Panel hears eight presentations, concludes meetings

By SUE WUETCHER
News Services Associate Editor

Ronald Berezney, professor and chair of the Department of Biological Sciences, presented on behalf of his department what some have called the "big science" proposal. Berezney advocated realigning the arts and sciences from the present three-faculty structure to a two-college model: a College of Science and a College of Arts, Humanities and Social Studies.

The College of Science would be comprised of basic sciences, such as biology, chemistry and physics; appropriate departments from the social sciences, such as Anthropology, Psychology and Communicative Disorders and Sciences, and basic science departments from the schools of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, Dental Medicine and Pharmacy. The remaining departments in Social Sciences would merge with the Faculty of Arts and Letters to form a College of Arts, Humanities and Social Studies.

Berezney acknowledged that since moving science departments out of the health-sciences schools would be a complex undertaking‹and Provost Thomas E. Headrick wants a new structure for the arts and sciences in place by Fall 1998‹a "modified" two-college model should be adopted that would immediately bring the science departments in social sciences and the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics into a College of Science. That college eventually could expand to include "increased interaction, in terms of research and teaching programs," with the health-science based science departments, he said.

Better organizational structure

Berezney said the two-college model would achieve a better organizational structure‹what he called the major reason for the reorganization‹by decreasing the number of decanal units from three to two. "And we would have something better, from an academic, programmatic point of view and research potential, than exists right now."

Stuart C. Shapiro, professor and chair of the Department of Computer Science, told the panel that his department would prefer to be part of a free-standing School of Computer and Information Sciences and Engineering. The school would be composed of his department, and faculty involved in computer engineering from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, information studies from the School of Information and Library Studies, management information systems from the School of Management, Geographic Information Systems from the Department of Geography and medical informatics from the health-science schools.

Strengthening connections

The creation of such a school would "strengthen, rather than erode," the numerous connections between computer science and other departments, Shapiro said.

James Whalen, professor and chair of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, advocated the creation of a College of Science and Engineering that would join natural sciences and mathematics with the School of Engineering. He also favored merging the departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Computer Science.

Other speakers at the hearing panel were:

- Irwin Guttman, professor and chair of the Department of Statistics in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, who urged that his department remain a department and be moved to the same school or college as the Department of Mathematics.

- William Baumer, professor of philosophy, who told the hearing panel he favors the creation of a College of Arts and Sciences and that Headrick should borrow from a national advertising campaign and "just do it." Headrick, he added, should appoint a senior faculty member as the dean of arts and sciences, effective July 1, "with all the powers and privileges" of the post, including budgetary power, to set up the college's administrative and faculty governance structures. The faculty member would serve for a three-year term, at which time a permanent dean would take over.

- Victor Doyno, professor of English, who said a merger of arts and letters and social sciences "will have a negative effect on the disciplines."

- William Fischer, vice provost for faculty development, who supported the creation of a College of Arts and Sciences with a resilient and flexible structure, "keyed to the over-arching breadth of its constituent disciplines/departments, rather than keyed to the old tripartite division of the former faculties."

- Peter Gold, associate dean of the Undergraduate College, who argued for a College of Arts and Sciences "because it will best provide the critical portions of undergraduate education‹general education and elective courses for non-majors‹that get too little attention and protection under the current structure."