How does restructuring address uneven workloads and resources?
One of the hallmarks of this restructuring is that it will better balance the sizes of the colleges and the resources committed to each. Right now there is tremendous variability. The number of faculty in the colleges and schools ranges from 16 to 209. There are 36 departments on campus ranging in size from four to 35 faculty. Five of NAU’s schools are smaller than the departments of English or biology, and 12 departments have eight or fewer faculty. We have to strike a better balance. Restructuring is about eliminating redundancies and taking advantage of economies of scale to better balance the workload. While the new structure should even out the overall college workloads, department or faculty workloads will be addressed through normal academic processes. NAU also has a new Committee on Faculty Effort and Expectations, headed by Laura Huenneke, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, that will work on defining faculty workloads.
