FAS chief information officer is appointed

Lawrence M. Levine, chief information officer and associate provost for information technology at Dartmouth College, has been named associate dean and chief information officer for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) at Harvard. Levine will report to Executive Dean Nancy Maull. The appointment is effective Aug. 1.

In anticipation of increasing demands on information technology function, Levine, in this new position, will oversee and coordinate responsibilities for administrative and research computing as well as instructional computing. Working with Maull and FAS Dean William C. Kirby, he will have overall responsibility for leadership and management of FAS information technology (IT), including strategic and technical planning, organizational management and development, and financial budgeting and control. He will also communicate the FAS IT vision and value to the FAS, Harvard University, and external communities. “I am very excited to become part of the FAS team. I look forward to leading the further development of the FAS IT environment to help provide Harvard’s scholars with the opportunity to be the best in the world. IT is a core and necessary element in all of our work. As such, IT should always be a strategic resource of enabling value, freely and easily available, pervasive, and excellent,” said Levine.

“I am very pleased that Lawrence Levine will take on the role of chief information officer. With 29 years of accomplishments in higher education information technology at such distinguished institutions as Dartmouth College and Indiana University, he will bring to the position solid leadership, creativity, and communications skills. I am very pleased that he is joining our team,” said Kirby, Edith and Benjamin Geisinger Professor of History.

At Dartmouth, Levine has held several positions since 1984. In his current role as chief information officer and associate provost for IT computing services, he oversees all aspects of the college’s information technology activities, including managing all aspects of IT and promoting the use of computers and technology in faculty research and teaching, as well as in the administration. Prior to that (1988 to 1990), he was director of academic computing, responsible for academic computing and general user services. And, from 1984 to 1988, he was director of social science computing in Dartmouth’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. He was also an adjunct professor there in 1985, teaching a course in statistics and social science research methods.

Levine also spent a number of years at Indiana University, where he was the manager of user services and the applications programmer in the Bloomington Academic Computing Services. He was also statistical programmer in the Institute for Social Research in 1979, and taught statistics in 1980.

Levine has written several papers, spoken at many conferences, and is a widely sought-after commentator on information technology. He is also an active community and business leader, serving as chair of the board of directors and founder of a Hanover, N.H., nonprofit community network, serving 7,000 customers, and is an alternate representative on the Hanover Zoning Board of Adjustment.

Levine holds both Ph.D. and M.S. degrees from the Indiana University School of Education, and a B.A. from the State University of New York, Stony Brook.