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Arts and Humanities Divisional Structure Feedback From.
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In the interest of creating a successful College of Arts and Sciences Divisional Structure, we are asking that you contribute thoughts and ideas to help administration put together a successful restructuring plan.
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Much like a recent form that was produced by the Faculty Senate, we are leaving this document open and transparent, so that we can see the prevalence of concerns and solutions. Feel free to affirm suggestions.
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All responses will be copied to another document before passing feedback along so everything will be anonymous (in case you are logged in to google)
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Instructions: Please answer any or all of the following 4 questions (in the dropdown menu in column A) as a guide, or leave any feedback if they don't apply to you. To leave feedback, scroll down to the first available empty row and select a question in the dropdown menu you would like to address. Then, type your response in the next two columns as needed.
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Question - choose from the dropdown on the next avialable line or enter your own (ignore validation warning).FeedbackAffirmation or Additional Info.
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1. Think about the services that the College office provides faculty, staff, and students. Would any of these services or programs be more effectively provided at the divisional level? If so, which ones, and why?Currently the College has too few support staff to support every unit's needs. If each new division of the College were to have its own team of support staff (HR, finance, communications, etc.), then there could be more attention paid to the specific needs of departments and the response times would be better because there would be more people to provide the necessary support.How will the divisional structure support faculty as we teach and mentor an increasing number of students? What kinds of staff positions might be created to support the core mission of the faculty as leaders in teaching and research? Will increased access to office staff better enable us to spend more time on teaching and research? If so how? Scanning? Copying? Concur? Registration? Classroom allocation? Canvas? It would be great to hear from the decanal level what kind of front line access to support might be provided.
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2. Is something missing from these services and programs? Would this gap be better filled at the College level or at the divisional level?
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3. How could a divisional structure improve support for faculty, staff, and students?Right now we can't get timely answers or responses to time-sensitive issues such as paying student assistants or handling unit finances, while at the same time the College makes it difficulty for units to hire their own staff who could be doing that work within those units themselves, rather than sending it all through Ayres for approval. Rather than funneling every last item through Ayres for approval and delaying imporant processes, a new divisional structure could provide 1) support for neccesary staffing at the departmental/unit level and 2) responses that are more timely and more aware of the specific needs and operations of each department.It seems that a lot of faculty time is currently being misspent on clerical work, financial forms, and clumsily orchestrated administrative tasks. The divisional structure should aim to enable each UTK employee to focus on their core mission. For faculty that is research and teaching. Regarding Advancement--a team of 8 people charged with raising $32M in FY23 for the College: we were informed that we'll be moving from Alumni Memorial Building to Cherokee Mills on Sutherland in Fall 2023, making us the only advancement staff on campus not embedded with our academic unit. This may frustrate our goals of securing resources for the college, due to the reduced interaction among academic, business, and advancement staff, and the need to change processes to accomodate the change of location. Enthusiastic echo of the comment in Cell B-9: "Right now we can't get timely answers or responses to time-sensitive issues such as paying student assistants or handling unit finances, while at the same time the College makes it difficulty for units to hire their own staff who could be doing that work within those units themselves, rather than sending it all through Ayres for approval. Rather than funneling every last item through Ayres for approval and delaying imporant processes, a new divisional structure could provide 1) support for neccesary staffing at the departmental/unit level and 2) responses that are more timely and more aware of the specific needs and operations of each department."
Rationale: we need to increase efficient use of private funds. Donors give dollars to be spent on students, faculty, and programs.
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4. What steps could the divisions’ leadership take to foster collaborations both within and across the divisions?
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5. What are the success metrics that we should use to evaluate the divisional structure pilot?Faculty & staff satisfaction/feedback and retention
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Other question or Feedback
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Other question or FeedbackAny new supervisional positions must be supported by the addition of appropriate staffThis is absolutely vital - support staff positions (financial, communications, HR, advising, etc.) in CAS are already stretched thin, and any divisional restructuring must provide sufficient support for units across all subdivisions of the College.
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Other question or FeedbackHow are funds/resources going to be fairly distributed across the new divisions of the College?
