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Below are some of questions asked of the One Bethel academic restructure and governance from this anonymous form. Look through and see if these answer some of the questions you have. If you don't find an answer to your question go to the link at the bottom of the page to submit your own question.

Timeline based questions

What will change by August of 2025?

• New College and School Deans will be overseeing their respective academic programs

• Faculty governance will be university-wide

• New cross-functional Associate Provost areas will be established

What will change during the 2025-2026 academic year?

• Transition of academic processes, academic policies, and academic procedures to align to be university-wide

• Student academic support will unify within a single unit

• Long-term goals for student advising will be established

• Development of cross-functional areas of coordination

• Establishment of new faculty governance committee processes, norms, and standards

What will change by August of 2026?

• Official launch of new colleges and schools: 

  • • College of Arts, Sciences, and Education

    • Anderson Family College of Health Sciences

    • School of Business

    • School of Theology and Bethel Seminary

• New colleges and schools officially enroll new students. Current students' home programs will move to their respective college or school.

• The use of CAS, CAPS, Sem, or GS to distinguish student types will end.

What will happen after August of 2026?

• Operationalization of the new colleges, schools and functional areas

• Student Information System (SIS) tansition from Banner to Salesforce ongoing

Other FAQ by subject

Academic Support:

What will writing support/tutoring look like moving forward (including graduate-level support)? When will it happen?

• In August 2025, no changes will occur. Our students of all sorts will be supported with our current systems. 

• Leaders from the AESC Office and Academic Resource Center are developing recommendations for a university-wide academic support model for all university students in the Spring of 2025. Those recommendations should lead to an eventual office of academic support for all university students by the Fall of 2026.

Will there be academic support both in-person and online for students moving forward?

• Yes, that is part of the task force’s recommendations.

Academic Advising

What is the timeline for changes to our current structure?

• In August, no changes will occur. Our students of all sorts will be supported with our current systems. 

• The development of a strategy for university-wide advising is currently being worked. Any anticipated launch of a new structure would not occur in the 2025-2026 academic year but for the 2026-2027 academic year at the earliest.

What will advising CAPS, GS, and Sem students look like moving forward?

• In August, no changes will occur. Our students of all sorts will be supported with our current systems. 

• Advising will remain as is for the 2025-2026 academic year. For 2026-2027 and beyond, advising will still continue, but some adjustments may occur as a result of the work to be done with the advising group.

What will advising Grad students look like moving forward?

• In August, no changes will occur. Our students of all sorts will be supported with our current systems. 

• Advising will remain as is for the 2025-2026 academic year. For 2026-2027 and beyond, advising will still continue, but some adjustments may occur as a result of the work to be done with the advising group.

What will communication between advising and program directors look like? For example, will monthly meetings be held between advising, enrollment, and the program director as we do now (which is very beneficial)? 

• In August, no changes will occur. Close coordination with program directors should continue as is. There are no expected responsibility changes for program directors for the 2025-2026 academic year. 

Admissions:

What is the timeline for changes to our current structure?

• Admissions will remain as is for all students for the 2025-2026 academic year. There are no plans to have admissions offices by college or school. Admissions teams will still be devoted towards the current kinds of students traditional undergraduate, adult undergraduate, graduate, and seminary.

Will our admission counselors change in CAPS/SEM/GS?

• In August 2025, no changes will occur.

What will the relationship look like between the admission counselor and the program director in the new structure (currently it has been a close collaboration and partnership. Also, monthly meetings between admissions, advising, and the program director have been quite helpful)? 

• In August 2025, no changes will occur.

Marketing:

What is the timeline for website changes with the 4 schools?

• Sometime near the end of the 2025-26 academic year - timing changes with the enrollment cycle will be an important consideration. No changes will happen in August 2025

What is the timeline for communication with students about 4 schools?

• As of April 11, we are starting to work on this as we consult the Student Experience team and people who interact regularly with the CAPS/SEM/GS students. We will develop a set of communication plans for different student audiences, and a large push for communication will precede registration for Fall 2026, which happens in mid-spring term 2026. 

Space/Facility Changes

What is the process for changes to office spaces?

• Space is managed by Facilities, and academic affairs has a monthly meeting with Facilities to discuss space issues, including office assignments. 

What is the timeline for changes to office spaces?

