The College of Letters of Science administrative structure will be reorganized to create a single dean’s position, around July 1, 2016, campus leaders announced.

The L&S structure has been under discussion for the past several years. In January, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter appointed a work group that subsequently met 19 times, consulted with five distinguished colleagues from other institutions and produced a 20-page report recommending the appointment of a single dean to administer the college.

On June 11, Hexter sent a letter to faculty and staff in the college to announce that he and Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi had decided to move forward with the single-dean plan.

“Even as we celebrate the significant advances the divisions have made under the three-dean model, and especially as a result of the careful stewardship and superb leadership of those who have served as deans, we believe that the new organization will serve us more effectively given the current challenges and opportunities facing the campus, and higher education more broadly,” Hexter wrote.

Hexter had asked the work group to examine the possibility and advisability of different administrative arrangements, including the status quo, a unified college or a division of L&S into two or three colleges.

The work group's report cited concerns that a split would result in “significant additional administrative costs and redundancies as each college takes administrative and academic matters into its own hands,” and that “separate colleges would impair the ability to evolve structurally over time, whereas a college dean in a single college structure leaves greater flexibility to realign and develop divisions to best address changing needs over time.”

In addition, the work group voiced its belief that splitting L&S “would exacerbate, rather than diminish, the zero-sum conflicts” between divisions.

In recommending a single dean for the entire L&S college, the work group said this person must take on essential tasks that are neglected or ignored in the present model: top leadership internally and externally; and the shared functions that ought to reside at a central, college level.

The work group also stressed “that all the structures and operations that can, or potentially could, function well at the divisional level, and those for which proximity to the faculty is crucial, should be” handled at that level.

In detailing its recommendation, the work group said it sees “fundamental and pivotal differences" between its proposal and the college dean model that L&S moved away from nearly 20 years ago.

Hexter said many critical decisions lie ahead for the college’s successful evolution to a new administrative model. Toward that end, he announced the following next steps:

• Recruitment advisory committee — To be chaired by Julie Freischlag, vice chancellor, Human Health Sciences, and dean, School of Medicine. The other members will be appointed in September.

• Visioning committee — “The work group persuasively and eloquently highlighted the importance of the development of a vision for the College of Letters and Science at UC Davis, including a vision of the educational and intellectual values that it embodies.” Hexter said he will convene and charge this committee in September to engage faculty and other members of the college community for much of the entire academic year.

• Transition planning — “The advice of the work group in this regard is important, and we will work to design and set up a college infrastructure that will support faculty, students and staff appropriately and efficiently, in other words, absent ‘bloat.’”

Hexter’s letter also addressed resources, saying he would “develop a plan to provide the college the appropriate level and mode of resources with which, and investments by means of which, it can fulfill its College of Letters and Science mission under its new dean.”

“The chancellor and I want the College of Letters and Science, and all its constituent parts, to thrive and excel.”

Work Group on the Reorganization of L&S, with the provost's letter, the work group's report and other documents

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