Click here to see a full list of planned department mergers.
ASU announced a $6 million cost-cutting plan last week that calls for combining departments and eliminating administrative positions starting next school year.
Mark Searle, ASU’s vice president for academic personnel, said he hopes the plan, which is designed to deal with cuts in state funding to universities, will help ASU avoid negative effects on students.
“These budget cuts will take the place of possible tuition increases,” Searle said.
While no faculty members will lose their jobs, two dean positions, 18 department chair positions and approximately 28 administrative and support positions will be eliminated. The faculty currently holding these positions will retain full-time status.
The plan calls for three sets of departments in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences to be combined into larger schools.
One proposed merger is a school of government, politics and global studies that combines the political science department and the School of Global Studies.
Some political science students said the merging of the two large groups of students might reduce the quality of their education in the program.
Political science senior Seth Borman is one of 74 members of the Facebook group “Save ASU’s Political Science Department.”
“ASU needs greater specialization, not less,” Borman wrote in an e-mail.
“The classes on hard security and conflict are always full and some of the best professors have moved on to other opportunities.”
The plan also proposes merging the West campus’s global-business programs with the W.P. Carey School of Business.
“It will provide high quality, nationally ranked programs to more students in more locations,” said Robert Mittelstaedt, dean of the business school.
After the planned merger, ASU would be able to offer Master of Business Administration programs at the West campus.
The plan also calls for a teacher education program at the Downtown Phoenix campus to combing with the College of Teacher Education and Leadership at the West campus.
“I think it shows strategic thinking on the university’s part,” said Mari Koerner, dean of the College of Teacher Education and Leadership. “Our programs will be strengthened by it.”
The third major aspect of the plan would spur the reorganization of the College of Technology and Innovation at the Polytechnic campus.
ASU officials said merging schools would not reduce academic programs. Since 2002, ASU has increased its academic programs from 273 to 331, established 16 new schools and launched 44 new academic centers and institutes, according to a press release.
Searle said the new plan would improve the quality of academic programs and better prepare students to enter the workforce.
“It’s better to cut the administration than the students,” Searle said.
Reach the reporter at jodi.cisman@asu.edu