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5. What are the success metrics that we should use to evaluate the divisional structure pilot?First: As many noted at various "listening" sessions, we need more staff... Everywhere, so hopefully this new structure can help identify which staff positions need to be filled first and how many new staff positions need to be added--and they need to be paid reasonably (better than they are now for certain). Note: we need staff, not more administrators. The University has too many (and they are paid too much) already. Second: perhaps another metric should be advocacy--will the new arrangements mean that each division will be better positioned to get the resources it needs--notably offices for those displaced by the Business College takeover; classrooms for everyone; etc.Fair (i.e. better) pay for these staff positions is key to avoiding frequent turnover and loss of institutional knowledge.
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Other question or FeedbackWill the budget numbers will broken down to the divisional level? The Chancellor and Provost both attempted to "sell" breaking up CAS by showing some very suspect (to say the least) budget numbers to the Natural Sciences and Math. It would be salutary for everyone to see actual numbers not ones that seem to make the Humanities and Social Sciences look bad on purposeCan we see the hard budget info? It seems counter productive to answer 'soft' questions without the data.
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Changes outside the college and divisions have the potential to affect us greatly, such as the college of business changing its foreign language requirements. This division worries some that it could happen more.
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The divisional structure may be able to help give voice and vision, and publicity strategy toward the humanities.
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what sorts of controls will a divisional dean have over the new budget model? what discressions? where are their hands tied? Control over core components?
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Second Majors must get credit of some kind in the new budget model
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How will the new divisional structure affect enrollments and access to campus spaces (classrooms, offices, etc.)?Will the new divisional structure include a concrete plan for a new/renovated Humanities building to be constructed in the very near future? Such a building should be centrally located on campus as humanities faculty and students make frequent use of the library's resources, teach large numbers of students, etc. It should also be able to comfortably accommodate multiple departments and humanities-centered research centers (Humanities Center, Marco Institute, Center for TN and War, etc.). Will the new dean of Arts and Humanities commit to this goal?
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1. Think about the services that the College office provides faculty, staff, and students. Would any of these services or programs be more effectively provided at the divisional level? If so, which ones, and why?Support for funding applications could more effectively be managed at the divisional level. The processes and requirements for Humanities are so different from those of the Natural Sciences etc. that forcing everyone to use the same procedures, as the present system does, makes little sense and results in much wasted time. Reduce the load of wasted work for Humanities faculty and increase the number of applications we can submit.
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4. What steps could the divisions’ leadership take to foster collaborations both within and across the divisions?Right now, cooperation and collaboration is not rewarded or even acknowledged. Providing administrative guidelines for things like co-teaching could help support those that wish to do that, even within units but especially across.
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Other question or FeedbackHow are campus funding initiatives (i.e., the Technology Fee Advisory Board funding process) going to look in this new iteration of the College? Will departmental requests go directly to the Executive Dean's office for consideration as they have historically, will they first be vetted by the Divisional Dean's office before being sent to the Executive Dean's office, or will the Divisional Dean's office make the final recommendation that is sent directly to the campus funding authority?
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Other question or FeedbackWhat level of staff will come along with the divisions - what sort of communications staff will be included. As more and more marketing is being specific. We are understaffed due to underpaying staff. Commitment to higher salaries. Particularly the pay is a frustration.
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Other question or FeedbackCommon theme of administrators and pay for them - rather than staff.
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Other question or FeedbackBusiness managers - Ideally the college level would be divided but institutional knowledge is important - will we have a Jennifer and Stephanie in each division.
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Other question or FeedbackWill each division have office space separate from departments?
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Other question or FeedbackDocusign - college should add to streamline - Course banking - not a good way to sign -
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Other question or FeedbackConcerns about Bam budget model.
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Other question or FeedbackPromised melrose 10 years ago - and still no movement.
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Other question or FeedbackRecommendation of staff members - told to make due with what we have.
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Other question or FeedbackAnother concern for external departments who make decisions base on our needs and requirements.
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Other question or FeedbackAnother comment about salaries of staff. Salaries haven’t grown compared to hours - especially as more and more is asked of each department.
