Nieman Lays Off 3 in Reorganization

Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism announced early last week that it had decided to reorganize its staff—including the termination of three of its employees—to help facilitate the foundation’s expanding effort to host conferences and accommodate its fellows program.

Two other employees at the foundation will be promoted, a third employee will take on expanded responsibilities, and a new receptionist position will be created.

Each year, the Nieman Foundation chooses about a dozen working journalists from the United States and about a dozen from other countries to pursue a course of study at Harvard.

Curator Robert H. Giles said that the foundation’s decision to make the structural changes is consistent with its goal of accommodating its fellows.

“Our job is to serve the fellows, and we want to do that job better,” he said.

Giles said it had become clear last summer that the staff was not optimally organized to handle some of the foundation’s new programs, although he added that no specific event triggered the reevaluation.

“We looked at what we were doing, and we weren’t sure we had everybody in the right job,” he said. “There was a general sense that—since we had built an addition on Lippman House [the Nieman Foundation’s building], we were doing a number of new conferences, and we were expanding the program for the fellows—some changes were needed.”

Giles added that the restructuring was not an attempt to cut costs.

“This was not done for a budgetary purpose. It was done to improve the organization,” he said.

The foundation asked Harvard’s Office of Human Resources (OHR) to recommend a plan for personnel changes last summer, Giles said, adding that OHR spent several months interviewing employees and creating a new organizational structure.

Giles, who has led the foundation since 2000, said that the employment changes resulted from a decision to combine some jobs formerly divided among multiple employees and from a decision to shift upkeep of the foundation’s website to University Information Services.

Senior Web Editor Melinda P. Grenier will be promoted to communications officer immediately, and Executive Secretary Christina M. Andujar has been asked to serve as an events coordinator, Giles said. The current administrative director, Ellie Lottero, will also lead a team that helps plan events, according to Giles.

Grenier declined comment, and Andujar and Lottero could not be reached for comment last night.

The three employees to be laid off are a website developer, a program assistant, and a staff assistant, Giles said, adding that the employees who were fired will not have to leave until June 30.

None of the employees who had been laid off could be reached for comment last night.

Twenty-three people are currently employed at the foundation, according to its website.

Giles said that the foundation worked with the Harvard Union of Clerical and Technical Workers (HUCTW) and with other departments in the University to assemble a suitable severance package for the employees who were laid off.

HUCTW officers could not be reached for comment over the weekend.

—Staff writer Daniel J. T. Schuker can be reached at dschuker@fas.harvard.edu.