Academic Affairs Office of the Senior Vice President

The U has ambitious goals for student success and research advancement. Achieving those goals will require investment in students, faculty and staff. Student investments include academic advising, student-facing communications, data infrastructure, first-year support, etc. Faculty and staff investments include wellbeing initiatives, research advancement, HR, IT, and fiscal services, among others. A more efficient organizational structure will allow the university to reallocate funds to these critical areas.

A more efficient organizational structure may also have direct impacts on our success. Efficient administrative systems can improve the speed and quality of services provided to students, such as admissions, financial aid, counseling and advising. This leads to a more positive student experience and can contribute to higher retention and graduation rates. Additionally, streamlined administrative processes can reduce the bureaucratic burden on faculty, giving them more time and resources to dedicate to teaching, research, and professional development, while providing staff with larger teams and communities of peers with which to collaborate. Finally, the project may identify opportunities to enhance faculty collaboration across the colleges. This might include, for example, creating interdisciplinary programs and teaching, advancing research by accessing previously unavailable extramural funding, and increasing the impact of high-profile projects through collaboration within interdisciplinary teams.

No, the aim of this project is not to merge colleges or schools. The process may ultimately yield that colleges and schools will share certain services or resources to expand and enhance access to them, but faculty and shared governance processes and policies will not change through this project; this includes faculty appointments; Retention, Promotion, and Tenure; Tenured Faculty Review; Career-line review, reappointment, and promotion; and annual review processes. Nor will curriculum management processes and policies be changed in this project.

Both. Effectiveness is the ability to choose and execute the right strategies to achieve desired goals. Efficiency, meanwhile, is the capability to perform those strategies with minimal duplication and maximum productivity. It is possible to be efficient at less impactful tasks or to achieve desired results but with considerable inefficiency. A central aspect of the University of Utah’s strategic plan will be to provide high-quality education efficiently and effectively. This project aims to align the university’s resources and organizational structure with its strategic goals.

Efficiency and effectiveness are inter-related concepts. Enhancing efficiency can directly contribute to our effectiveness. By streamlining processes and reducing duplication, for example, we can reallocate funds to areas that directly impact student success and research advancement. And, streamlined administrative processes can reduce the bureaucratic burden on department chairs, faculty and staff, giving them more time and resources to dedicate to student success efforts, teaching, research and professional development. Finally, efficient administrative systems can improve the speed and quality of services provided to students, such as admissions, financial aid, counseling and advising. This leads to a more positive student experience and can contribute to higher retention and graduation rates.

Administrative support, communications and marketing, event planning, facilities, fiscal management, human resources, IT support, scholarship administration, student services and wellbeing initiatives might be coordinated and aligned through this process, among other potential services.

Deans, their leadership teams, faculty and staff will all provide consultation in the process. Decision-makers will be the president and senior vice presidents, with approval from the board of trustees.