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February 5, 2025

Dear Academic Affairs Faculty and Staff,

Thank you for your considerable and thorough engagement in the Transformation 2028 (T28) process that has resulted in the proposed reconfiguration of the degree-granting colleges at the Kent Campus that I will recommend to Faculty Senate on February 10, 2025.  

Before I discuss the proposed model, I want to recognize the engagement and strategic intention around Transformation 2028. Thank you to the Faculty Senate Executive Committee for your involvement and advice from the inception of this process. Thank you to the Kent State United Faculty Association (formerly AAUP-KSU) for your efforts to ensure that CBA provisions would be honored in any reorganization. Thank you to all faculty and staff who supported this process in the T28 leadership team and subcommittees—thank you for all the hours you committed as representatives of your units. Thank you to every staff and faculty member who completed a T28 survey and all faculty who participated in a FAC or CAC discussion regarding T28. And thank you to the college leaders who, knowing their own positions were being reduced, put the needs of the students, faculty, staff, and university above their own as they considered best ways forward during this very difficult time. Thank you. 

The resulting model comes after more than six months of intense consultation and deliberation, including more than 7,300 survey responses, three separate meetings of each FAC and CAC in every college that created more than 210 consultation feedback documents—feedback that included official support as well as opposition. I cannot emphasize enough how important consultation has been, and will continue to be, throughout this process.

I have carefully considered all of the feedback provided throughout the process and contemplated various advantages and disadvantages to all potential configurations, seeking advice from our leadership teams in Academic Affairs and throughout the university. And while I would love to have a solution that everyone was excited about, the fact is there were no universally endorsed configurations of how our degree-granting colleges should be aligned moving forward. I heard from faculty who are excited about the possibilities of working across disciplines to create new opportunities in academic programing, research, and creative endeavors. I also heard criticism of both the process and the resulting proposals. I have taken all your feedback seriously and understand that both of these realities—excitement and opposition—are true in our community. Some departmental, school, or college realignments were  supported by all affected units. However, others were strongly opposed by most involved, while some were backed by one school, department, or college but not by others within a particular model. These varied responses were expected, and our approach—incorporating multiple representations to address as much feedback as possible—was designed to maximize consensus.

I did not initiate this project lightly. With so many of you involved throughout these past months, we courageously began this work focused on seeking efficiencies, reducing costs, and creating a more sustainable model for the Division of Academic Affairs. My goal has been, and continues to be, to create a model that can generate as much agreement as possible that addresses curricular synergy, provides opportunity for new programming, research and creativity, and results in meaningful financial reduction. Indeed, the reality is that we must significantly reduce overall spending in Academic Affairs by at least $8 million annually. 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 (see the for an overview of the calculations). We anticipate additional savings from a realignment of the non-degree granting colleges (i.e., Graduate, Honors, University) and the Office of Global Education, details of which will be released for your consultation in the near future.
 
The New Proposed Model 

I apologize for the length of this message, but I want to address much of the feedback/concerns received regarding not only the Gold+ model, but also received throughout the process. Our to T28 has been updated with the final proposed model and accompanying information relating to the model.

Concerns with Too Many Colleges and Deans
Some of you preferred the Gold model in round two of the process. In this new reconfiguration, we reflected on some of the opportunities identified by CACs and FACs during this process and have proposed a leaner model. This model reduces the College/Dean structure and brings Education and the Humanities together, along with the Sciences. If you recall, both Gold and Blue brought many of the humanities, communication, and education units together, which were described by some as an opportunity for collaboration across units to enhance students’ experiences and preparation as well as research opportunities among schools. By creating a College of Sciences, Education, and Humanities there is greater opportunity for such collaboration. 

Colleges without Dependent Departments
I also heard concerns about why colleges without dependent departments are not changing from colleges to independent schools. Making this change does not provide any financial advantages—independent schools are required by policy to have a dean. Moreover, changing from colleges to independent schools may actually have unintended consequences in being perceived by external partners as a demotion of status or a decline in quality. Therefore, the College of Nursing and the College of Architecture and Environmental Design retain their college status in this new model. Both of these colleges will still share academic leadership, staff, and resources with other affinity colleges, contributing to the overall savings of the model. 

