Assessment of UEAAC Recommendation #2: Merge the College of Graduate and Continuing Education With the Day School

This report assesses the implementation of UEAAC Recommendation 2 and provides recommendations based on this assessment. The work was completed in the summer of 2023 by Kimberly Tobin, PhD and Robert Hayes, PhD.

Recommendation 1: Reimagining Instructional Academic Affairs and the College Structure.

In order to maintain the benefits of a college structure while reducing its operating costs, we recommend transitioning to a school structure headed by faculty administrators/leads instead of college deans. To address administrative inefficiencies, we also recommend eliminating the Dean of Faculty and Dean of Undergraduate Studies positions, an creating an Associate Provost position.

Current Status: UEAAC work completed; Implementation by Academic Affairs completed

Recommendation 2: Merge the College of Graduate and Continuing Education with the Day School.

Substantial overlap in roles and responsibilities exist between CGCE and the Day School, creating unnecessary additional costs and inefficiencies in delivering services to our students. Merging CGCE with the Day School provides significant cost-savings by incorporating staff into vacant positions, reducing administrative positions, coordinating course scheduling and enrollment, and by introducing zero-based budgeting, and correcting the price of graduate programs.

Current Status: UEAAC work completed. Academic Affairs implementation completed as of December 2022. The implementation was assessed in the summer of 2023; the full text of that report is available at the top of this page and linked below.

Recommendation 3: Reimagining Instructional Delivery and Support of Our Students: Curriculum Innovation.

Significant costs to our institution result from inefficiently populating courses and overusing APRs because they increase the need for adjuncts. To lessen the need for adjuncts, we recommend reducing core requirements, decreasing non-contractual APRs, freezing faculty hiring for FY22 and FY23 (with some exceptions), and reviewing curriculum for more efficiency in course offerings. We also expect a reduction in adjuncts by merging CGCE with the Day School (Recommendation 2).

Current Status: UEAAC work completed. Academic Affairs implementation completed.

Recommendation 4: Centralize and Invest in Information Technology as the Cornerstone of Longevity and Institutional Success.

Given that technology is integral to improving service- and task- efficiencies, yet technology has significant costs, we recommend assessing technological inefficiencies on campus and centralizing all technology functions into one department to provide seamless support for the entire WSU community. We also recommend developing a comprehensive strategic technology plan, advised by a campus-wide technology advisory council, to ensure continued attention to cost-efficiency and responsiveness to campus needs.

Current Status: UEAAC work completed. Merge of OIT/CIT completed. Roadmap completed. Further implementation rests with OIT.

Recommendation 5: Create a Division of Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) lead by a Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) who reports directly to the President and sits on the President’s Council.

To fully realize a comprehensive equity agenda, we recommend prioritizing the creation of a Chief Diversity Officer position at the cabinet/council level who would report directly to the President. This person will oversee a new Division of Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) to pursue grants and other resources for WSU’s equity agenda and connect with all divisions to help plan and evaluate the inclusion of JEDI in all facets of our institution.

Current Status: UEAAC work completed. Vice President of Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion hiring completed; further implementation rests with JEDI office.

Recommendation 6: Rebrand and Realign Human Resources into Employee Development and Support with a Focus on Training, Professional Development and Onboarding.

Creation of the Chief Diversity Officer (Recommendation 5) allows Human Resources to focus on faculty, librarian, and staff development and support. The goal of this renewed attention to employee support is to enhance employee happiness, reduce stress, and promote positive attitudes allowing for growth and improved productivity.

Current Status: UEAAC work completed. Human Resources implementation is ongoing.

Recommendation 7: Reimagining How We Provide Services to Our Students.

We recommend combining the divisions of Academic Affairs, Enrollment Management, and Student Affairs into one division, under the leadership of the Vice President of Academic Affairs/Provost. This flatter structure allows for more nimble responses to shifting markets, is consistent with industry best-practices and administrative trends that sees closer ties between student services and academics with fewer administrative barriers.

Current Status: UEAAC work completed. The recommendation is currently under review by the Office of the President.

Recommendation 8: Update the Current WSU Organizational Structure Creating an Expandable and Contractable Framework that Aligns with Enrollment Growth and Decline.

A review of best-practices and consideration of ways to be flexible in response to enrollment growth and decline, we recommend a merger from five to two divisions. Academic and Student Affairs (student facing) and Administration and Finance (institutional infrastructure and support). The current organizational chart is updated to showcase this recommendation.

Current Status: UEAAC work completed. The recommendation is currently under review by the Office of the President.

Recommendation 9: Creating a Transparent Leadership Culture and an Operating Structure that Exemplifies Shared Governance.

To improve our leadership culture, we recommend the creation of a President’s Council that engages in ongoing, frequent communication with all facets of the institution. We envision the President’s council will initiate a shared governance model for decision making, establish greater level of trust in leadership, and facilitate effective and transparent communication at all levels.

Current Status: UEAAC work completed. Office of the President completed implementation.

Recommendation 10: Enrollment Management: A Critical Component for Westfield State University’s Future Success.

We recommend Enrollment Management (Admissions, Financial Aid, and part of Marketing) be moved to a newly created Academic and Student Affairs Division so that enrollment can more closely align with academic departments. This transition would replace the VP of Enrollment Management Position with a Dean of Enrollment position, and will create an Enrollment Strategies Advisory Council to identify, review, and pursue enrollment strategies. This restructuring addresses concerns expressed by the WSU community that enrollment management has been disconnected from academic and student programs.

