Department Reorganization to Save Brockport $500,000

By: Siomara Germain

Changes are coming to The College at Brockport’s school system.

Jim Haynes, Ph.D., Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, announced that Brockport is reverting back to their old school system.

There are five schools on this campus: the School of Business Administration and Economics, the School of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, the School of Education and Human Services, the School of Health and Human Performance and the School of Science and Mathematics.

All the majors and minors at Brockport fall under the college’s five schools method.  For example, journalism, communication studies, English, anthropology, music, history and film studies majors all fall under the School of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. Majors like biology, chemistry, math, pre-med and computer science fall under the School of Science and Mathematics.

Prior to the five schools method that currently occupies this campus was the three schools method.  Haynes said the college will be switching back to the old ways: from five schools to three.

This new system will be done by combining some of the schools. However, according to Haynes, the deans and secretaries of the schools to be eliminated will not lose their jobs.

The three new schools that the college will have will be the School of Business, the School of Arts and Sciences, and the School of Education, Health and Human Services.

The School of Arts and Sciences will be a combination of the current School of the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and the current School of Science and Mathematics. This change will bring about some minor changes in major classification.  For example, Anthropology will be moving from the School of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences to the science unit of that school and the criminal justice department.

The general education classes that the students are required to take in order to graduate will, for the most part, be in one school.

The new School of Education, Health and Human Services will be a combination of the current Schools of Education and Human Services and the current School of Health and Human Performance.

The current School of Business will remain free standing because a lot has been invested into it. The School of Business contains some of the schools professional programs and currently has the accounting, public administration, business administration, economics, and finance departments.

Haynes said a lot of money will be saved with the new school system. The plan will save the college around $270,000 a year.

“In four years, we’ll have over a million dollars in savings,” Haynes said. “That money can be used for all kinds of initiatives.”

The plan will give the college the ability to invest in its future. The goal is to make education more efficient and to support students and faculty research with the money saved.

“Every dollar we don’t spend on unnecessary administrative overhead will be invested to benefit more important needs,” Haynes said.

About $250,000 has already been saved in the provost office. If one adds that amount to the $270,000 that the college will be able to save a year after combining the school, that’s over half a million dollars.

Changes are coming indeed, but great changes that will only benefit this institution.