• 2025-26 things will largely stay the same. Beyond that, changes will come as renovations happen to our campus buildings. One goal will always be to keep academic programs/departments together, and we are working to find ways for that to happen for education, for example. It takes time. 

Parking Spaces for Anderson Center Faculty Members on 3900

• We’ll work on that question by digging more into the numbers of faculty & times/amounts of need. 

Sharing of space (classrooms, labs, etc) that previously was specific to one area of education; sharing of equipment as well

• We always work to steward our physical spaces and equipment well. If there’s a good reason to share, we will. If there’s a compelling reason to duplicate, we’ll do that. 

Faculty Committee Work

Will faculty serving in heavy workload committee positions (such as chairs of FGA, P&T, etc) receive any course release or stipend?

• Noninstructional loads will not change next year; FGA officers will receive course release/overload. The workload for committee chairs will be evaluated during the next academic year, but right now no chairs will be assigned release time. 

Are we communicating accurately now for the faculty/staff and the new committees in the fall?

• We’re trying to be accurate. Right now we’re working on the FGA leadership election and the selection of FGA members by each school. We’re also working on CAS Senate and FAC ratification of the charters for the university committees. We expect that committee assignments will be determined in June, which is a usual timeline for that work, historically. 

Will there be equity in expected committee service between the schools? Or will faculty in smaller schools have to do more committee work? If it is the case that more work is required, can that be compensated by reduced load expectations in other areas?

• The faculty and administrators who drafted the committee charters definitely had the variation in faculty size by school in mind as the charters were drafted, and this topic is part of the discussion in the FAC and CAS senate deliberations as well. Efforts are being made to achieve balance in committee expectations for all faculty. 

How will FGA representation be determined since there are no 'returnees' to the new structure? Will we all have elections immediately? Will some folks be appointed to continue from current faculty governance structures? How will we ensure representation is proportional to faculty (e.g., full-time CAS vs. CAPS/GS vs. Sem. faculty)?

• The charter for the FGA has been approved by CAS Senate and the FAC. These details are found in the document. 

Processes to get your work accomplished

When will we know who the deans will be for the unnamed colleges? Will there be the same number of deans for each college, of will larger colleges have more administrative/dean-level support?

• We’ll announce those deans as soon as they’re hired! If all goes well, mid-June for Business. Each college/school will have one dean. The two academic areas with external accreditation that require a named leader, Education and Nursing, have associate deans over each area who report to the Dean of their College. 

How will the process for hiring faculty change? What departments/groups will be responsible for faculty hiring and onboarding? Is the approval process for posting faculty jobs going to change?

• We are exploring and designing standardized and reasonable processes for many business practices, including faculty hiring. We’re collaborating with other areas of the university on this, as it’s more complex and involves IT (electronic application), OPC, Business & Finance. Right now we’re still in the design phase, and until the process changes we’ll use our current system. When the process changes we’ll ensure that the communication is (1) broad, (2) comprehensive, (3) and stored in a place where you can go back to it and find it again. 

Financial Questions

I heard that some internal grants/funding will no longer be available. Will there be support for faculty to attend professional conferences, do outside research, etc.?

• The biennial funds remain unchanged. There are some externally funded (Advancement fundraiser) sources of internal research funding that are no longer being fundraised for - true for a few years now. 

Other

The Seminary currently has a 16 week semester with no break. This does not seem to be the case with other schools at this time (e.g., CAS has a spring break). How will semesters be structured under the One Bethel model? Also, will everyone be on a 12 month contract and expected to be available to teach and do committee work through the summer?

• It would be great to have all programs start on the same date and end on the same date each term! We’re not there yet, and it will take some curricular shuffling to make that happen (i.e. putting a spring break into a seminary course means moving activities and assignments around). These additional changes, desirable as they are, require good analysis and probably some compromises for many programs to align those schedules. We’ll take that up when the time is right, probably led by faculty desire for timing. 

• We are not moving to have everyone on 9 month contracts spread over 12 calendar months at this time. 

I understand the desire to make chair loads equitable – that makes a lot of sense. That said, some programs (e.g., licensure areas) require significant work above and beyond what other chairs may do. How will this work be protected/fairly compensated in the move to a more unified structure?

• One of the projects that the four deans will take on in the near future (1-2 years) is designing a data-driven system for assigning noninstructional load for work like program director/department chair.