Recently, President Michael Lindsay announced a number of changes in faculty and administration, which included new hires, position changes and the addition of members to the of the Board of Visitors.
Firstly, current faculty Nancy Dayton and Mike Falder have stepped into new roles at Taylor University.
Dayton has worked in various roles at Taylor since 1988, and stepped into the role as interim dean of arts, humanities and business and higher education in July. Now she is no longer interim, but officially dean.
“Nancy has a tremendous track record at Taylor, having been a member of our English faculty for over 30 years and assuming successive roles of leadership and service during her time at the University,” said Lindsay in an email on April 1.
Falder has been serving as associate vice president for university advancement, acting as the head of the major gifts. This is one of four sections of Advancement that coordinates large gifts such as land, property, grants and more that people want to donate to the university.
Replacing Rex Bennett, retiring vice president for university advancement, Falder will be dealing with alumni and parent relations, development and campaigns in addition to major gifts. He will also serve on the senior leadership team.
Additionally, Chris Jones was announced as the new chief of information officer.
Jones graduated from Gordon College in 1999 with a Bachelor of Science in computer science. Since then, he has worked at Gordon in various roles ranging from IT to human resources. He is also an on-call firefighter/EMT and a campus police officer in Massachusetts.
Jones, currently serving as Gordon College’s vice president of administration, will be in charge of the Information Technology department at Taylor in this new role.
Taylor is also restructuring some management so the CIO will now report directly to the president. Jones sees the move as very strategic.
“Technology kind of undergirds everything that the institution does, whether it's presenting your card to get a meal or to get into a building, to a wireless access point to the learning management system to the data behind, you know, to the admissions process to that,” Jones said. “Everywhere you touch, it's hard to find a place that isn’t impacted by technology.”
In their search for the new CIO, Taylor used an external search firm, JobfitMatters, to go through candidates for the job according to Taylor’s specifications. They then gave Taylor the top candidates to interview and decide from.
The faith-based search firm that Taylor used to look for the new CIO is the same one they used to find Lindsay.
Jones is currently living in Massachusetts, but plans to move to Upland and start working at Taylor in mid-May.
Lastly, Lindsay announced additions of the Board of Visitors on April 1. As he described, the board is a volunteer leadership group that will offer institution administration advice on key issues and opportunities.
The board was announced with four additional members: Jana Murphy (‘96), Vice President of Government Affairs and Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs for Saab Defense and Security USA, Bob Wright, president and CEO of the Potbelly Coorperation, Chuck Surack, founder of Sweetwater and founder/CEO of Surack Enterprises and Toni Kim, director of spiritual care for the National Association of Evangelicals.’
“We are honored to have these four join the volunteer leadership ranks of Taylor, and we look forward to drawing more wonderful partners to the University’s leadership in the days ahead,” Lindsay wrote in the April 1 email.
