Staff editorial: The urge to merge

These are not happy times in the Main Administration Building. Administrators, we see you’re in a tight spot. There were hundreds of students protesting the dismissal of Associate Provost for Equity and Diversity Cordell Black outside your window Thursday. A third multi-million-dollar budget reduction, likely to be finalized sometime this month, looms over every decision you make. You have to somehow reduce costs, maintain a quality educational experience, and avoid infuriating students and faculty.

You don’t have many attractive options. But one proposal being floated by university officials could consolidate costs without great sacrifices if implemented carefully. Administrators are considering merging various departments and colleges. The biggest change would be to combine the chemical and life sciences college and the computer, mathematical and physical sciences college. While budget considerations aren’t the direct cause of this move — the deans want their faculty to work across disciplines more — there would be some financial benefits.

Two other proposed mergers are being driven totally by cost concerns. The first would be to combine some of the campus’ various “diversity” departments, like African-American, Women’s and LGBT studies, under one roof. The second would be to merge the classics department into either the English department or the  languages, literatures, and cultures school, which are all departments within the arts and humanities college. In all of these cases, administrators say major requirements wouldn’t change, the faculty would remain intact and department funding would be unchanged.

With one merged diversity program, the majors would remain the same and the faculty would be left intact, but a much smaller staff for a fraction of the original costs would accomplish the administrative tasks.

Certainly this plan concerns some students and faculty who worry that merging departments could lead to reduced funding for these fields. The solution for this is for officials to promise that the consolidation, and any cuts, will be administrative, not academic. Courses should not be cut any more than would otherwise be necessary due to the budget cuts, and the reductions in services should focus on staff members and administrators, not on professors and students.

Additionally, those taking over the expanded administrative roles should be familiar with all of the departments under their new umbrella. And future funding to all those departments under the broader umbrella should remain the same.

Many fear changes like these. They see a step like this as a slippery slope toward more severe budget cuts and layoffs. But after Thursday’s protest, it is clear that students do care about who is teaching them in the classroom. If departments do merge, administrators would be wise to ensure no area of study is short-changed or negatively affected by a plan that should benefit the university as a whole.

In a perfect world, each department would act on its own without having to deal with tight budgets or too many faculty members. Unfortunately, as long as the university is forced to make amends for a reduced budget, administrators will have to make unpopular decisions.

No matter how large the protest or the outcry, some programs and jobs will be cut. A failure to do so is unrealistic and dangerous to the success of the university.

But by instituting smart plans that could reduce costs while maintaining the integrity of separate areas of study, administrators could do much to help their budgetary woes.

Merging departments is a step in the right direction but only if done properly. And it is up to administrators to tread carefully.