There are two open forums remaining with Michael Whiteford, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, regarding the Blue Sky Task Force report.

The forums were set up to discuss the report and other budget proposals made to help LAS be more efficient in both an academic and financial sense. The goal is to have an official proposal ready by Spring Break.

The report includes four models for how the humanities and social sciences aspects of LAS can be reorganized into departments, with various disciplinary programs falling into one of six departments.

The six departments are psychology and behavioral sciences; social sciences; journalism and mass communication; humanities; creative arts and design; and literature and languages. The first model is blank to provide an example of how the six departments can be organized.

The other three represent different versions of the task force’s best guess as to where the current departments and disciplines would fall. The models can be found here.

Blue Sky also recommended, when restructuring is completed, all undergraduate programs should be reviewed in order to highlight courses considered “conceptual and theoretical building blocks,” as well as advanced courses that “reflect the best of the discipline.”

The task force also recommended graduate programs be reviewed during the 2011-2012 academic year, using those reviews to decide whether programs should continue to be supported, enhanced, downsized, merged with other programs or eliminated entirely.

During the re-organization process, Blue Sky believes each of the newly created divisions, depending on the initial models, should create at least one new interdisciplinary program. These new programs, beyond the goal of financial and academic efficiency, will also help to “alleviate some of the concerns/anxieties for faculty in those departments where graduate programs may be discontinued as a result of the review,” according to the report.

The task force provided a list of examples for potential interdisciplinary programs, including media and society, health policy, international affairs, social development policy and program evaluation, research on science and technology, and public humanities.

The task force decided “money should follow the students,” meaning that each department or program should receive funding based on the revenue generated by the program or department in question. On top of that, the task force urged the university to look at the space needs for faculty and programs.

Beyond simply improving the quality of space, the task force said space should be found for interdisciplinary programs, with ways for faculty in each department to work in the same space in order to further enhance teaching synergies.

Two more open forums are planned in 302 Catt Hall:

• 11 a.m. to noon Friday, Jan. 28
• 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 1

Afterward, Whiteford said there is no definite next phase.

“We are collecting information and then I think we’re going to have to sit back and think about these suggestions we’ve received. Then we will get on how we will best prepare ourselves for future budget cuts, especially when so many units have so little flexibility,” Whiteford said. “We can’t just sit on our hands anymore.”

Whiteford said the suggestions made in these open forums will be summarized for the students and faculty unable to attend the sessions.

“Next week, we’ll summarize the notes we’re taking and I will put together something saying where we’ve evolved with [the suggestions made] and hopefully then we will have some idea of where we go from here,” Whiteford said.