Kent State University’s Faculty Senate Monday gave its blessing to the university to move forward with a plan to consolidate academic programs.
While the plan, called Transformation 2028, does not directly call for layoffs or programs to be eliminated, it does merge some colleges and schools. The university has previously said it needs to reduce expenses, and while the goal is to provide some cost savings, it's also meant to boost synergies between existing programs, officials said in recent interviews.
Melody Tankersley, executive vice president and provost, in an email to faculty this week said the “reality” is the university needs to reduce spending by at least $8 million annually in the academic affairs unit.
“The reconfiguration of these degree-granting colleges and their departments and schools is just the first step in realizing these savings, with the proposed realignment saving around $1.5 million in academic leadership costs,” she said.
The savings will result from cutting the number of deans, assistant deans and department chairs and directors from 78 to 48, according to a presentation on Transformation 2028 shared by the university. Staff who lose those positions but are also faculty will be allowed to return to faculty status. They will no longer recieve the additional pay associated with their leadership positions, the presentation explained.
Tracy Laux, chair of Kent State’s faculty senate, said in an interview before the faculty senate vote that programs being consolidated under one roof could be a good thing for both students and faculty.
“(This would) create certain synergies between academic programs academic departments that could work together that never worked together before, but would be beneficial to do so,” he explained. “And that started exciting people in the academic sector, more than the cost reduction part, of course.”
Laux said no majors are slated to disappear as a result of the consolidation; in fact, new classes or study opportunities could be created. For instance, she said, a video game design instructor working with a music instructor to create a course on video game music, for example.
As an example of what the reorganization could look like, the new "College of Architecture and Built Environments" and the "College of Arts, Design and Media" will each retain their own deans but will share “other academic leadership, administrative support and resources,” according to a copy of the university’s Transformation 2028 proposal. The College of Arts, Design and Media would be a new college resulting from merging most of the schools from the College of Communication and Information and schools from the College of the Arts, said Kent State Director of University Media Relations Emily Vincent. She added that all names are not final and will be determined later with input from faculty.
The proposal does not outline whether support staff or administrators will be laid off once the consolidation happens. University Communications & Marketing Assistant Vice President Eric Mansfield said the consolidation plan does call for fewer administrators in general, but it's "yet to be determined" if any layoffs will happen down the road because of it.
“It’s important to note that our enrollment is steady, our finances are steady,” Mansfield said. “These are the decisions that we can make now, good decisions, and not decisions made in crisis.”
Other colleges and universities across the region have sought to eliminate programs in addition to making job cuts, including Cleveland State University, Youngstown State University and the University of Akron.
Kevin West, associate provost for faculty affairs, said in a Jan. 30 interview that the Transformation 2028 plan will not result in eliminating programs.
"This is when we're asking the broader question, 'wouldn't it be great if these two academic units could work better together?'" West said.
The Kent State University Board of Trustees will vote on the Transformation 2028 plan during its March meeting. If approved, the plan would be implemented in phases and completed in 2028.
