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David K. Scott was Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, 1993-2001. This is an archive of the Chancellor's Web site during his tenure. ![]() |
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Several reorganizations in the areas of Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, Vice Chancellor for Research Graduate Education and Economic Development, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance and Deputy Chancellor are proposed. The changes are designed to better serve the fundamental missions of teaching and learning, research, discovery and creative endeavors, and outreach. They are also designed to allow more focus on areas of student life. Among the several Vice Chancellors, the Provost holds a special position, as a first among equals. It is important that all academic activities be integrated under the Provost. In the University of the future it is likely that the components of the mission will be more synergistically related. The Vice Chancellory for Research, Graduate Education and Economic Development will be combined with the Provost, as shown in Figure 9. The major areas of research and University outreach will be led by Vice Provosts, who must work as an interactive team. The Dean of the Graduate School will report directly to the Provost, as will a Dean of Undergraduate Affairs. (This position presently exists within the responsibilities of the Deputy Provost and the dual title will be deployed for the incumbent). In addition, an Associate Provost will continue to lead the Office for Faculty Development. A coordinated University Outreach effort under the Vice Provost will encompass: the Office of Economic Development, which will report jointly to the Vice Provost for Research, with the Vice Provost for Outreach as the lead administrator; the Office of Lifelong Learning (currently Continuing Education); a coordinated structure for outreach to K-12, currently distributed in several areas such as Student Affairs and School of Education; the former Cooperative Extension Service, now renamed UMass Extension, which will also coordinate closely with the academic outreach administrators now established in most Colleges and Schools; the University Without Walls; International Programs; WFCR; Service Learning and the STEM Institute. A task force will be established to review and recommend on the best possible structure for academic advising of students. Already a University Advising Center is being formed to replace CASIAC. The aim is to provide better advising to all students. This unit will report to the Provost together with the newly formed Learning Resources Center. Other advising units exist which provide a special and necessary focus on students of color who face unique challenges in our society as well as in our University. These include the Committee for the Collegiate Education of Black and other Minority Students, the Bilingual Collegiate Program, and the United Asian Learning Resources Center. These units play a critical role not only in advising but also in other support for student life in and outside the classroom. As we move forward it will become increasingly more important for faculty involvement to augment what is usually a very small staff of professional advisors, both in the University Advising Center and in these special units. A more powerful advising effort, with a continuing focus on students of color and others with special needs, may be generated by locating all advising in the Provosts area. This administrative arrangement could, in my view, streamline the involvement of faculty. As previously stated, a broadly constituted committee will be appointed to determine whether or not such an organizational change should be made, and if so, how and when the change should take place. The issues that arise here are not unlike those we described earlier relating to reorganization of Colleges and Schools. Over time different units with an interdisciplinary or inter- administrative focus develop. From time to time we need to step back and consider whether a structural reorganization might be beneficial while at the same time promoting a new set of interdisciplinary and inter-agency efforts at a new level. We may already have reached such a time, but a careful review of the advantages and disadvantages should be undertaken by a properly constituted group. As discussed in some detail in Strategic Thinking, the next ten years will call for a special emphasis on student life--an ecology of the living, learning and working environment. This effort will call for enormous creativity and energy, especially in the areas of Student Affairs. It will be essential for Student Affairs to continue its commitment to assist students in their preparation for life--careers, leadership, and participation in a changing world--by providing co- curricular opportunities, support programs, and services which allow them to experiment and integrate the knowledge and skills they obtain. While addressing issues of diversity and internationalism in the classroom, we must simultaneously address these issues on every part of the campus on a daily basis. We must acknowledge and learn to value that teaching and learning is central to the work of Student Affairs. The Student Affairs cluster organization put in place several years ago seems appropriate to enable staff to collaborate with other administrative and program areas of the University. The following reorganizations will be implemented which impact the areas of the Deputy Chancellor, the Vice Chancellors and Associate Chancellors. Currently the organization has some peculiarities arising, as they do in all institutions, from historical evolution. For example, administrators with the title of Associate Vice Chancellor currently report to the Chancellor. This anomaly dates from a time when there was an Executive Vice Chancellor who subsequently became Chancellor. As a result reporting lines to the Vice Chancellor moved over to the Chancellor. It is now time to streamline and rationalize the organization, as shown in Figure 10. We need greater coordination and coherence in Planning and Budget. The Deputy Chancellor will be therefore designated as Deputy Chancellor for Planning, Institutional Support and Resource Management. The Budget and Planning efforts in the areas of Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance, University Advancement, and in Student Affairs will be integrated in the Deputy Chancellors office. The Academic Affairs budget and planning will then be combined with the Deputy Chancellors integration of the other plans by the Chancellor. This arrangement gives a special status to the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs area, as it should given that Academic Affairs constitutes over 70% of the entire budget. Note that under the reorganization described earlier for integrating the area of Vice Chancellor for Research, Graduate Education and Economic Development into the Provosts area, the entire Academic Affairs budget is developed coherently by the Provost. In order to make this new constellation of administrators effective, the Associate Vice Chancellor for Budget and Finance will report jointly to the Deputy Chancellor