TO: Employee-news

FROM: Dr. Melik Peter Khoury

DATE: December 9, 2015

SUBJECT: New Chief Officers: DeHart and Zavodny

ATTACHMENT: Chief Sustainability Officer Job Description; Chief of Staff Job Description

Colleagues,

I’m writing today to announce the latest Chief Officer appointments: Chief Sustainability Officer and Chief of Staff.  These will likely be the last of the internal appointments to Chief Officer positions.  As with all Chief Officer appointments, these roles will take effect in January.

As a reminder, all Chief Officers report to the President, and as first among equals all play a crucial role in the life of the institution, but the Chief Sustainability Officer and Chief of Staff positions have a slightly more nuanced relationship within the office of the President.

Chief Sustainability Officer should and will have a special place at America’s Environmental College.  As part of the President’s office, CSO will provide sustainability counsel to the President and to senior leaders and lead campus-wide sustainability efforts to make sure that sustainability is represented in all institutional conversations.

Chief of Staff will function as an extension of the President and will serve to add much needed bandwidth to my office, managing coordination of institutional projects, stewarding the documentation of the change process, and taking on responsibilities as exigencies and external opportunities emerge.

I am pleased to announce that Jennifer DeHart and John Zavodny will assume the following Chief Officer roles in January.

Jennifer DeHart, Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) Functional Responsibility: First among equals for relationships with environmental partners, sustainability and environmental initiative reporting, campus sustainability education and information, departmental compliance, campus planning participation, and strategic sustainability initiatives.

Dr. John Zavodny, Chief of Staff (CoS) Functional Responsibility: First among equals for coordination of senior leadership, strategic plan management, Presidential support, strategic projects, partnership development, and new external partnership development.

As you all know, John is currently serving as Dean of Academic Services.  The Dean of Academic Services position is being eliminated as we transition to the Chief Officer system in January in order to bring together all student success functions in the newly created Chief Student Success Officer position.

As a refresher, let me remind you of the Chief Officer buildout plan and status of the status for each as of January.

Chief Marketing Officer (CMO)  Status: OPEN: SEARCH IN PROGRESS

Chief Student Success Officer (CSSO) Status: FILLED (SARAH CUNNINGHAM)

Chief Academic Officer (CAO) Status: FILLED (ROB SCOTT)

Chief Fundraising Officer (CFO) Status: FILLED (JULIE CUNNINGHAM)

Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) Status: FILLED (JENNIFER DEHART)

Chief Facilities Management Officer (CFMO) Status: FILLED (DAN LAFORGE)

Chief Information Officer (CIO) Status: FILLED (BERT AUDETTE)

Chief Finance Officer (CFO) Status: TBD

Chief Diversity, Inclusion, and Human Resources Officer (CDIHRO) Status: TBD

Chief of Staff (CoS) FILLED (JOHN ZAVODNY)

I want to thank Jennifer and John for finding new opportunities to serve at Unity College.  I look forward to engaging their creativity and commitment in new ways as we continue to transition to functional leadership in abundance at Unity College and steward the completion of our adopted strategic plan.  I still have three key positions to fill CMO, CFO, & CDIHRO.. but at this juncture I hope to start meeting with the Chief Officers per my timeline to discuss functional responsibilities and consequent reporting lines.

The work is only beginning as these Chief Officer roles begin to fill, but I am looking forward being able to say, as someone famous once said, “I love it when a plan comes together.”

In Unity!

MPK

Dr. Melik Peter Khoury

Executive Vice President, CAO, CFO &

Liaison to the Board of Trustees

Unity College

Office: 207-509-7144

“Integrity, by its very existence, rekindles the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; as a cynical community is a corrupt community.” John  Gardner