Posted 8-29-01
CLEVELAND -- Lev S. Gonick is Case Western Reserve University's new vice president for information services/CIO, effective October 1. He comes to CWRU from California State University at Monterey Bay, where he is chief information technology officer.
"Lev has the experience necessary to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of our computing and networking infrastructure," said Interim President James Wagner, who made the appointment. "At the same time, he brings the sort of vision and energy that, as vice president for information services, will help to propel CWRU to a position of national leadership in the deployment of computers, networks, and information resources to support activities in education, research, administrative operations, and campus life."
Gonick has been with the California State University System for the last six years. In his current role, he has had responsibility for designing, building, and managing the campus technology infrastructure, enterprise management tools, academic and instructional technologies, telecommunications, new media services, and technology partnerships.
In 1999 he served the chancellor of the California State system as senior director of academic technologies.
From 1996-99, Gonick was university dean for instructional technology and academic computing at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona. Under his leadership, Cal Poly Pomona became a national leader in charting the future of higher education in the digital age. MediaVision, that university's digital education content development and delivery system, has been recognized with awards from both the technology and education communities.
Gonick has served as national chair of the National Learning Infrastructure Initiative on Institutional Readiness for Online Instruction, and he has been a consultant to more than 30 universities, colleges, and museums across the country and in Canada.
He also has consulted and lectured at numerous international universities, including ones based in Australia, Japan, and South Africa.
Twelve years ago, Gonick supported the development of HealthNet and Mango, one of southern Africa's first Internet nodes in facilitating connectivity between healthcare professionals and nongovernmental organizations in the field.
He has been involved in designing and implementing the Digital Learning Network project in five west African countries and another multimedia learning initiative called Seeds of Peace in Israel, Egypt, Jordan, and Palestine. Gonick founded the International Political Economy Network in 1993, and he has been associated with Communications for a Sustainable Future (csf.colorado.edu) since its founding also in 1993.
Gonick received his B.A. in political science from Ohio State University in 1981, his M.A. in political science from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1983, and his Ph.D. in political science at York University in Toronto in 1992.
He began his teaching career as an assistant professor of political science at Wilfrid Laurier University from 1992-94. In 1994, he held a Pew Faculty Fellowship in International Affairs at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
In 1994 and 1995, Gonick held faculty appointments at Arizona State University - West, the University of Guelph, and Wilfrid Laurier University. He held distinguished visiting professorships at Northern Arizona State University in 1995 and at Arizona State in 1996.
Gonick, 42, is a citizen of the United States and Canada. He and his wife, Barbara Weltman-Gonick, have two children.
Gonick's appointment concludes a national search that began in October 1999, when Raymond Neff resigned after 11 years as vice president for information services.
Since spring, Thomas Nosek, associate dean for biomedical information technologies in the School of Medicine, has been chairing the search committee for the information services vice president. He succeeded Wagner as chair when Wagner became interim president.
James Barker has served as interim vice president for information services since November 1999. A former CWRU administrator, Barker is president of Aptigent, a Beachwood firm. Barker had served for 14 years as an administrator at CWRU before leaving in October 1998 to focus on other pursuits.
"During his time as the interim VP, Jim has done a terrific job optimizing our hardware infrastructure and satisfying our software needs in a manner that has been extremely responsive to faculty, staff, and student needs," Wagner said. "Even as we welcome Lev to the campus, we owe a great debt of thanks to Jim Barker for his dedicated service to CWRU."
