Reorganization at the University of Toledo has mergers on the roster

Several of the University of Toledo’s colleges may be merging together next year to form new and fewer colleges.

The colleges which are confirmed to be merging are the College of Social Justice and Human Services with the College of Health Sciences, and the College of Adult and Lifelong Learning with YouCollege.

The College of Communication and the Arts may also be merging with the College of Languages, Literature and Social Sciences, but the decision has not yet been finalized

John Barrett, interim provost and executive vice pesident for Academic Affairs, said the mergers are being planned because President Sharon Gaber wanted to cut down on administrative cost. In 2012, the deans of these colleges cumulatively made $1,134,117.66 according the Toledo Blade’s salary database.

“If you look at President Gaber’s five big agenda items, one of them is to combat administrative bloat to keep expenses to the minimum so we have money to invest in things like faculty and classrooms or so we don’t have to raise tuition,” Barrett said. “So saving money is one of the reasons to do this.”

Christopher Ingersoll, dean of the College of Health Sciences, said the merger makes sense because there are many similarities between the CHS and the CSJHS.

“Health Sciences and the College of Social Justice and Human Services were together in a college previously structured in the university,” Ingersoll said. “We are exploring putting those groups back together. We are trying to create an integration of the programs and try to get some synergies between the particular programs.”

Dennis Lettman, dean of the College of Adult and Lifelong Learning, said the merger between the CALL and YouCollege will create what will be known as University College.

“We used to have a University College here at UT five-plus years ago” Lettman said. “University College has been a part of UT since 1970, but it has taken different shapes and forms since that time, but it has always maintained a focus on serving adult and non-traditional students.”

Lettman said there has also been talk about adding the entire online learning operation into University College. These classes are appealing to adult and non-traditional students,who typically also work or only attend school part-time.

Barrett said the mergers will help cut the cost of administrators since some will no longer be needed, but the changes will not affect faculty.

“There is an administrative structure for each college that when you combine them it is more efficient and you don’t need all those same people involved,” Barrett said. “At the department level, they still need to be able to teach all their classes and keep all of their faculty.”

Barrett also said the new organizational structure of the colleges will be beneficial to the university because there will be fewer administrators and they will have more opportunities to collaborate with each other.

“Combining like-minded people into the same college means you have experts all talking together and then maybe that leads to new things,” Barrett said.

Ingersoll said he does not believe students will really see the changes since they will still be interacting with the same faculty. The only real difference would be the college would have a different name than the previous one.

Ingersoll also said the mergers are being planned in hopes of helping students and improving upon the programs already at UT.

“One of the guiding principles for us is we are examining this change so that we in no way negatively affect the educational programs and try to take every opportunity to try and enhance that to the extent that we can,” Ingersoll said. “That is one of the things we are thinking about with the new structure, how we can take our already good programs and try to make them better.”