Implementation of department mergers planned after fall budget cuts will take place over the next several months, a College of Liberal Arts and Sciences official said Monday.
An Arizona Board of Regents Committee approved the proposed budget cut of $6 million that involves combining academic units and cutting administrative positions Thursday as part of the budget reduction and efficiency actions plan.
Several colleges will see changes as a result of this budget cut, namely the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the W. P. Carey School of Business and the College of Public Programs.
Carol Hughes, spokeswoman for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, said three new schools will emerge as a result of this budget cut.
These schools will combine existing units in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences to make three larger schools.
The new academic units are a School of Government, Politics and Global Studies; a School of Social Transformation and a School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies.
“With the final approval from the ABOR and with the plans that have been reviewed by the faculty and college Senate, we are now at the implementation stage,” Hughes said. “The deans are counting on our faculty and steering committees to bring structure to the designs.”
Excitement lies in the possibility for new courses and degree programs, Hughes said.
“In each one of these cases it was a blending of current departments or the addition of something new. It is streamlining of administrative cost.”
Some students are split between the idea of merging academic units.
Global studies junior Cody Benally sees both the pros and cons of the merging of his School of Global Studies with the political science department.
“The merging of the two departments is a good idea because the two majors are similar in theory,” Benally said. “But a global studies major gets very particular about specific issues and political science is very broad.”
Benally thinks merging the two departments will open up a lot more professors to different ideas. The quality of education will broaden, he said.
In addition to the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the College of Design, the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, the College of Teacher Education and Leadership, the College of Public Programs and the College of Technology and Innovation will undergo changes due to the department merge and budget cut.
Schools are not only merging with other schools to become one, but some are moving to different campuses.
The School of Criminology and Criminal Justice will move from the West campus to the College of Public Programs on the Downtown Phoenix campus.
Reach the reporter at allison.carlin@asu.edu.
