Steven S. Manos, the former executive vice president of Tufts University, has been appointed to oversee Brandeis' budgeting, administrative and financial operations.

Manos, who will report to President Frederick Lawrence as senior vice president and chief operating officer, was recruited to the University by Provost Steve Goldstein '78, according to BrandeisNOW.

"Success to me does not just mean a good bottom line," Manos told BrandeisNOW. "It means working with academic colleagues to create a stronger faculty and to provide a better education for the students."

At Tufts, Manos had been credited with eliminating the school's deficit and helping the university grow physically and financially in his 26-year tenure there.

"Steve's wealth of experience and record of accomplishment will be tremendous assets to Brandeis as we begin implementing our vision for the future," Lawrence told BrandeisNOW.

Brandeis has not had a chief operating officer since summer 2010, when Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Jeffrey Apfel resigned the position soon after Lawrence was chosen to become president.

Peter French had held the EVP/COO position for 12 years before Apfel. He was second in command after the president.
"Previous fiscal challenges along with an under-developed financial analysis, planning, and risk management system resulted in this organizational structure," wrote a 2010 report commissioned to review the roles of the University's top administrators.

After Apfel's resignation, however, the University did not hire a new EVP/COO. Instead, Frances Drolette, the chief financial officer, and Mark Collins, the vice president of campus operations, were promoted and split the administrative and financial tasks of the EVP/COO position between them. Drolette and Collins will now report to Manos.

Collins told the Justice that although he has only had the opportunity to work with Manos for a matter of days thus far, "I think he [has] been interested in learning as much as he can from me about Brandeis, and I'm looking forward to working with him."

In November 2010, an advisory committee recommended that the provost assume many of the responsibilities of the former EVP/COO and become the second in command.

"The next Provost should take the lead in long-term planning and priority-setting decisions, and work in partnership with the Chief Financial Officer to assure that resource and budgetary plans are in line with institutional priorities," according to the report.

In his final year at Tufts, Manos earned $356,618, according to Tufts' federal tax filings.

Neither Manos nor the president or provost were available for comment by press time.

Before beginning at Tufts, Manos was assistant executive director of the American Bar Association in Chicago and senior administrator of the department of psychiatry of New York Hospital-Cornell University Medical Center in New York City. He went on to work as the director of management systems for the Manhattan District Attorney and serve as chief executive officer of the nonprofit Manhattan Bowery Project. Manos was also a corporate attorney on Wall Street.

Since 2007, when he retired from Tufts, Manos has been active as a mediator, serving as the president of the Community Dispute Settlement Center, a nonprofit organization that provides mediation services. He was also a trustee of the Cambridge Health Alliance and a consultant at Wheaton College, assisting the president there in developing a five-year financial plan.

Manos earned a B.A. from the University of Minnesota in 1962, a J.D. from New York University School of Law in 1968 and an M.P.A. from New York University in 1974.