for male CIOs on how to manage gender bias in their IT organization.
Some authors have posited that the great resignation is subsiding. It is not. Higher education managers continue to experience difficulties in filling positions with dwindling applicant pools, under-qualified résumés, a fast-paced “candidates’ market”, and increased competition with private-sector employers and their peers for top IT talent. Moreover, changes in the workforce have disrupted the traditional relationship between employer and employee forcing IT leaders must adopt new workforce strategies. This article presents actionable tactics in four major areas IT leaders can develop: Exercising their leadership, rethinking and restructuring work and job roles, changing tactics on recruiting talent, and being more intentional about retaining talent. These tactics were collected through numerous formal and informal discussions at conferences, meetings, and leadership events over the past year.
Interviews Etc
Although achieving consensus on a major undertaking is never a simple process, at Northern Arizona University (NAU), we developed buy-in for our Integrated Planning and Advising for Student Success (iPASS) grant project by beginning with an understanding of “why.” Student-focused staff throughout NAU recognized the need to record student information in a single, shared platform. Their perspectives helped drive the implementation of a customer relationship management (CRM) system for institution-wide use.
https://www.educause.edu/-/media/files/educause/ipass/nau-poster_final.pdf