Reorganization Memo

To:                   Dr. Zvi Szafran,
Vice President for Academic Affairs

From:               Dr. Ronny Richardson,
Chair, Business Administration

Subject:            Reorganization Committee of Departmental Chairs

Date:                October 3, 2006

After meeting with our departments and listening to the faculty, the chairs met to discuss the possibility of reorganizing. We all agreed that it is difficult to properly evaluate potential organizational structures without knowing what the concerns are regarding the current structure. The question of “why are we reorganizing?” came up over-and-over and no one seemed to have a good answer.

After much discuss and debate, the chairs voted between all of the possible structures that had been discussed. Only two of the structures received any votes at all. During the voting, some chairs split their votes between the two structures. Plus, one chair had to leave to teach a class and so was unable to vote.

The first structure was the current structure, as shown below, only with Business moved out into a School of Business.

This structure received four full votes and three ½ votes for a total of 5 ½. In the discussion of this structure, several concerns were raised:

• There is concern that getting engineering might cause us to need both a School of Engineering and a School of ET.
• There is concern among the chairs about both the deans’ and the chairs’ job descriptions and who is suppose to do what.
• One chair was concerned that making a small department like Business Administration a school would give them too much influence in the Deans Council and on standing committees.

The other structure to receive votes was a matrix structure, as shown below, with all of the chairs reporting to the VPAA along with Deans of Graduate and Undergraduate Studies.

 

This structure also received four full votes and three ½ votes for a total of 5 ½. Several chairs pointed out that this was really a matrix structure with the chairs reporting to the VPAA on one axis and the two deans on the other axis. In the discussion of this structure, several issues were raised:

• Several chairs felt that the span of control of the VPAA would be too large under this structure.
• One chair suggested addressing the span of control issue by having two associate VPAA’s between the VPAA and the department heads  to keep the VPAA from having so many direct reports. These two people would be essentially parallel to the deans so it does not add a layer. Several chairs agreed with this modification.
• This structure does not address the need for a School of Business.

The chairs appreciate the opportunity to have input on this very important issue. If you feel that more work is needed or that the chairs need to address specific concerns, we will be happy to continue meeting to address those concerns.