Current Status: UEAAC work complete. Recommendation passed to President's Office for further action and review. 

Recommendation 11: Retention – A Must for Our Success.

Within the Enrollment Management, we recommend creating an Office of Retention to pursue the development and assessment of campus engagement opportunities that promotes student success and retention. This office will serve as a primary resource for students on academic probation, those determined at-risk, students withdrawing from the University, and for readmitted students who left as a result of academic suspension or dismissal. Focusing on retention will promote student success and long-term institutional financial benefits.

Current Status: UEAAC work complete. Implementation work is ongoing in Academic Affairs.

Recommendation 12: Create a Branding, Communication, Marketing, and Public Relations unit.

We recommend a unit dedicated to branding, communication, marketing, and public relations. By consolidating expertise in these related areas, we can promote a more cohesive and comprehensive campus marketing plan, have a single unit that supports the entire institution, with the ultimate goal of communicating WSUs successes and improving student enrollment.

Current Status: UEAAC work complete. Recommendation passed to President's Office for further action and review. 

Recommendation 13: Examine the Structure of Institutional Advancement, Alumni Relations, and the Foundation.

We recommend expanding the Institutional Advancement (IA) division to unify the Career Center, Advancement, Alumni Relations, and the Westfield State Foundation, Inc. to strengthen both internal and external relationships and better coordinate fundraising and overall engagement. As part of this recommendation, we need to assess the organizational structure of IA to develop and implement a long-range plan for alumni engagement, repurpose the vacant Alumni Relations and Annual Fund positions with an internal candidate, and replace the VP of Institutional Advancement with a Chief Advancement Officer position, with an ultimate goal of increasing the net contribution to the University.

Current Status: UEAAC work complete. Recommendation passed to President's Office for further action and review. 

Recommendation 14: Consider the Creation of Dedicated Support to Strategic Initiatives and Risk Management.

Further investigation is needed to evaluate two areas that may require dedicated personnel – an Office of Strategic Initiatives, and an in-house General Counsel and Risk Management Unit. We anticipate these positions will address our lack of support for undertaking new or complex initiatives, and the significant costs associated of contracting external legal support.

Current Status: UEAAC work complete. Recommendation passed to President's Office for further action and review. 

Recommendation 15: Assess and Improve Health Services.

Given concerns with our current Health Services, such as limited accessibility and compliance with federal and state mandates, we recommend exploring two options: (1) maintain a University-run Health Services Department with increased use of human resources from Health Sciences, Nursing, and the Physician Assistant academic programs, or (2) outsource services, or partner with, local health care providers.

Recommendation 16: Assess Athletics.

Due to limitations in identifying criteria for establishing cost per student in athletics, and considering athletics serve a significant proportion of WSU students, we recommend a more exhaustive assessment of Athletics to identify areas for improved efficiencies.

Recommendation 17: Resource Allocation and Financial Planning.

To address limitations in our planning environment and tools to support it, we recommend creating a centralized Office of Budget and Fiscal Affairs. By consolidating expertise this team will take a data-informed approach to planning by developing cost benefit analysis, workforce planning procedures, key performance measures, new program development analysis, and by implementing Questica, a budgeting and planning software. Also, the recommended President’s Council (Recommendation 9) should be used to support campus resource allocation decisions and replace the existing Finance Cabinet.

Current Status: UEAAC work complete.  

Recommendation 18: Eliminate Facilities & Operations Cost Center Divide for Employee Payroll.

The separation of payroll between the University and Residential Housing Trust Fund make it challenging to know where the costs should be assigned when staff need to be moved between buildings or areas, limiting flow of staff. We therefore recommend realigning all maintainer and trades staff compensation to the Facilities and Operations payroll under the University operating budget.

Recommendation 19: Create an Efficient and Cost Focused Purchasing Structure.

We recommend creating a purchasing efficiency plan and process to improve campus efficiencies in the procurement of goods and services, align personnel and resources to the highest and best use, minimize paper-based systems, and move to electronic alternatives. In addition to improved job efficiencies, these changes will allow us to seek better pricing and bidding on major contacts and procurement.

Recommendation 20: Complete a New Campus-Wide Master Plan.

WSU needs an updated Master Plan in order to allocate space consistent with the programmatic needs of the campus. This plan will be informed by students, faculty, staff, and community to align facilities with the academic needs of the University. Ultimately this plan will reduce ad hoc moves of people and units, develop planned transition strategies to minimize costs, align resources for Capital spending with consideration for deferred maintenance, lessen the burden on operating departments, and eliminate temporary Mod Hall building.

Recommendation 21: Explore Revenue Generating Opportunities.

A pathway to bridging our structural deficit is to increase revenue. We compiled a list of many revenue-generating ideas and identified how they can be implemented, suggested a timeline for implementation, and estimated how much revenue they could generate.

NEXT STEPS: IMPLEMENTING THE RECOMMENDATIONS - UEAAC 2.0.

We believe UEAAC has provided an important model for collaboration, transparency, and shared responsibility, and so our final recommendation is to re-establish UEAAC in FY22 to oversee the implementation of our approved recommendations. This second iteration of UEAAC (UEAAC 2.0) should include several current UEAAC members along with new members, ensuring continuity and representation across all divisions and units.