New CIO for Yeshiva University

James (Jim) Vasquez, a former CIO at Ellucian’s Leadership Services, has been appointed as the Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Yeshiva University. Ellucian’s Leadership Services is a company that helps educational institutions thrive in a changing environment and provides guidance for them to be more transparent and efficient. With the administration taking heavy heat on those exact fronts, Vasquez seems to be the perfect man for the job.

As CIO, Vasquez will serve as University’s head technology leader, providing guidance and leadership to Information Technology Services (ITS) with a primary objective of continuous improvement of strategic planning, service delivery, and collaboration between the different departments of ITS and the schools of Yeshiva University.

The ITS department is not so well known but it plays a crucial role in the operations of the university. It provides technological assistance to Yeshiva University faculty, staff, and students in support of teaching, research, and administration. It has many sub-departments including:

• The Academic Computing Department, which assists students and faculty with Academic Computing equipment and facilities at Yeshiva University.
• Central and Administrative Systems which maintains the basic servers that store critical administrative data for the University.
• Information Technology Services which operates the ITS Help Desk to assist administrative staff on all campuses.

Vasquez brings with him a total of more than 25 years of experience in the information technology field.  He has experience in public, private, research and religiously affiliated institutions of higher education. He holds a BS in Computer and Information Science from Trinity University and studied Management Information Systems at Colorado State University’s Graduate School of Business.

Vasquez will continue the efforts of John Fcasni, the interim CIO for the past year and the Director of Central and Administrative Systems and Operations before he ended his tenure in March.  During his time at Yeshiva University, Fcasni played a pivotal role in advancing the institution with many technological improvements, including the system transition of the College of Medicine’s technology and infrastructure to Montefiore Hospital Systems and the restructuring of the IT organization from a cost center to a value-adding partner which is crucial to university growth.