College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University

New Horizons

Report looks at what the future may hold for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
A little more than a year ago, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (LAS) was faced with its seventh budget cut in the last four years.

Most of the college's "fat" had long ago been cut and LAS Dean Michael Whiteford was looking at long-term solutions to budgetary problems facing not only the college, but also Iowa State University in general.

In response to those budget woes, Whiteford commissioned a Budget Advisory Group (BAG) to develop a coherent strategy to look at the ever decreasing finances.

After a year-long study, the 16-member committee has issued the "New Horizons Initiative," a report that addresses some of the budgetary challenges the college has faced over the past few years.

The committee consists of academic department chairs, faculty representatives from the college's Representative Assembly and members of the dean's staff. Paul Lasley, professor and chair of the Department of Sociology, chaired the committee.

"During the past four years, LAS has had seven budget cuts totaling almost $6 million, much of which came from discretionary dollars," Lasley said. "It was very clear that virtually no budget flexibility existed at the departmental levels and that departments over the years understandably were handling their reductions by taking the only possible route by eliminating open faculty lines.

"As a college, we are trying to do too many things with not enough resources," Lasley continued. "We need to bring resources and goals into alignment."

The "New Horizons Initiative" includes a series of suggestions, which will be discussed over the coming months by LAS faculty and staff.

Whiteford says that "New Horizons" is offered as a strategy to enhance excellence by maintaining and leveraging the strengths of the college and meet pressing teaching needs that are central to the college's mission.

"The initiative also strives to overcome weaknesses in several critical areas that have been caused by the continuous budget cuts the college has experienced as well as fund essential needs, such as faculty retention, partner accommodations, and faculty diversity," Whiteford said.

Suggestions that will be discussed in the coming months by LAS faculty and staff include:

*The college will recapture open faculty positions primarily through retirements and resignations and then reallocate them back to the departments. Those faculty positions will be reallocated to departments to build or strengthen excellence and will address pressing teaching needs.

* Departments within LAS will investigate faculty work loads.

*A review will be instituted of all existing majors and their requirements within LAS. Faculty will be asked whether some majors might be merged with other existing, related majors; which majors might be discontinued; how the requirements or specializations within majors might revised; and which prerequisites could be modified. Each of the 22 academic departments and one professional school in LAS will provide the college with a statement on curricular changes by March 15, 2005.

* "New Horizons" also suggests that LAS must look at the existing academic structure of the college. To initiate discussion within the academic departments, BAG suggested the following possibilities be considered:

*Create a Department of Rhetoric and Professional Communication (RPC) that would bring together faculty strength and the pertinent undergraduate and graduate courses in RPC, technical communication, speech communication and communication studies.

*The Department of English could be reorganized to focus on literature, classical studies, creative writing and English education.

* A Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics that would include language courses, the languages in the professions program, linguistics, TESOL, and applied linguistics.

* Rename the Department of Music to the Department of Music and Theatre to highlight the nature of that department's programs.

* Create a Center for American Intercultural Studies, which will be designed to explore the comparative multidisciplinary experiences and histories of Asian Americans, African Americans, Native Americans and U.S. Latino/as.

* Create a new Department of Anthropology and Global Cultures with faculty in the current Department of Anthropology and the programs of religious studies and cultural studies.

*Examine strategies for improving LAS students' first-year experience at Iowa State by designing a high-quality foundations year that will integrate orientation and academics to inspire continued intellectual development among the students.

"We see the possible outcomes of these initiatives as multiple and exciting," Whiteford said. "Ultimately, but not immediately, we expect that significant resources will be shared and redistributed on the basis of shared faculty, shared courses and shared majors."