Bermuda College is in the process of selecting a new chief financial officer and head of operations to take on a senior administrative role as it begins a big re-organisation of workers' duties.

Chairman Jan Spiering told The Royal Gazette that the college had already advertised the senior post and had received a number of applications, from both Bermuda and overseas.

Some interviews have already been held, and Mr. Spiering said he was hoping to complete the process within the next few weeks.

The chairman said the position had been vacant for about a year, but it was time that it was now filled.

He said: "We need someone very senior and very strong. We have had someone helping us for the last year, but the important thing now is to get all the policies and procedures in place.

"We need a financial controller who is senior, and who not only deals with the day to day operations, but also assists in some of the executive decision-making.

"President Dr. Michael Orenduff will then be able to give him or her what we call the `back office' stuff - that is all the stuff that makes the college run.

"The president will be dealing with and interacting with the board, as well as concentrating on the educational side and the partnerships.

"Of course, vice president Larita Alford has been responsible for forming new partnerships with overseas colleges."

But Mr. Spiering said during the coming months, the college would be re-organising itself to give the faculty staff more autonomy and to make the administration structure `flatter'.

He said staff were asked in the last few weeks to vote on the re-organisation, which resulted in unanimous support.

He said the ballot was held to get everyone's `buy-in', and said the aim was to ensure staff were properly aligned to providing student success.

"If we are dedicated to student success then we can't just spout that statement," said Mr. Spiering.

"We have to have a programme in place to achieve that success rate.

"There was unanimous agreement that a re-organisation was required."

And he said to ensure staff were at the cutting edge, faculty could be given additional personal development training to ensure they can meet the objective.

The chairman added: "We are also going to have someone in charge of student success with all the factors that go into that.

"It may mean creating or re-aligning jobs. It will be that person's job to find out why students are not succeeding and look at what they are doing."

Last year The Royal Gazette reported how the college was proposing to put students into groups, containing both students and faculty, with the aim to encourage more camaraderie and a support network.

This initiative could play a role in the duties of the `teacher of student success'.

And he said part of the role may include advising and counselling students.

But he said it would be everyone's role in the re-organisation to look at where the college was now with student success, and determine where the college needed to go.

He added: "These are just ideas at the moment, but we are trying to move in to this general area."