Almost three months after being named chief operating officer (COO), Scott Kunselman has a job description.

“The COO is responsible for the planning and day-to-day management of all financial, human resource and administrative functions of the university,” part of the job description said.

The description was released Jan. 20 by the university. Kunselman was named COO on Oct. 27, according to previous Post articles.

“One of Scott’s primary objectives will be to establish clear lines of decision making and provide assistance in getting things accomplished in a timely fashion,” President Hynd said in an email to faculty, staff and student leaders.

Kunselman said the description clears up two mysteries that many in the campus community were concerned about — where he fit within the structure of OU’s administration and whether or not he would have a role over academia.

Kunselman is a part of President Hynd’s cabinet, along with eight other people, including James Lentini, senior vice president for academic affairs and provost, Glenn McIntosh, vice president of student affairs, and Jeffrey Konya, athletic director. Kunselman will answer directly to Hynd.

The areas that Kunselman will oversee include facilities management, human resources and OUPD, among others. He described his job as one that makes sure that the internal, non-academic aspects of the university are running efficiently.

“I’m an inward operations person,” he said.  

According to Hynd’s email, Kunselman’s job will allow Hynd to focus on resource development and ambassador roles and Lentini to focus on teaching, scholarship and research.

“Hopefully my presence takes some of that load off,” Kunselman said.

Kunselman said his job is to save the university time and money by analyzing and revising its internal functions.

For example, the janitorial services on campus are managed by different departments. Kunselman would look at the necessity of this system and see if OU could save money by consolidating the services.

He also wants to look at OU’s Information Technology (IT) department.

According to John Young, vice president of OU’s Communications and Marketing, $5 million of tuition money was spent on technology upgrades this year. That shouldn’t happen because a university should upgrade gradually, he said.

“It’s natural for IT to fall behind quickly,” Kunselman said, because technology changes so often. With each change, the university must buy new equipment and train personnel.

Problems such as these arose because OU has grown so much since its founding, Kunselman said. Previous leaders built up the university on an as-needed basis, which is why the janitorial department and IT department aren’t uniform across campus. They added services as the necessity arose.

According to Hynd’s email, Kunselman will also look into OU’s Human Resources.

According to past Post articles, Kunselman took office on Dec. 1. Since then, he had more than 50 meetings with different groups on campus to identify problems on which to focus, he said. 

“If we find an inefficiency, we’re going to deal with it,” Kunselman said.

Fixing things will take time and money, but the goal is to save these resources in the long run.

To see the chart that maps which departments Hynd and Kunselman oversee and Kunselman’s complete job summary, visit oaklandpostonline.com.