Published November 20, 2017

AUSTIN, November 14, 2017 — Unizin CEO Amin Qazi announced his intent to step down from his role at the end of the year. We would like to thank Amin for his service. Qazi has led the Unizin consortium since 2014 and oversaw the rapid growth of consortium membership. He played a critical role in shaping the direction of the organization during this formative period.  

Qazi’s leadership was integral in many of Unizin’s early successes. During his tenure, Unizin completed 12 publisher and textbook-savings agreements, initiated development of a cloud-based Unizin Data Platform and standardized information with the Unizin Common Data Model, implemented Pressbooks and Open edX hosting, all Unizin schools successfully piloted or moved to Canvas, and the majority of Unizin members are successfully piloting Unizin Engage. In addition, burgeoning partnerships with LoudCloud, Google, and NameCoach are positioning Unizin to continue to improve teaching and learning environments with digital technology. 

“Amin was the right leader to launch the Unizin consortium,” said Mike Hofherr, Chair of the Unizin Board of Directors and Vice President and Chief Information Officer for The Ohio State University. “We are thankful for his bold vision and leadership as we laid the foundation for the mission of Unizin. The work he has done will be essential in moving us into the future.”

The member institutions are fully committed to the future and mission of Unizin. The Unizin Board of Directors will begin the search for a new CEO in the coming months, focusing on ensuring that a new leader will continue the creative thinking and innovative ideas which have marked Unizin’s foundational years and leverage those into Unizin’s next acceleration phase. Rob Lowden, Associate Vice President of Enterprise Systems at Indiana University, will serve as Interim Executive Director during the search.

About Unizin

Unizin, Ltd. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit consortium of 25 universities. Our interoperable technology ecosystem supports the diverse teaching and learning environments across our institutions. Our solutions promote technology standards, enable integrations, ensure ownership and accessibility of content and data, preserve and promote faculty choice, and support institutional collaboration. Unizin is operated by its Member institutions through a Board of Directors and is headquartered in Austin, Texas. Learn more at unizin.org.

Media Contacts

Olivia Arredondo, olivia.arredondo@unizin.org, (512) 640-6100