Academic Units Only-Pros and Cons
Assuming that fiscal and organizational considerations will allow only X number of deans/executive deans/associate deans i.e. deciding between the three models is to some extent deciding how best to divide up resources for a finite set of offices--
Pros-
- 1.Close to present model; hence transition will be smoother-likely to be more easily accepted by faculty
- 2.Allows more flexibility in organizing colleges of academic disciplines i.e. smaller colleges will allow academic disciplines to be brought together in ways that better match our needs in Hawai'i and in ways that would allow, for example, better fundraising
- 3.Identity of each college/division is strong - among faculty, students, community
- 4.Smaller colleges will also allow greater faculty access to decision-making at dean level and arguably more faculty participation in governance-esp. important for smaller departments
- 5.More budgetary autonomy for smaller clusters of academic disciplines
- 6.Universities are about intellectual work-this model makes this aspect of universities very visible
Cons-
- 1.Duplication of functions within colleges-is this the most cost efficient way to organize university administration?
- 2. Difficulty of coordinating across A & S at functional level-fragmentation at the functional level
- 3.Greater number of colleges may also mean fragmentation of A&S identity as a single unit
- 4.Greater number of academic colleges might mean less interaction amongst faculty across colleges-less interdisciplinarity
- 5.This traditional structure might leave untapped more innovative modes of organizing administration to meet our goals (for example, is the objective of enhancing the undergraduate student experience better served under this model or one of the others?)