Are you a direct report?

For those of you working in higher ed and charged with responsibility over the web site, are you a direct report to the President of the college or university?

If so, do you find it makes it easier to do your job or more difficult across your roles?

I began thinking about it (too early) this morning when I woke up. I think there’s a real difference in your ability to get things done, depending on where the web site is in the food chain and who it reports to.

I realize that the bigger the institution you work at, the harder it gets for this to happen, because bigger schools inevitably have more layers. Of course, I’ve never worked at a particularly large school as a staff member, so I can’t speak to the differences other than what I’ve observed as a consultant or via my friends in the trenches.

My experience says yes. And there are advantages to having the confidence that you have the ear of the “top brass” as opposed to not. Of course, being connected to the web always makes you feel like you’re in a different space, given the varied people across campus you come into contact with and how your natural constituency is everyone.

I think the relative advent of the “web offices/department” also makes this is a difficult question, because if the web is housed in marketing or some sort of public relations/communications arm of the institution, does moving it away and into its own space give it a “bigger profile” or relegate it to something like IT, in that, you know they’re doing great when you never have to see them. (Because it means everything is working…)

So is it just my groggy mind or do you notice appreciable differences depending on your place on the school’s org chart?