Before the pandemic, university leadership considered ways to restructure Academic Affairs. As COVID-19 shook the foundations of universities and their communities went online, the plans for restructuring academic structures were put on hold. 

Three years after the resignation of Provost Debra Larson there were two interim provosts – President Steve Perez and Terence Lau. In January of 2024, Leslie Cornick stepped into the provost role with the charge of reimagining Academic Affairs.

During the pandemic, Chico State’s enrollment dropped by almost 5,000 students, Cornick said. Across the higher education landscape, universities put long-term strategizing on hold to address the problems that the pandemic caused. 

Cornick explained that during crises like the pandemic, administration needs to address the emergency and maintain the strategic direction to keep the institution on track. Although it is a rational thing to do, Cornick said it does a disservice to the institution.  

“… eventually you’re going to come out of the crisis, and if you come out of the crisis and now you’re three years, five years behind in your strategy, it’s really hard to catch up,” Cornick said. 

According to Cornick, she arrived on campus, in part, to reimagine Academic Affairs. This reimagining initiative was expedited to catch up on lost time caused by the pandemic. 

Phase one

In late August 2024, a charge letter from the provost office was sent to a 19-member Special Action Team composed of three students and 16 faculty and staff members. The letter explained their task to develop two to three recommendations for the restructuring using information gathered from campus engagement outreach initiatives.

Members of this SAT were nominated by other faculty and staff and received a stipend, however the three student members did not receive financial compensation for their work and time according to SAT member Nathaniel Heggins Bryant, an associate professor in the English Department and President of the California Faculty Association’s Chico Chapter.  

Early in the 2024 fall semester, the SAT met weekly to discuss key considerations, focus areas, consultation plans and deliverables for reshaping Academic Affairs. 

In September 2024, the SAT, Cornick and the EAB – an outside consulting firm that had previously worked with 2,100 schools – met to create a plan and decide on key considerations. 

The SAT then went on to meet weekly for two hours every Friday for the rest of the semester. The SAT sifted into four subgroup committees including research, campus engagement, analytics and recommendations. 

Through the campus engagement subcommittee’s findings, they recognized a trend in the campus community of a feeling of a lack of trust and transparency for the restructuring process according to appendix F of the SAT report. Along with this, some members of the engagement subcommittee detailed frustrations with the vagueness of the provost’s charge letter. 

The charge letter did not mention any budgetary reason for the reimagining, but an anonymous SAT member shared that their goals as outlined in the charge letter were too vague, and the EAB’s work seemed to be focused solely on efficiency and cost-cutting. 

Throughout October and November, the SAT held listening sessions and surveys to gather input from the Chico State community. Surveys were sent throughout campus and posted online. 

In the 102-page recommendation report presented to the provost in December, the SAT recognized the students’ lack of participation and the limited staff representation, claiming insufficient time due to the December deadline.

The SAT released its recommendations and their rationale for the reimagining in December. These recommendations included: 

• The formation of a college centered around agriculture, natural science and the environment. 
• The formation of a college centered around health, well-being and human services
• Departments should self-select into college affiliations, given that structural recommendations are implemented
• The formation of an interdisciplinary support unit to aid faculty, staff and other programs in each college.
• More inclusion of student engagement and staff consultation in future phases. 
• Communications of specific restructuring plans should include projections of workload, cost and the effect on students, staff and faculty.
• Using Google’s NotebookLM, the SAT identified five key considerations to a successful restructuring as viewed by the campus community:
  • Transparency and Communication 
  • Shared Governance 
  • Equity and Fairness
  • Student-Centeredness 
  • Strategic Alignment 

Phase two

In February, round one of phase two invited students, faculty, staff and community partners to give feedback of the three academic structure models and two academic affair models, through expos and surveys, according to the reimagining Academic Affairs website.

• Feb. 11, 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. at Selvester’s 100
• Feb. 18, 1-2:30 p.m. at Selvester’s 100
• Feb. 24, 1-2 p.m. at Selvester’s 100 – Students only
• Feb. 24, 2-3:30 p.m. at Selvester’s 100

Although student engagement was low during the fall, more students became aware of the restructuring. During the student-only expo, they shared their concerns with the provost about the models and the transparency within the student community. 

Last Friday, emails circulated through the faculty from nine faculty members of the SAT criticizing the models presented. 

Before the email was sent out, a copy was sent to the provost and a member of the provost office and “go between” for the office and SAT, Holly Fergerson, as a courtesy for the sake of transparency. After a few hours the emails were sent to Chris Nichols, the chair of chairs. Bryant asked Nichols if he could send it to the department chairs and later those chairs to further send the email along to faculty. 

These emails were signed by nine members of the SAT and do not represent the viewpoint of the SAT as a whole.

Their concerns included:

• Neglecting themes and groupings of fields such as humanities and sciences
• Perpetuating existing inequities in models one and two
• Consolidating the colleges to four or five, which would increase workload burdens and process challenges
• Lack of evidence that these models, which have worked at smaller universities, would be effective for a university of Chico State’s size 
• Lack of transparency on how the models were developed and the information that went into them

Bryant shared his insight from his perspective on why the email was necessary. 

“We felt it kind of a personal sense of responsibility to one, ask our questions, but our questions dramatically overlap with the questions that we were getting from colleagues and people who were concerned when they, you know, participated with us last semester, understood what we did, read our report, and then showed up to the first expo or listening session and looked around and didn’t see anything that remotely looked like what we had done or recommended.” Bryant said. 

Cornick acknowledged that although they intended to have students participate in this process from the beginning, they were less effective than expected in getting information to them. 

“I think the way that I would describe it is that we really thought that the messaging around wanting students to participate in this process was getting really more directly out to students than what it turned out to be,” Cornick said.

The feedback for the first round in phase two will close on Friday. Cornick said she will personally read all of the feedback received before synthesizing the data with the help of an artificial intelligence software. 

The models have faced criticism by community members and some on the SAT for not affording people with the necessary information to give adequate feedback. 

“I showed up expecting that the first listening session would be a listening session where we would have some explanation for the models before we would be asked to provide feedback,” Bryant said. He later clarified that he can understand the format that they have chosen. 

“It’s not very often that students have an opportunity to literally participate in reshaping the institution that is going to be their alma mater,” Cornick said. 

Round two begins with a Town Hall on Monday from 2-3:30 p.m. at Selvester’s 100. Following the Town Hall, the provost along with the Provost Advisory Council will meet Tuesday to look at feedback and “distill” to two models. 

The two models will then face more feedback from the community at Selvester’s 100:

• March 10, 10-11 a.m. – Students only
• March 10, 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. 
• March 11, 2:30-4 p.m.

After the final expo and feedback closes, the provost will “distill” the two models down to one proposal. She will then present it to key leadership teams including:

• Provost Advisory Council
• Academic Senate Executive Committee
• Academic Affairs Budget Council
• Chairs Council
• PAC+
• Chico State President Steve Perez and his Cabinet

In adherence with shared governance, the provost will ask for support on the proposal from the leadership teams. However, only Perez can veto the proposal entirely. 

Once support for the proposal makes it through the leadership teams, it will be voted on by the Academic Senate. Once approved, the proposal will begin to be implemented throughout the university. 

Moving forward

The implementation phase will occur approximately until the end of the 2025-2026 academic year. Some components will be implemented quickly, but others will roll out more slowly. 

Cornick said she expects $1-2 million off of the university’s structural budget each year, following the implementation of the reimagining. 

Chris Hutton and Nadia Hill can be reached at orionmanagingeditor@gmail.com