terrapinsanity.com

When the ostensibly bottom-up (faculty driven) merger of the College of Chemical and Life Sciences with the College of Computer, Mathematical and Physical Sciences was broached a month ago (which is to say, the Provost and Deans started the top-down process of building consensus) it was expected that an announcement of the decision would roll out at the beginning of December.

Well?

Nothing from campus yet. The Diamondback has covered it and leadership in the respective colleges is known to have huddled in conference, trying to figure out (at behest of deans) how best to paint the picture of comity and support, which puts the best face on what may be coming anyway.

Silence is odd, and especially so from the students. How do they gain from the merger of these two colleges?

Undergraduates in CLFS may not have much to gain. True, a faculty-student ratio would seem to favor the other college (with more faculty and fewer students) but CMPS provides no college services for its majors. Nobody is talking implementation plans yet (probably they aren’t so that nobody will feel the burn and rise in opposition) but he known-high quality of advising and support provided in CLFS would likely become diluted once half again as many majors are spread across the same (or less) staff. (Less? This is at least a cost cutting measure after all.)

CMPS undergraduates don’t get much out of this either, at least not the best ones. Maybe average students will benefit from having access to the old CLFS advising team (presuming it is preserved in the union) but top students will see the research dollars, that support lab and scientific opportunies which get them access to top grad schools, spread over a bigger base. (As has been observed, the CMPS Physics department has a bigger budget than the whole of CLFS.)

Majors on south campus won’t get much out of this either. Using the official figures from IRPA, BSOS (College of Behavioral and Social Sciences) will remain king of the undergraduate hill (jam packed with 5500 majors) but a combined science college will then be the close second. If STARE (Students Taking Action to Reclaim Our Education) doesn’t like how BSOS plays second fiddle in the funding scheme, imagine what they get when they are close to playing second fiddle behind a newly minted all-science college, that leadership will look to for more national rankings and achievements – all of which take cash and expansion that could have gone to reducing the wait lists in BSOS courses to something manageable.

No administration can be faulted for dreaming big, but they can be criticized for losing sight of the art of the possible. Gen Ed refactoring, strategic plan reviews and now the merger are all examples of aggressive obligations to which we are driven by the Provost, but which because of haste and absence of serious thought (one of the few things a campus like ours can do well) remain muddled and on hold.