Affinities between Shared Academic Leadership, Staff, and Resources
Many of you did not value or recognize the connection of shared leadership, staff, and resources between the College of Aeronautics and Engineering (CAE) and the College of Education, Health, and Human Services (EHHS). I have also received feedback from some within EHHS that not only did you not like the affinity placement of shared services with CAE, but you were also financially concerned with standing alone. In the new proposed model, I have created a College of Sciences, Education, and Humanities that will include three schools of EHHS. In several of the previous models, some FACs reported prospects for collaboration between these disciplines and I believe this organization will allow us to build opportunities. 

Opportunities for Collaboration 
All colleges will share some leadership, staff, and resources. It is important to note that each new structure has its’ own unique programmatic needs, so once a final model is decided upon, I will work with the deans to identify these opportunities which could differ across groupings. In this proposed model, the College of Aeronautics and Engineering will share academic leadership, staff, and resources with the College of Sciences, Education, and Humanities. The CAC of the College of Aeronautics and Engineering and some FACs within Arts and Sciences, such as Computer Science, identified many possible opportunities in curriculum and research among the sciences, therefore having some shared resources across these colleges could be quite advantageous. 

The College of Arts, Design, and Media combination meets the needs of T28’s purpose for greater collaboration and greater opportunities to enhance student experiences and strengthen these areas. Based on FACs’ feedback, there have been some minor tweaks to the college in the movement of some College of Communication and Information schools, by their request.

The Ambassador Crawford College of Business and Entrepreneurship (ACCBE) and the health-focused colleges will also share academic leadership, staff, and resources. In particular, the College of Public Health and ACCBE have strong online programming, and they will be able to work together to enhance their offerings and reduce redundancies. 

Desire for Movement of Programs
In this proposed model programs have intentionally not been listed. I recognize that some programs have indicated a desire to move to new homes (i.e., departments, schools, colleges). The T28 process does not preclude these future moves—the curricular actions required to propose such moves will continue to follow the established processes and faculty governance actions. I did, however, take into consideration that there are several programs interested in moving to the ACCBE and, therefore, retained the college as was noted in previous iterations in order to accommodate the future movement of programs. 

Concern over Workload for Chairs/Directors of Multiple Units
A theme throughout this process has been an overarching concern regarding the amount of workload put onto chairs/directors who will now be over multiple units. The School of Music and School of Theatre and Dance FACs, for example,  have reiterated their worry over how this is going to work, as have many other FACs. I hear you. Once a final model is decided upon, conversations with deans and chairs/directors will begin on how to assist areas in which more support may be needed because of these configurations. Just as we have gone through this consultation process, we will continue to have conversations on how to support our chairs and directors. 

There has also been considerable discussion about modifying some leadership contracts and making them less than 12-month appointments. This will continue to be examined and determined based on the needs of each department, school, or college.  

Names of Colleges
Many comments have been shared regarding the appropriateness of the drafted names of proposed colleges. Some have suggested that their discipline be included in the title for the college, for example. Once the final configurations are determined, faculty will have the opportunity to propose names for their colleges through the usual curricular processes. The names I have used are simply placeholders and were never meant to be finalized titles.

Please accept this document as the contractually required post-consultation notice and response to the FACs and CACs. This proposed model of the degree-granting colleges on the Kent campus is what I will present to the Faculty Senate on February 10, 2025. It is my hope that the Faculty Senate endorses this plan and provides substantive feedback before we present this to the Board of Trustees in March.  

I have heard from many of you about the commitment to see all possibilities that you and your colleagues approached in this process. I see that and I know you have. I appreciate your willingness to go the extra mile during this difficult time. We must all continue to contribute to the overall goal of the Transformation 2028 process—to positively strengthen the Division of Academic Affairs through strategic and sustainable reorganization, effective use of our financial and personnel resources, and the delivery of meaningful and desirable academic programs. 

I have faith in us. I believe in the unified power of our shared conviction that we are here for the greater good and in our steadfast actions to make our university strong now and for the future.

Thank you. 

All my best,

Melody 

Melody Tankersley, PhD
Executive Vice President and Provost
Division of Academic Affairs