Position for budget and faculty records staffer

HR has posted an announcement for a budget and faculty records staff member. This person will work for COAS this fall, then move to one of the new colleges in January.
 
Here's the link: tinyurl.com/UWGbudgetrecords-job


As the job description says, this requires knowledge and interest in both budget and personnel functions. Good interpersonal skills will be even more important than with most jobs like this because of the challenges involved in helping get a new college off the ground. Those same challenges, though, could make the job more interesting. It should be interesting to work on starting something new.


Another job with the same description should be posted in the next few weeks, since each of the 3 colleges will need a budget/faculty records guru.

College names

The faculty in each of the new colleges were asked what they would like the name of their college to be, and the votes are in. In alphabetical order, the names they selected are:

• College of Arts and Humanities
   
• College of Science and Mathematics
   
• College of Social Sciences

These names will be included in the next task force recommendation. 

Comments on the 2nd recommendation

• Re IDS: Aran MacKinnon points out that "these programs belong neither practically or pedagogically in any one of the colleges or departments...This can all be worked out in an easier, practical way by simply creating a separate listing in the catalogue for the IDS programs that is not parsed out among or attached to any college."
  
  That makes sense to me. I'll check out whether that would be allowed. It's hard to think why it wouldn't be, but often policies are odd.
   
• Re scheduling of rooms: Can we put some kind of guidelines for departments early scheduling of rooms to prevent... small classes in [lecture halls]?"
  
  Good idea. We'll look into that.
  
• Re lecture halls: "What about TLC 1-200 and 203?"
  
  A sin of omission, which is to say, I screwed up and forgot to list them. They should be scheduled like the other lecture halls.There are probably others. Just let me know what's missing. I'll also check with Annette Pritchett in the COAS office.
  
• Staffing: this got the most heated reaction.
  
  Randy Hendrix sent me this summary of what the A&S chairs said about this:
  "Chairs at this morning’s Chairs Council meeting expressed a great deal of concern over the Task Force Recommendations for staffing the new colleges.  They urged a rewriting of the recommendation to argue that to meet RPG and other needs the three new dean’s offices need to be staffed on par with the dean’s offices of RCOB and COE.   They noted that it will be difficult to get all three specializations that Tim, Duane, and Denise currently bring to the office in any one person.   They worry about the Deans’ offices becoming black holes where important matters disappear or bottlenecks where important matters get slowed, and cripple the new colleges at the outset.  They question whether an interim Dean can make a successful case for additional staffing needs."
  
  Another chair made some specific suggestions:
  "I think your recommendation for staffing is going to put all 3 new colleges at a severe disadvantage. It looks like you are saying: 1 associate dean, and 2 other 'clerical' staff. That is probably less staff than the English dept. It is also much less than RCOB and COE.
  This plan also seems be contrary to the idea you mentioned that each new college, and its interim dean, may choose to use its staff resources in different ways. With such a minimal staff, there seems to be no flexibility to do this. I'm thinking, for example, that one college may want an Associate Dean for students and curriculum, an Associate Dean for Research and Grad studies, a budget person, and a 'part-time' assistant dean for budget matters (these are just hypothetical examples - not intended as real titles). With exactly 1 associate dean, 0 assistant deans, and only 2 'staff, I believe these new colleges will be unable to do anything more than just survive, and survival will even be in doubt."
  
  Those seem like reasonable arguments. Our charge is to recommend an initial structure that will get the new colleges off the ground, and to leave making the case for individual college needs up to the interim deans, as the other chair mentions. That's why we included the recommendation that the President and Provost should "consult with the interim deans to determine any additional staffing needs for their colleges.
  
  If a college needs additional staff members beyond the skeletal crew that it is our task to outline, its dean should have no trouble coming up with convincing evidence and metrics about RPG, grants, fund-raising, or whatever the needs may be. I expect that return-on-investment arguments would have the best reception, and making them should be no problem for a dean-ish type person.
   
• Randy also mentioned that the chairs want the task force "to address the cost of conducting the search for interim deans and interim associated deans internally.  They recommend we put in writing that departments that lose chairs and faculty in the process will have to be adequately compensated to meet class and other workload demands."
    
  Yep. We're working on that. I've met with Kimily Willingham and Lucretia Gibbs, and have exchanged emails with Liz Baker in Business and Finance.
  
• One chair asked about the next open meeting. We were waiting until the first hectic weeks of classes are over, so maybe week after next would be good. We also need to meet with the chairs again and with the department's budget managers. Let me know if you'd like a meeting with your department, unit, or group.

2nd recommendation; college names; budget consultant

• We've sent our second recommendation to Dr. Sethna and Dr. Hoff. It is available online at sites.google.com/site/andstaskforce/home/recommendations. Please post or email your comments and suggestions.
   
• A number of you have made suggestions to your chairs and to task force members about college names. There seems to be some consensus in the sciences, but there are several suggestions to consider in humanities and in social sciences. I'm going to email the chairs in each of the new colleges to ask them to work with the faculty of those colleges to make final decisions.
  
  Knowing the names of the colleges will not only be kind of nice, but will also make possible steps like updating Banner, creating budgetary accounts, and working with ITS.
   
• We're very relieved that Kimily Willingham, the former COAS budget person and current Department of English budget and personnel staffer, has agreed to consult with the task force on budget issues. Kimily knows COAS finances better than anyone, and will also be a help as we negotiate the thickets of policies and procedures. 

COAS budget data

We got some A&S budget data from Kimily Willingham in the dean's office. Check it out at sites.google.com/site/andstaskforce/home/documents. There are 2 spreadsheets attached at the bottom of the page:

• FY11COASBudgetOverview.pdf
•  FY11SummaryOfBudgetCommitments.pdf.

 After looking at the data and meeting with the chairs, our inclination is to

1. Allocate the committed money to the college of the department to which it is committed.
2. Divide the uncommitted funds equally between the 3 colleges.

What do you think of this idea?

Chairs' meeting tomorrow; interesting article

• The task force will meet the the A&S chairs at the dean's monthly chairs' meeting. I expect that the big topic will be budgets.
  
  
  • Liz Baker and Kimily are still working on the COAS budget sheets. We'll post summary data when it's available.
    
  
  
• The Chronicle has an interesting article this week entitled "Why Universities Reorganize." You may recognize UWG in much of what it says.
  chronicle.com/article/Why-Universities-Reorganize/123903/
  
• On a more personal note, thanks for all the encouraging and/or commiserating notes about our 1st recommendation and last week's COAS meeting.
  
  
  • Right after the meeting I was peeved with myself for not keeping the discussion more focused on the recommended college structure and makeup.
  • After thinking about it, it's probably better that I didn't do a better job of staying on task. It's more important to have people express their frustration, doubts, and opinions, even when - maybe especially when - they seem directed at me. I can learn a lot from those willing to point out my faults!

What we're doing now

• Now that our recommendation on the college structure and makeup has been accepted, we have a clearer direction on how to think about budgets, staffing, and scheduling processes.
   
• Interdisciplinary studies, discipline-specific writing, and shared facilities like the lecture halls don't belong to any one college, though, so are still toughies.
   
• It's good to see that the process for appointing interim deans is underway.
   
• Kimily in the Dean's office is organizing some budget data for us to post. I was a little surprised and disheartened to see how close to the bone they operate. The Dean's slush fund, if it exists, must be kept in a loose change wallet.