Updates on the Academic Administrative Structure

Updates on the Academic Administrative Structure

Today’s topic is the ongoing discussion regarding the academic administrative structure.

Since last fall, at my request, the provosts and chief academic officer have been working on a revision to NOVA’s academic administrative structure that would address a number of outstanding issues:

• ongoing concerns about the last re-organization that were communicated to NOVA’s Advisory Board during the presidential search and to me in numerous forums since my arrival;
• requests from faculty, as articulated in the report of last year’s Academic Administration Work Group, for campus-based academic leadership from department chairs;
• the need to contain administrative expenditures across NOVA and direct more funds to hiring additional Teaching Faculty (almost 40 in the past semester) and other professionals who provide direct student support and services;
• challenges during the recent SACSCOC reaffirmation in explaining NOVA’s “pathways” model for curriculum/program organization, which led—in part—to a finding related to curriculum and program quality, integrity and review.

Throughout this review process, the provosts and CAO have engaged the college community via a ThoughtExchange that drew over 300 comments; meetings with stakeholder groups at every level and at every campus; meetings with College Senate; discussions and email exchanges with individual stakeholders and subgroups of stakeholders. They have received multiple position papers and proposals from deans and associate deans and convened a task force to consider the issue.

After reviewing the entirety of the feedback from the college community, which represented divergent and diverse viewpoints, the provosts and CAO have concluded that the majority of faculty and staff would prefer to retain the current academic administrative structure.

Thus, the recommendation is that NOVA make no changes to its academic administrative structure, and I have accepted this recommendation with the understanding that the college will continue to work to contain administrative costs and to place a priority on hiring faculty and staff who directly serve and support students. As context: NOVA currently funds more than 60 campus and central positions with academic administrative responsibilities at a budget of over $26M (approximately 10% of our overall budget).

Because of recent actions by VCCS, however, this decision on our internal organizational structure does not mean there will be no changes at all. VCCS recently approved the Recommendations of the Student Onboarding Redesign Initiative (December 2021) and standardized 12 “career pathways” that do not align with NOVA’s self-defined “pathways.”

The new VCCS career pathways are as follows: Agriculture; Arts and Communication; Business and Hospitality; Health Care; Logistics and Transportation; Advanced Manufacturing and Skilled Trades; College and University Transfer; Computer and Information Technology; Education; Personal Enrichment and Professional Development; Public Service and Safety; and Science, Math, and Engineering. The new career pathways are now the systemwide framework for organizing each college’s academic programming for students.

Most of the VCCS career pathways describe academic disciplines or discipline clusters, and as before at NOVA, oversight for these pathways will rest with Academic Deans, with the curriculum within the career pathways being the domain of Teaching Faculty. However, one career pathway, College and University Transfer, defines a broad college function that crosses all disciplines: transfer. Oversight for this career pathway will rest with Academic Affairs, which already manages transfer. (Non-credit offerings in all career pathways will continue to be managed through Workforce.)

With the academic reorganization question settled, the provosts and CAO will now focus on assigning responsibility for managing the discipline-based career pathways to the academic deans. Once this process is completed, the provosts and CAO will begin the search process for the vacant academic dean positions. These searches will be held this fall in advance of an anticipated January 2023 start for new hires.

During my Office Hour for faculty and staff (today at 3 p.m.), I will reflect on the process that got us here today and recommend a more formal and structured approach going forward, but knowing the great interest in this discussion, I wanted to share the academic administration decision with you this morning. I look forward to talking with you later this afternoon.