Increasingly, these are the days of team science for researchers. Encouraging faculty collaboration helped drive the design of the new IU Health Neuroscience Center, both the existing clinical building (Goodman Hall) and the adjoining research building set to open next year.
Now that the departments of psychiatry, neurology, neurosurgery, and physical medicine and rehabilitation are located in Goodman Hall, we’re taking the logical next step by combining the academic staffs of those departments into a new neuroscience shared services support team.
This is an important reorganization and I have to give Kathy Peck, our executive associate dean of administrative services, credit for both the vision and for making it happen. We believe that this move will provide a variety of benefits, such as increasing resources by enabling the combined staff to share work during peak periods, providing skilled backups when staffers are off work and improved staff stability.
The bottom line, we believe, will be improved “customer service” for the faculty of these departments.
I think it’s equally important to note that we have assured the staff that no currently-filled positions will transition to IU Health Physicians (IUHP) or be lost as a result of this consolidation.
Finally, when the Stark Neuroscience Institute moves into the research building and joins the group late next year, its academic staff will also become part of the shared services team.