Kennesaw State plans to start the search process for the institution’s new Chief Information Officer after the completion of the position’s job description, university spokeswoman Tammy DeMel said.
KSU Interim President Dr. Ken Harmon announced in an email to faculty and staff on March 9 that former CIO Lectra Lawhorne resigned from her position. Harmon also said he asked the Office of Human Relations to immediately start a search for a new CIO.
DeMel said HR is currently working on a job description for the position and plans to start a national search for the CIO as soon as it is finished. This comes more than five weeks after Harmon made his original announcement.
In the announcement, Harmon also announced that Jeff Delaney, deputy chief information officer for the University System of Georgia, would serve as interim CIO. Harmon had already named Delaney as acting CIO in an email on Feb. 19 to faculty and staff after Lawhorne was placed on administrative leave.
According to University Information Technology Services, Delaney has had more than two decades of experience in higher education technology leadership. He has served as CIO before at Savannah State University as well as associate vice chancellor of ITS with the Board of Regents.
Lawhorne resigned after the university put her on administrative leave in February, and her attorney said that she was resigning due to serious health issues.
The university released an audit report to The Sentinel revealing that Lawhorne’s resignation will officially go into effect on April 30. The audit showed that there were several problems among faculty members in UITS while Lawhorne served as CIO.
The audit report, after interviews with faculty members, found that Lawhorne had a negative effect on the work environment within UITS, and employees even described being bullied or yelled at by Lawhorne. The audit also found that she was involved in timekeeping issues for an unnamed executive director.
After the audit report was released, Lawhorne’s attorney said that neither the university nor Lawhorne did anything wrong.
