March 7, 2025
Dear Academic Affairs Faculty and Staff,
Thank you again for the engagement and feedback you provided over the past few months on restructuring our degree-granting colleges. As we move forward in our Transformation 2028 initiative, we now turn to explore how we can improve efficiencies and reduce administrative costs of the major non-degree granting units housed within Academic Affairs. ºÚÁÏÍø has three non-degree granting colleges: University College, the Graduate College, and the Honors College that provide services related to recruitment, admissions, advising, curriculum, and student success. Further, the Office of Global Education (OGE), while different in current structure, has similar functions to these colleges.
For this phase of Transformation 2028, I am asking for your feedback regarding how we can reduce our costs related to these four academic entities by reorganizing them into fewer administrative units, reducing redundancies, and streamlining processes while also enhancing students’ opportunities and experiences.
While Honors, University, and Graduate Colleges and the Office of Global Education each have a unique history and mission, they offer many services and functions - including student success programs, curricular support, advising, engagement, and recruitment/admissions. A broad rethink of how we perform these functions can not only bring greater efficiency, but more alignment and equity of the student experience, as well as more access to and engagement in currently self-contained programs. For instance:
- Admissions and advisement are critical to student success, but the time of year that these services are most needed currently varies from unit to unit. By cross-training staff across these different areas, we can assign them to where they are needed most at any given time. This will reduce wait time and increase students' opportunities for timely responses.
- All units focus on student engagement and success, from on-campus academic support programming, to career exploration and development, to extracurricular engagement and global education. By bringing these programs together under a broader structure, it will be easier and more efficient to communicate, engage, and facilitate such opportunities.
Restructuring and consolidating some of these roles and responsibilities will allow us to reduce administrative costs and redundancies while ensuring that the essential services these academic colleges and programs provide to our mission are delivered more broadly and effectively.
On the , you will find two different possibilities for reorganization of these four units. As I did with the degree-granting colleges, I will read and consider all of your recommendations and will return to you for consultation throughout the process for determining our best way forward. Once a final reorganization model is determined and implemented, further assessments will be conducted to ensure that the functions these units provide to the university continue to be robust and effective.
It is important to note that the models presented are reconfigurations of services and functions (e.g., marketing, advising, course scheduling) that are currently housed in these four units (Honors College, Graduate College, University College, and the Office of Global Education). That is, this model does not address these services and functions (e.g., marketing, advising, course scheduling) for the rest of the university.
Please comment on these proposed models. Our is now open on our website, and I encourage you to provide your thoughts on these structures, and suggest other ways we can reduce costs and increase revenue in Academic Affairs. The Honors College, Graduate College, and University College CACs will deliberate on these models and provide feedback to me, and I invite all other CACs to do the same. Please submit your feedback by March 24, 2024. Our goal is to propose a model to Faculty Senate in April.
As we move forward, we will continue to identify opportunities for a more efficient infrastructure across Academic Affairs, including the Office of the Provost and the other shared services housed within our unit, such as University Libraries and Kent State Online.
Thank you again for your participation in this important work to date. Your input continues to remain critical to this process, so please let me know your thoughts.
All my best,
Melody
Melody Tankersley, PhD
Executive Vice President and Provost
Division of Academic Affairs