Board approves restructuring plan

The University of Toledo Board of Trustees unanimously approved a proposal that will change the structure of academic affairs at UT during their meeting on Monday.

UT President Lloyd Jacobs presented the BOT's Academic and Student Affairs Committee with his proposal for restructuring, which includes dividing the College of Arts and Sciences into three separate colleges, combining the Judith Herb College of Education with the College of Health Science and Human Service, and creating schools that work across colleges.

Under the restructuring plan, the university will be comprised of 13 colleges and 11 newly formed schools, each of which will have a sponsoring college. Directors will manage the schools, and the colleges will remain headed by deans at the administrative level and chairs at the department level.

Joseph Zerbey, chair of the ASA committee, began the committee meeting by stating the plan for reorganization is a "board initiative," and Jacobs is acting upon a board mandate. He also stated the board's intent was to forge a plan that moves the university from a fourth tier ranking to the third tier.

Now that the restructuring proposal has been passed, the administration will begin laying the groundwork for achieving their goals as identified in the plan.

During his address to the ASA committee, Jacobs said the plan's implementation will focus mainly on budget formulation, institutional relationships between different areas of the university and policy procedures, ranging from retirement plans to academic procedures.

Implementation methods will be decided upon during the next two months and Jacobs will present implementation recommendations to the ASA Committee at their Dec. 6 meeting.

Jacobs said he wants to have recommendations for exactly who will be selected as deans of the various colleges by the Dec. 6 meeting.

In an interview after the full board meeting, BOT Chair Bill Fall said although there was no deadline in place for restructuring the university had more to gain from adopting the proposal on Monday than waiting longer to define the implementation strategy.

He compared the adoption of Jacobs' proposal to the merger of UT and the then-Medical University of Ohio in 2006, stating it took over two years to establish the institutional framework after the merger.

"The larger framework is set in place in my view, with some unanswered questions, but the real activity – the real value-added, to use a business term – the real sense of ‘how do we get there' is at the program level, the faculty, student level," Fall said. "That is strictly within the umbrella that we have created."

Jacobs told the board the restructuring process will build synergy among different stakeholders and "energize" the university, which will show the Higher Learning Commission, an accrediting agency, that the university is not static.

In an interview on Tuesday, Jacobs told the Independent Collegian it is inconceivable, from an administrative standpoint, to present the BOT with a fully detailed plan and expect each implementation step to be specified and approved by the board.

"I don't think you can do something like this and have it all done and finalized. Certainly, I wouldn't have stood in front of the board and said that this will create synergy and creativity and new conversations if every last decision was specified," he said. "Part of the creativity is spurred by all those decisions and the conversions that those decisions will require."

Some faculty think UT has already undergone enough changes in the past several years, demonstrating the university has not stood motionless.

In an interview after the BOT meeting, Walt Olson, professor of mechanical engineering and member of the Faculty Senate, said the merger between UT and MUO in 2006 demonstrates UT is not a static institution.

"This has been a university that has been in change since 2005. Despite people saying we've been static, we have not been. We've been continually changing, from the merger to where we are today," he said.

Fall said the board will take a monitoring approach to the implementation, and he is confident Jacobs will involve all stakeholders, especially the faculty, in the implementation process.

"I look forward — honestly, I would challenge the Faculty Senate now to be involved and to participate and to offer constructive direction," Fall said. "They own the intellectual property of this institution in a funny way in that regard."

Chair of the Faculty Senate Mary Powers said it isn't clear to her how the university will carry out the restructuring plan.

"I don't know just how to weigh [moving forward with restructuring] right now," Powers said. "It's difficult to know what will happen next, especially without having a picture of how the implementation is envisioned."

Perhaps the most noticeable change to the university's structure is the addition of schools that will be sponsored by colleges.

According to Main Campus Provost Bill McMillen, the new schools will serve as horizontal components to the vertical structure of the plan, meaning they will work within the administrative hierarchy rather than be a part of it.

"[The plan to form schools] encompasses and promotes this idea of collaboration and the facilitating of people being able to cut across boundaries and talk," McMillen said.

One example McMillen provided during an interview was the function of the School of the First Year Experience, which will eventually include all freshmen and will be based on a customized first-year curriculum. That is, if a freshman wants to enter the engineering program, but doesn't meet the math requirements, he or she will be advised on which math courses and what overall course load will best prepare them for the engineering admissions process.