New budgetary and organizational changes were announced for the Federation of the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences that aim to create a more integrated and unified system of colleges.
"One of the words we use now around here a lot is silos," said Martha Garland, co-chair of the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences Review Committee. "We all say (the arts and sciences colleges are) in individual silos and we're divided from one another and not cooperating. This (new structure) is designed to make cooperation more readily available, and I think it will be."
The Colleges of the Arts and Sciences is currently comprised of five distinct units: arts, humanities, mathematics and physical sciences, biology, and social and behavioral sciences.
The changes aim to unite all the resources and academic programs within the arts and sciences to balance each individual college's needs with the federation as a whole, and to create more inter-disciplinary collaboration between departments, Garland said.
The review committee said the budget model "effectively works against any attempt to mold an integrated and effective federation."
Garland said the executive dean of the Colleges of the Arts and Sciences was never given financial authority for the colleges in the current structure. The five individual deans of the branch colleges were given those powers, which created competition for funding and resources among them.
"Not having budgetary authority was a pretty serious weakness," Garland said. "The only way to be able to do things is you have to persuade other people to let you do it, or you've got to have some budget of your own. And really the only way to get some budget of your own ... is to have a federation tax on the five (arts and sciences) colleges … which in effect (made the federation) ... like a sixth college. So instead of taking five units that were dividing up the money, you had six units."
Garland said the five colleges remain but will be led by three interim divisional deans for a two-year term, effective July 1. John Roberts will lead the arts and humanities, Matthew Platz will lead biology and mathematics and physical sciences, and Gifford Weary will lead social and behavioral sciences.
According to Ohio State officials, Roberts, Platz and Weary will work with the interim executive dean and vice provost of the federation Joan Leitzel, whose one-year term begins August 1. Leitzel will control the budgetary system and all the resources for the colleges.
The implementation of the new structure will take place in two phases. Phase one will focus on administrative and budgetary changes, while phase two will focus on the arrangement of the colleges based on recommendations made during phase one.
"These four newly named leaders are going together to figure out what they need to have going forward," Garland said.
"So if they need to make new organizational arrangements, those things have to go through the senate and a lot of faculty processes and that will take a long time, certainly more than the year we're talking about." she said. "But I think it's pretty likely that we will emerge from this first year with some recommendations from the interim deans and a plan with some direction to go."
"(The colleges) will be positively affected because there are ways in which people can do interdisciplinary teaching and collaboration that are hard to do now with these divisions," she said.
Michelle Fehribach can be reached at fehribach.4@osu.edu.
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