A&S Transition Team: Minutes May 15, 2008

Transition Team Meeting

May 15, 2008, 2:30 p.m.
Bilger 242

Present:

Thomas Bingham	Joseph O'Mealy
Alan Teramura	Chung Lee (for Dick Dubanoski)
Ned Shultz	Hye-Ryeon Lee
Joel Cohn	Takeo Kudo
David Chin	Vilsoni Hereniko
Noel Kent	Carol Karimoto
Mike Kirk-Kuwaye	Karin Mackenzie

I. Minutes of May 8, 2008 Meeting

- correction per email note from Vilsoni Hereniko to change sentence on page 2 under Other Notes, second bullet, to read: Concern from SPAS that it is difficult to raise money, particularly in Asia, if the person doing it is a Director and not a Dean.

II. Constituencies

Question was raised on how information from these meetings is communicated to team members' constituencies. This brought up a further question on what is our constituency -- some team members have two different roles. The main groups that need to be informed are the faculty, staff and the students. For the alumni representative, the main constituency is the Colleges of Arts & Sciences Alumni Association board of Directors, not necessarily the alumni at large. Information should be disseminated and any feedback received by team members should be brought to the meetings.

Suggestion was made that having a website containing the information would be beneficial and provide ready access for the various constituent groups. A website currently exists under the Chancellor's purview, however it would best to have a separate site. Ned Shultz volunteered the SPAS IT person to work on a website.

III. Current UH Structure and Peer & Benchmark Institutions Structure

Joseph O'Mealy, on behalf of Laura Lyons, distributed copies of the current UHM organizational chart (which can be found on the OVCAFO website).

At the last meeting, the group looked at the single Arts & Sciences organizations. On Friday, May 9, Alan emailed team members asking each to pick two or three institutions that merit a closer, more detailed look for this week's meeting.

It is expected that the new structure will include the positive and desirable features listed at the last meeting.

Joseph O'Mealy felt that rather than picking an existing structure (i.e., one of the peer or benchmark institution's current organizational structure), we may want to borrow from several models.

Discussion and questions:

Administrative functions have not been discussed yet.
Need to look at current structure at UHM before discussion should proceed on how to reorganize.
Reorganization is not presented as a means to save money.
The goal is to position A&S so it's stronger.
Select ideas from existing structures.
Select the title for the head or über dean and then what would fall beneath. Need to determine what powers and responsibilities the head would have (i.e., tenure and promotion are under the current deans' purview, would this move to über-dean?)
Has decision been made on who the über-dean would report to? The assumption is would report to the Vice Chancellor. Need to think about what kind of person we want for this job and how would we attract that kind of person?
Would we want a Vice Chancellor for Arts & Sciences -- a direct report to the Chancellor? There is a huge difference between an Executive Dean and a Vice Chancellor. The title matters and where the position is placed is important. Would Executive Dean be first among equals? The current Manoa structure has a few deans as direct reports to the Chancellor (Medicine, Law, Athletics) and the other deans report to the VC.
Need to look at the present model and find the gentlest way to reorganize what already exists.
If chairs had more power, would faculty have the need to access the dean?
We will recommend only one structural model -- we should not second-guess what the Chancellor would like or not like. Need to recommend what would be best for us.

The Chancellor's Transition Group is meeting tomorrow (May 16, 2008).

IV. Next Meeting:

Thursday, May 22, 2008
2:30 p.m.
Bilger 242

Discussion on structure, report lines.
Start matrix on what we would like structure to look like.

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