John Barden, vice president of information technology, now also leads Campus Services, a new team within Operations that brings together Yale Hospitality, Public Safety, and the offices overseeing parking, transit, student housing, mail delivery, and emergency management. YourYale recently spoke with Barden about his expanded role. The conversation has been edited and condensed.
What was the strategy behind creating the Campus Services team?
There were two drivers. One is that things I’ve tried to advance in IT over the last few years have implications for the broader aspects of Campus Services. In IT, we’ve focused a lot on service quality, fostering a more integrated team, and developing practices to support staff development. This has improved the quality of IT’s services and response to community needs, and it’s given more clarity to the organization and the professional opportunities for staff members. I think those themes resonate with the rest of Operations and the groups in Campus Services.
Also, Yale is beginning a phase of campus facilities planning that represents very aggressive growth. A building is a vessel through which the activities of campus occur. It’s important to think about how folks get to the building. What’s the transit and parking plan? How do we think about technology needs, from cellular coverage to classroom technology to networking requirements? How do we think about package delivery? Public safety? Food service?
All those pieces are now part of what we’re calling Campus Services. And now, while we are in this massive rethinking of our campus, we have an opportunity to coordinate services for those facilities in new ways.
How will this new approach impact the lives of the Yale community?
I hope people see a more cohesive approach to how we think about services across campus, one that helps to improve the overall experience for students, faculty, and staff.
I also hope that we can generate a more growth- and development-centric culture. How do we provide team members more support in their career goals? How do we source talent for each of these teams and support cross-divisional opportunities in a way that we’ve aspired to do but had difficulty doing in the past? The more shared environment of Campus Services may make that easier to do.
You have said a leader’s values “must be unchanging.” What are your values and how have they guided your career.
Here’s a story that will give you a sense of just how deep this runs for me. When I was a teenager, my grandfather handed me a card that is still in my wallet to this day. Instead of business cards, my grandfather used to hand out what he called his “Golden Rules,” which basically expressed his values. Think about that. You hand a card like that to somebody, and they actually understand you a little bit better.
I believe that if you want people to follow you as a leader, they have to be able to predict how you’re going to behave. And that doesn’t really come down to leadership style. It comes down to values. I’ve built my reputation on a few core values — transparency, integrity, informed risk-taking, and being fact-based. I’ve tried to lean into those values. I also try to make sure that there’s “value alignment,” if you will, within the teams that I’m leading. We talk about values openly. We work through that together.
Usually things that represent strongly-held values also create what I refer to as blind spots. I’ve found it’s helpful to surround yourself with team members who can counterbalance what you’re good at, or at least point out how and when your blind spot is showing.
How did lessons from the pandemic affect future plans for Campus Services?
There’s a sense of stewardship that’s very deep at Yale. When the chips were down during the pandemic, that sense really came to life in a way that everyone in leadership was extremely proud of.
We saw so many people across Campus Services who kept us functioning. We saw dining hall employees who staffed the testing facilities. We saw innovation on food distribution. We saw Public Safety change its patrols to reflect changes in the campus footprint as students moved on and off campus. IT staff developed online programs and worked shoulder-to-shoulder with faculty in new ways of delivering academic content. Transit and Delivery changed its protocols to keep people safe. And the unions were terrific partners, working with leadership throughout the pandemic to preserve employee engagement and work in new ways to support these campus needs.
We also saw a level of coordination we have not seen before. Suddenly, our history of working in silos softened. It gives me, and the leadership here, a lot of optimism that coordinating functions across Campus Services and beyond can happen now, perhaps even more so than before the pandemic.
Do you see any challenges in bringing these disparate departments together?
Even at this early stage, it’s clear there are differing workplace cultures in each of these teams. Thinking about how we work together effectively to build some elements of shared culture will be critical to long-term success.
How does the Vice President for Information Technology and Campus Services achieve work/life balance?
You might have to check with me in a couple of months. [Chuckles] Regardless of the role we play, making time for your interests and hobbies and your family is incredibly important. This time of year, I participate in what’s called a “frostbite” sailing. I’m out there sailing a boat on Sunday afternoons through early December. I still find time to work out or spend time in the workshop with my boys, who are really into woodworking and metalworking right now. I try to make sure that I’m giving them the time and focus that they deserve. That’s healthy for them, and it’s healthy for me.
The other piece to the work/life equation is knowing where you need to spend your time at work. The teams that I’m inheriting new responsibilities for all have very capable leaders. That means not leaning in on every decision all day long. So, I think balance is possible.
Is there anything else you’d like to tell our readers?
It is a real privilege to get up every day and support Yale’s brilliant faculty and clinical practices, and make sure that students have a positive experience—to know what we do matters in the world, at a time when the world has never needed higher education more.