and the Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance with the Vice Chancellor as the Lead Administrator. A parallel clarification is necessary in the areas of Master Planning and Space. Currently we have an office of Space Management, administered by an Associate Vice Chancellor, reporting to the Deputy Chancellor. (This anomaly in title is one of the remnants of the historical evolution described above). We shall create instead an Office of Campus Planning and Space management, charged with responsibilities for Space Management, Master planning, Property management, and with the coordination of the process of Capital Planning and Programming. The administrators title will be changed from Associate Vice Chancellor for Physical Planning to Associate Chancellor for Campus Planning and Space management, who will report jointly to the Deputy Chancellor and to the Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance, with the Deputy Chancellor as Lead Administrator. The intention of this arrangement is to bring into closer cooperation and coordination the important issues of master planning, capital planning, facilities development, and space management and to create an organizational environment for administrators in the areas of Vice Chancelor for Administration and Finance and of Deputy Chancellor to work very closely as a team. During the transition to this new organization, the Vice Chancellor for Administration and Finance and the Deputy Chancellor will co-chair the Facilities and Planning Board, a board recommended by the Task Force on Physcial Facilities. This new Board will be closely linked to the appropriate Senate Councils and Committees through joint memership. Through the transition will emerge streamlined and expedited decision-making. What will also emerge more clearly is the need for the intentional cultivation/development of real estate and property management functions to accommodate entrepreneurial endeavors and creative use fo the universitys physical assets to support an evolving mission. These functions would include at a minimum least management, real estate acquisitions and off-site leasing, sale/lease of surplus property, tenant relations, and partnership/joint ventue projects involving real property assets. I am confident that this newly configured organization will serve better the larger interest of the University. In similar fashion the current title of Associate Vice Chancellor for Information Technologies will be changed to Associate Chancellor for Information Technologies (the current title is also a historical anomaly from previous administrative reconfigurations), reporting jointly to the Deputy Chancellor and to the Provost with the Deputy Chancellor as lead. This joint reporting line will be important in building linkages between the areas of Information Technology and the Library. In this reorganization Associate Chancellors are line administrators with campus-wide responsibilities. For this reason a reporting line to the Deputy Chancellor and joint reporting relationships are the best mode for ensuring the proper coordination and cooperation across the areas of the Vice Chancellors. The University also has an Associate Chancellor who administers the Office of Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity, now renamed the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity. The title of Director is more commonly associated with this important activity nationally, and we propose such a change when the next administrator is hired. The Director will be designated as the individual with the mandated responsibilities for the Institution under Federal and State law for Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Compliance. To create a unit that has additional support and impact for advancing a diverse and multicultural community, the Office will incorporate the present Office of Human Relations to become a new Office of Equal Opportunity, Diversity and Human Relations, with three Associate Directors, covering the current areas of responsibility of Recruitment and Training, Grievance and Training, and the added dimension of Human Relations and Training. This office can then work in synergistic fashion with the parallel Office of Staff Development and Training. The entire Office of Equal Opportunity, Diversity and Human Relations will report to the Deputy Chancellor. As these changes take place, the Deputy Chancellor should continue to review the current advisory structures for advancing a multicultural and diverse institution, with an emphasis on human enablement and the creation of a new spirit of community. Discussions are underway in the Commission on Civility and Human Relations, the Multicultural Advisory Board, and other Advisory Boards on the best structure to serve the institution for the next ten years or so, just as the current structures have served us well over the last decade and more. A possible structure might be a Commission on a New Community, which would be formed from the current Civility Commission and Multicultural Advisory Board. Other advisory boards, both existing and developing, could be linked to this overarching body, e.g., the Task Force on Issues of Anti-Semitism and Jewish Affairs would become the Committee on Issues of Jewish Awareness and Anti-Semitism; the Chancellors Task Force on Gay, Lesbian, Bi-Sexual and Transgender Issues would become the Committee on GLBT Issues, with representation on the Commission for a New Community. New Committees, e.g., on ALANA Affairs, should be constructed in parallel fashion, with its chair also a member of the Commission. To create a fully integrative approach, the Chairs of Senate Councils on the Status of Women and on the Status of Minorities could become members, along with chairs of the above mentioned committees, of an Executive Board of the Commission. The Commission would be staffed by the newly formed Office of Equal Opportunity, Diversity and Human Relations. Finally, to complete the effort of rationalizing titles and reporting lines, the two Associate Chancellor positions, with at-large responsibilities of advising the Chancellor on a wide range of issues confronting the Campus, will also be designated as Senior Advisors to the Chancellor. These positions are crucial to sustaining a smoothly functioning campus. In the area of Federal Relations, which is covered by one of the Associate Chancellors, the position should also be linked to the Vice Provost for Research. The revised organization chart for the Chancellors Office is shown in Figure 10 which includes the other positions directly reporting to the Chancellor, viz. the Executive Assistant to the Chancellor, the Associate University Counsel (who also reports to the Vice President for Legal Affairs in the Presidents Office), the Director of Intercollegiate Athletics (who will continue to report directly to the Chancellor, given the massive public interface and connections of this area). These initial reorganizations will significantly enhance the delivery of all services to the academic and academic support areas. Other administrative changes may be desirable. All areas of the University are challenged to think creatively on these matters. Table
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