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Other question or FeedbackMorale is low - we have lost lots of good people. We will lose more. Losing institutional knowledge.
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Other question or FeedbackMore and more is being thrown on the business managers and staff.
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Other question or FeedbackChallenges with Concur and Interfolio.
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Other question or FeedbackCommunication from college is lacking - process changes are making things worse
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Other question or FeedbackWe need time to train -
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Other question or FeedbackCommunication needs to be clear for success. Less scrambling - Less surprise.
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Other question or FeedbackStaff aren’t getting a break. -
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2. Is something missing from these services and programs? Would this gap be better filled at the College level or at the divisional level?Have a lot of staff turnover in certain units, since staff are frequently poached by other units; creates a chaotic atmosphere in trying to manage operations, particularly for business managers; will there be additional College shared services to help support understaffed departmental offices; will there be some information that will help others know who to contact for particular functions, like travel processeing, etc. Also a concern that staff salaries be competitive for staff retention.
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3. How could a divisional structure improve support for faculty, staff, and students?One option would be to have shared services at the divisional level to help if a particular department is overloaded in one particular area or at least a division person who could advise or move things along the workflow. Havin additional staff at the divisional level (rather than at the executive level) will have a better understanding of what Humanities and Arts need and prevent smaller units from being ignored. Business managers might be more effective if we have a divisional business manager to reduce the amount of work at the executive level. Also, would benefit from having a divisional HR specialist who can help move employee issues along more quickly, particularly for staff hires. Also noted that for fuctions that must be done by most departments around the same time of year, like graduate fee waivers, it may help to have divisional staff who can focus on the Arts and Humanities departments. These departments sometimes seem to be overlooked when they are competing for processing time and workflow with all the CAS departments at the same time.
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2. Is something missing from these services and programs? Would this gap be better filled at the College level or at the divisional level?Help with implementing new information systems, protocols, etc. would be best supported through the executive level in the college, since these programs will impact all of the deparments. We do need personnel who would be tasked with supporting the departments with Dash, etc.
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Other question or FeedbackThere is considerable anxiety about how the BAM formula might be applied by the Divisional Deans to the individual departments within their division
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3. How could a divisional structure improve support for faculty, staff, and students?In current strucutre, it is very difficult to coordinate with facilities; the communication route is very convoluted; not always clear who you call in facilities; would be great to have a facilities and compliance liaison at the divisional level who can improve coordination with Facilities, focus on the buildings in which A and H departments are housed. Currently no communication when Facilities changes personnell and building assignments
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Other question or FeedbackNeed to make sure that we consider processes and policies not just the number of personnell. If we add more personnell without reconsideration processes and policies, we could actually end up with more complicated and circuitous processes that make it harder to execute, while spending valuable resources on additional costs.
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Other question or FeedbackNot clear how internal communications from the deans to the departments might work; is it possible to remain consistent across the different divisional deans? A divisional structure might also improve communications by improving the ratio of administration to departments who can focus on communicating new university policies, etc. Some of these improvements could come from improving processes rather than a divisional structure, but a new divisional structure is a good opportunity to try to improve internal communciations
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Other question or FeedbackHow would the divisional leadership and the executive leadership be housed?
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Other question or FeedbackHow are employees affected by the change who are in non-academic positions and aren't research or admin specialist staff, like techs
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Other question or FeedbackRestructuring always creates a high level of anxiety, so the sooner we have additional information and reassurances for the staff, the less staff retention will be an issue during this time of transition. University also needs to clearly communicate to the staff what benefits come from the divisional model. Don't want the administation to think that staff are uninterested in participating. They are still processing what this new system might look like and what questions to ask.
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Other question or FeedbackStill some questions from staff about how the basic divisional structure works and who will be in leadership
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5. What are the success metrics that we should use to evaluate the divisional structure pilot?Funding for the work of departments after two years and how changes to funding can impact the work of departments; changes in enrollment tied to the new structure; staff retention that can be tied to divisional structure; workflow (how many days it takes to move through workflow); financial allotments;
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