Possible restructuring at ASU has faculty buzzing
By Roy Ockert Jr.
Oct. 26, 2014
Faculty members at Arkansas State University have been buzzing most of the fall semester about reports that the university administration was secretly planning a major restructuring of departments and colleges. After all, reorganization is one of the things that administrators do to justify their existence.
What had most of the faculty concerned was that the restructuring appeared to be in progress from the “top down” — meaning that it had started in the upper echelons of administration, rather than in the campus governance process. That’s not really unusual on college campuses, but it’s no less irksome to those on the front lines of the academy.
ASU’s student newspaper, The Herald, reported that some faculty members of the College of Education had received notification by e-mail of major changes and downsizing to their college, which if true would have been decided without consulting with faculty at all.
Therefore, Dr. Lynita Cooksey, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, met with the Faculty Senate last week and attempted to ally fears that major changes would be made without involving the governing structure, which includes the Senate. She apologized to the education faculty for the miscommunication, which she said came from an interim dean.
Unfortunately, when there is a lack of communications, the result is usually miscommunication. Too many administrators think they can control the message by keeping discussions secret, and that becomes harder with each person brought “into the loop.”
If restructuring is needed, the administration should start at the bottom of the organizational chart and gather ideas from those who know best how things are working — or aren’t working. Certainly all humans have a natural resistance to change, along with a tendency to guard their own territory. But we can surely find open minds and creative thinking among our university faculty in meeting campus challenges.
The administration also should involve alumni in the process. After all, we are being asked more and more to help fund higher education with direct contributions, rather than through tax dollars.
Cooksey told the Faculty Senate, according to The Herald, that change is coming and that ASU “will have no choice” but to adapt to a new age in higher education.
That’s always true and always a challenge, but Cooksey pointed out that an enrollment decline on the Jonesboro campus this fall will result in loss of funding, part of a statewide trend in higher education. For several years ASU has been raising enrollment standards as an answer to retention of students so the trend, at least for ASU, shouldn’t be unexpected.
Nonetheless, a university should always be re-examining itself, and becoming more efficient is smart, especially in difficult economic times. If that results in fewer administrative and staff personnel, so be it. The trouble is, too often the expenses are cut elsewhere, at greater cost to the real business of education, teaching.
When A-State became a university in 1967-68, the university started with six colleges — Agriculture, Business, Education, Fine Arts, Liberal Arts and Science — plus two divisions, Military Science and Radio-TV, Journalism and Printing, and the Graduate School.
A few years later the latter division became the College of Communications. Then the colleges of Engineering and Nursing were added, bringing the present number (with some name changes) to nine. However, the university has a variety of other units, including the University College, the Honors College and the Graduate School.
By comparison, the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville has only five colleges — Agricultural Food and Life Sciences, Engineering, Arts and Sciences, Business, and Education and Health Professions. But its organizational chart shows a page full of other academic units, including architecture and law schools, the Global Campus, Graduate School and International Educational, and University College.
I won’t attempt to compare the number of administrators and support people required to maintain those structures, but Arkansas Business this week did an excellent story on administrators’ compensation in higher education. Comparing total compensation packages for the 2010 and 2014 academic years, it showed the typical increase to be between 10 and 20 percent, with some at the top going above 40 percent.
And as I reported in this column last spring, the number of 6-figure university employees is climbing rapidly, even if you don’t count coaches. Arkansas Business said the number increased from 460 in 2010 to 703 in 2014. University leaders never seem to have trouble finding money for another administrator.
That’s good reason for some restructuring.
Since universities are now being funded in part by the graduates they produce, administrators may look at restructuring by the numbers. If so, here are the degrees granted by college for fiscal 2013, the latest available in ASU’s Fact Book for 2013-14:
• Agriculture and Technology, 116;
• Business, 344;
• Education, 1,681;
• Engineering, 86;
• Fine Arts, 55;
• Humanities and Social Sciences, 292;
• Media and Communication, 105;
• Nursing and Health Professions, 630;
• Sciences and Mathematics, 176; and
• University College (2-year degrees and interdisciplinary studies), 507.
The numbers obviously show that the College of Education is the most productive. Does that mean it should be downsized?
A few years ago I was involved with an alumni group that successfully opposed a (top-down) merger of the colleges of Fine Arts and Communications. Instead the speech program was moved to Communications, making Fine Arts even smaller.
Restructuring doesn’t have to make sense.
Roy Ockert is editor emeritus of The Jonesboro Sun. He may be reached by e-mail at royo@suddenlink.net.