94 ORGANIZING ACADEMIC COLLEGES: A GUIDE FOR DEANS • Reflecting upon why a new interdisciplinary institute (which includes an un- dergraduate program) has been successful, the dean stated: “A key part of how we structure the Institute is that we have Faculty Associates (who are voluntary from other departments) and we also have joint appointments, with half their line in the Institute and the other in a traditional department, since they have to hold a line in a traditional discipline. These people are the backbone of the Institute. Our goal with making joint appointments is that there should be no advantage or disadvantage to having a joint appointment.” • In describing what was important during a tumultuous period of reducing the number of colleges at her institution, which required many departments to be relocated, the dean recommended: Make sure that each dean has institutional data about each disci- pline, everything from average class size, credit hours generated, adjuncts versus FT – you need to know the data now before mak- ing changes. Make sure everyone has the data, otherwise you go on whatever your perceptions are – which may be outdated. Second, before you go through a lot of change, having that data will help people see the health of the institution, where the enrollments are, what’s not going so well – they can have views and conversations about it. The faculty and the chairs in your college need to under- stand the full picture. In short, deans are well served by starting any change process knowing the rules, procedures, and as much of the context as can be obtained. Syracuse University, for in- stance, has a governance document entitled Guidelines for Addressing Major Issues that is to be used when making significant organizational changes (see Appendix C). The University of Maryland Baltimore County established its Criteria and Process for For- mation of a School from an Existing Unit within a College at UMBC (Appendix D). The University of Arizona’s “Merger Guidelines (Phase 1 – Preliminary Discussions and Phase 2 – Implementation) provides detailed guidance for deans, directors, and department chairs who are considering merging any academic units (Appendix E). If deans do not have a specified change policy to follow, it is still advisable that they establish how the change process will play out. For instance, one dean who orchestrated a merger of two departments described the process he used: “I named a steering com- mittee to plan the merger, headed by one of my associate deans not in the department, to plan the mechanisms – new governance, P&T, etc., and it was a two-year process. Year 1: planning, Year 2: more planning and search for a new head.” In a different aspect of attending to the structural frame, the implications of change to reorganizing faculty work must be front and center once the process gets moving. Will the change involve: