Barbara Chernow has been promoted to be the Senior Vice President for Administration, a new position created to encompass both Financial and Human Resource Services as well as the responsibilities of her old job as the Vice President of Facilities and Services.
Chernow started at Stony Brook 14 years ago as a special assistant to former president Shirley Strum Kenny. In addition to her position in administration, she also serves as the president of the university’s Faculty Student Association.
“It’s not a short list,” Chernow said of the departments, programs and projects she’s currently involved in at an administrative level. In both her current and former position, Chernow has played a role in overseeing the non-stop construction going on around campus.
A large 3-D model of the university’s proposed Facilities Master Plan, a project Chernow has been an “integral” part of, according to a University Public Relations press release, stood in the corner of her office next to aerial photographs of the campus.
The same press release described Chernow’s position as “consolidated,” which seems appropriate considering that she’ll be chairing the Project 50 Forward Operational Excellence Program Management Office. Last Fall, the University Senate voted to request that the iplementation of shared services be halted until the administration had more faculty input.
“No program works if you’re just going to do it top down” she said, adding that it’s possible that every department’s plan could look slightly different.
“It’s been very successful with theatre and art,” she said, emphasizing that allowing departments to make their own changes wouldn’t just make the University Senate happier, but would be better policy.
Chernow said that despite having to oversee even more people, she wasn’t worried about being spread too thin. “In administration we work as a team,” she said, adding that she’d still be involved in Facilities and Services initiatives. How much time she gives each of her responsibilities will “just depend more on the day,” she said.
