AUSTIN, Texas—Kristi Duke Fisher, project coordinator for the Information Quest (IQ) project, has been appointed associate vice provost and director of The University of Texas at Austin’s Office of Information Management and Analysis (IMA), previously named the Office of Institutional Research.
Fisher will report to Dr. John D. Dollard, vice provost for forecasting, institutional research and modeling, who said the change in name reflects a new mission for the office: to align its activities with those of Project IQ to produce a seamless information-generating unit that will serve university administrators and the university community.
“Ms. Fisher has a combination of administrative experience, technical strength and vision for the future that will be extremely valuable in fostering the intended development of the office,” said Dollard.
He said that as the new office develops, it would coordinate its activities more fully with those of the Office of the Registrar, the Office of Admissions, the Office of Information Technology, the Budget Office and other university units involved in the generation, management and transmission of university information. IMA will become the definitive centralized source to which the university turns for information—trusted, reliable, imaginative, enterprising and up-to-date, he said.
Dollard said effective management of information by the new office should give administrators a deeper and better coordinated understanding of the university’s situation and allow them to direct its great resources more effectively toward the furthering of the academic enterprise.
“I’m excited by the opportunities offered by this new position,” said Fisher. “The Office of Information Management and Analysis will focus on integration, innovation, understanding and reliability in information management for the university, responding both to the needs of the institution’s decision-makers and to requests from outside agencies. Our mission will be to provide accurate, transparent, timely, easily accessible and consistent information. We will be seeking out additional opportunities to collaborate with various campus constituents to achieve consistency in the use and interpretation of strategic management information across the enterprise. I am very much looking forward to these collaborations and the integrated understanding they will bring.”
Maryann Ruddock, associate vice president and former director of the Office of Institutional Research, will stay on in the new office, retaining the title of associate vice president. She will coordinate analyses of faculty, staff and student data to support specific management initiatives and participate in external studies.
Fisher, who received her bachelor of arts degree from The University of Texas at Tyler, began working for The University of Texas at Austin in 1990. While her background is primarily in information systems analysis and design, she also has worked in institutional compliance, auditing and external relations. She was manager of information systems, director of compliance and executive assistant to the president at The University of Texas at Tyler between 1998 and 2001. She was executive director of external relations for the Texas Treasury Safekeeping Trust Company from 2001 to 2003 and became system-wide compliance supervisor for the University of Texas System administration from 2003 to 2004. Fisher returned to The University of Texas at Austin in October 2004 to work with Project IQ.
For more information contact: Robert D. Meckel, Office of Public Affairs, 512-475-7847.
