In an effort to cut costs on deans and other administrators, San Francisco State University, one of 23 Cal State Universities, has closed two of its eight campus colleges.
After a faculty referendum approved the “academic unit reorganization” in April, SFSU closed their College of Creative Arts and College of Behavioral and Social Sciences July 1, without cutting degree programs those colleges offered.
Robert Corrigan, SFSU president, announced the decision to close the colleges in an April 15 email to faculty and staff.
He also announced that the university would consider department and program consolidation after the new six-college structure took effect in July.
Cal State Long Beach Provost Donald Para has never ruled out department consolidation at CSULB but he has said that he doesn’t expect dramatic changes in the structure of the university next semester.
“I don’t have any preconceived notions of how this is going to go,” he told College of Liberal Arts faculty in a May faculty council meeting, when asked about department consolidation and budget cuts. “But were going to have to look how to save some money.”
SFSU’s April referendum passed with a two-thirds vote and the entire process took over a year, including a similar referendum that was never adopted.
All eligible faculty members were sent an email ballot during the weeklong process and received the results via email on April 15.
The second referendum sprung from meetings with the campus community and involved feedback from different proposals.
“The ongoing discussion of reorganization, while spurred on by our fiscal realities, was sustained by our determination to maintain academic excellence — and our values — in the face of shrinking resources,” Corrigan said in the email.
The savings coming from the reorganization will be from cuts in administration, including having to pay fewer deans.
“This came from a long process looking for ways to function under current budget realities,” said Ellen Griffin, director of University Communications at SFSU.
The president and the provost at SFSU believe the change will directly address the University’s budget in a more efficient way than February’s failed referendum, she added.
Although some departments were relocated during the process, to date none were discontinued and all degrees previously available remain unchanged.
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