Students might not have noticed, but Ohio State’s largest college has administration changes in the final stages of completion.
Joseph Steinmetz, executive dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and vice provost in the Office of Academic Affairs, is restructuring the college’s administration.
Over the past two years, the College of Arts and Sciences has reduced the central college administration staff by roughly 25, Steinmetz said in a Thursday email from the office of the executive dean of the College of Arts and Sciences to the college’s faculty and staff.
As a result, the college has benefited almost $3 million in salary savings, Steinmetz told The Lantern.
The total Arts and Sciences budget is about $275 million per year, made up primarily of the college’s individual department’s budgets, said Peter March, interim divisional dean of Natural and Mathematical Sciences.
The departments in the college have more money to spend this year than they did last year, March said.
The College of Arts and Sciences has 40 departments within the three divisions, according the Arts and Sciences website. The supplies, services and equipment piece of the separate department’s budgets increased about 5 percent, showing the salary savings, March said.
The loss of about 25 administrators surfaced when the College of the Arts, College of Humanities, College of Biological Sciences, College of Mathematical and Physical Sciences and College of Social and Behavioral Sciences were combined into three divisions in the College of Arts and Sciences, Steinmetz said.
“There’s a lot of duplication when you have five administrative colleges,” Steinmetz said.
The process of evaluating administrative staffing included combining, eliminating and repurposing positions, he said.
“The college was restructured to make it much more collaborative and cooperative between faculty and students,” Steinmetz said.
The College of Arts and Sciences is now broken into three divisions: Arts and Humanities, Natural and Mathematical Sciences, and Social and Behavioral Sciences.
In the restructuring of the college, three administrators will be stepping down from their positions, effective July 1, according to the email sent to Arts and Sciences faculty and staff.
The administrators are Terry Gustafson, special assistant to the executive dean, David Andereck, associate dean of Natural and Mathematical Sciences and Gene Mumy, associate dean of Social and Behavioral Sciences, according to the email.
Gustafson said he will continue to work at OSU as a chemistry professor. He said he thinks Steinmetz’s administration changes are a positive step for the college.
Mumy was unavailable for comment. Andereck declined to comment.
The three administrators stepping down from their positions are not included in the roughly $3 million salary savings, because the positions are reworked into the new administration structure, Steinmetz said.
The email sent to Arts and Sciences faculty and staff pointed out administration changes in the number of associate and assistant deans in the college’s three divisions.
To complete the dean structure changes, the college will add an assistant dean position to the Arts and Humanities division, Steinmetz said.
The Natural and Mathematical Sciences and Social and Behavioral Sciences divisions will each eliminate one associate dean position. Steinmetz said both divisions previously had two associate deans.
He said the dean structure in Natural and Mathematical Sciences and Social and Behavioral Sciences will include one divisional dean, one associate dean and one assistant dean. Arts and Humanities will have the one divisional dean, two associate deans and one assistant dean.
Steinmetz said the reason Arts and Humanities will have two associate deans is because the division holds more departments than the other two divisions.
Art and Humanities has 21 departments, Natural and Mathematical Sciences has 11 departments and Social and Behavioral Sciences has 8 departments, according to the College of Arts and Sciences website.
Steinmetz said the largest change in administration will be in two associate deans moving into associate executive dean positions. The positions will be an associate executive dean for graduate and undergraduate programs and an associate dean for research and facilities, said Steinmetz.
The associate executive dean for graduate and undergraduate programs is to be determined, according to the Arts and Sciences website. Steinmetz said the responsibilities of this position used to be spread out among several associate deans.
“We (The College of Arts and Sciences) think it’s better to have one person who is the contact person for Arts and Sciences when it comes to anything curriculum and program for students,” Steinmetz said.
Richard Hall, associate dean of Natural and Mathematical Sciences said he will move to the position of associate executive dean for research and facilities.
On July 1, the basic administrative structure changes in the college will be completed, Steinmetz said.
The administration changes will attempt to provide one common way of doing business within the divisions and departments, Hall said.
“We’re moving toward having more administrative efficiencies,” Hall said. “We’re trying to figure out how to get these five different colleges that have been arranged into three divisions to operate similarly.”
