UHH Faculty Congress Academic Affairs Reorganization Task Force: A Summary

1. UHH Faculty Congress Academic Affairs Reorganization Task Force: A Summary

2. Ad Hoc Faculty Congress Task Force Membership • KainoaAriola-Sukisaki(Student Affairs), JeanieFlood (Nursing, CAS), ChrisFrueh (Social Sciences Division, CAS)*, Kim Furumo (CoBE), JeneMichaud (Natural Sciences Division, CAS), KirstenMollegaard (Humanities, CAS), KarenPellegrin (CoP), MattPlatz, VCAA**, MikeShintaku (CAFNRM), PilaWilson (KHUOK); *Chair; ** Ex Officio • The committee also consulted with the Deans of CAS, CAFNRM, and CoBE, as well as the Chair of the Long-Range Planning Committee and the Institutional Research Officer. • Suggestions and proposals from faculty across the UHH campus were also considered and incorporated.

3. History • This Task Force was appointed by Faculty Congress in January 2016, and has reported monthly to the Faculty Congress Executive Committee and to Faculty Congress. • A significant problem in the current academic organizational structure is the imbalance between CAS, CoBE, and CAFNRM in terms of size, complexity, and resources.

4. Current UHH Organization

5. Goal • To allow decision making to be moved down to the local level in order to provide more autonomy to departments/colleges as they make important resource allocations in the future.  It is expected that decentralizing budget decisions will allow academic units to make better allocation decisions.

6. Our Assumptions • This effort is not about downsizing the university or faculty retrenchment – no faculty or staff will lose their jobs as a result of this effort; • No faculty or staff will experience a reduction in salary, benefits, rank, or tenure status as a result of this effort; • Jobs of support staff and APT positions will inevitably need to be restructured or reorganized, but no one currently in these positions will lose their positions as a result of this effort; • This effort will require transparency and consultation with all key stakeholders on campus and the relevant unions; • This effort will be essentially cost neutral to the university.

7. Our Approach • We compiled financial data, student semester hours (SSH), and academic FTE for each of the colleges in the existing organizational structure; • We identified different ways to group units (e.g., traditional, thematic, functional lines); • We decided that our consideration should be approached at the macro level rather than the micro level; • We agreed that our goal would be to develop several general conceptual models (vs. fully developed and detailed operational models) to present to faculty and staff at UHH for initial discussion, feedback and refinement.

8. Notes • These models assume that only CAS, CoBE, and CAFNRM are involved in the reorganization, though KHUOK and CoP are welcome to join the reorganization if they choose to. • The by-laws of KHUOK require that all faculty within their College speak Hawaiian. • The unique tuition-dependent business model of CoP would complicate its reorganization or merger with any other unit on campus. • The three involved colleges have a total of 4 E&M positions (3 Deans and 1 Associate Dean) that can be repurposed as needed. • The proposed reorganization models assume that the current Division structure of CAS, and the Division Chair positions, will be eliminated.

9. Notes (continued) • CAS + CoBE + CAFNRM = 76,076 SSH total. Divided into three (3) Colleges it would be an average of 25,359 SSH each; divided into four (4) Colleges it would be an average of 19,019 SSH each. • None of these models are developed in full detail and it is expected that there may be some movement of individual departments from one College to another. • For example, a department currently within one CAS Division might be moved to the College formed by another Division in order to help balance SSH or budget across Colleges – or to achieve better thematic homogeneity within Colleges.

10. Proposed Conceptual Models for Re-Organization • A: Traditional Units: Variations on our current, traditional structure that allow for a more balanced size and complexity across three or four colleges. • B: Thematic Units: Variations of a thematic approach that allows for a reorganization into four new colleges of relatively comparable size and complexity. • C: Status Quo: Make no changes. • D: Functional Lines (e.g., Deans of Personnel, Curriculum, Research).

11. Model A (Traditional Units)

12. Model AA (Traditional Units)

13. Model B (Thematic Units)

14. Model BB (Thematic Units)

15. Issues for further consideration • Should the role or organizational structure of CCECS be considered at this time? • Although no program accreditations appear to be jeopardized by reorganization, per se, program accreditation is a critical issue that must be attended to carefully. • How will this effort affect Department/Division/Unit level personnel committees? • UHH is in the final year of its strategic plan.

16. Resources • From CAS Dean Susan Brown: These guidelines from Arizona summarize the processes for a well thought out reorganization: http://facultygovernance.arizona.edu/sites/facgov/files/guidelies_for_reorg_final_12.1.14.pdf

17. Retrenchment Concerns • We believe it is in our best interest for UH Hilo to operate as efficiently and effectively as possible; • Faculty should be proactive and vigilant in recommending ways to improve operations without retrenchment and before we reach “fiscal exigency”; • In other words, reorganization may reduce the likelihood of future retrenchment.    • VCAA Platz has pledged that this effort is not about retrenchment; he has embraced the “assumptions” of the task force.