After 18 months of planning, the College of Human Sciences became official Friday, marking the first college combination at Iowa State.

Susan Carlson, associate provost, said more than 20 committees worked on putting all the information together for the combination proposal.

“We wanted to ensure better education for students and provide better resources for faculty,” Carlson said. “We wanted to be sure it was an open process and that people had input and knew what was going on.”

Pamela White, interim dean of the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, said people from across campus and the community participated on the committees.

“More than 150 people actually served on a committee leading up to the preparation of the proposal and the voting, and several people were on more than one committee,” White said. “The more inclusive and the broader base of people you can get input from, the better off you are going to be in the long run.”

White said everything went smoothly, partly because of the committees’ attention to detail.

“The committees were so careful to make sure that nothing was forgotten,” she said. “They also listed things they weren’t going to discuss just to make sure those tasks got assigned to somebody else. We tried to make sure we covered everything.”

There were two main motivations for the combination — financial status and changing disciplines, Carlson said.

“Ours was mainly motivated by financial reasons, to free up some money and hire new faculty, but both played a role,” she said. “We freed up about half a million dollars, but that money will now be put into new faculty positions and to help fund renovations for student services space.”

Roger Smith, associate dean for undergraduate programs and student services for the College of Human Sciences, said they anticipate hiring about four to six new faculty members. There will be approximately 204 faculty members in the new college — 88 from the College of Family and Consumer Sciences and 116 from the College of Education.

Smith said 5,000 square feet on the first floor of MacKay Hall is planned for remodeling to hold the new student services office.

“It takes more than just faculty to enhance student learning, and so this first year that money saved is what is being used for remodeling of student services,” Smith said.

New joint programs are also in the works for the new college. Carlson said one new joint program — Diet and Exercise — is already planned between Food Sciences and Human Nutrition and Health and Human Performance.

“We’ll see more joint programs as more faculty work together,” she said. “Students will benefit from this because we’ll have new faculty and the faculty formerly working separately are now working together and can provide more cross disciplinary courses.”

Although the new college is planning to hire more faculty, several people’s jobs within the College of Family and Consumer Sciences and the College of Education were “redefined,” Carlson said.

“There were a total of five reductions in positions, primarily from staff in the two deans’ offices and the two student services offices — where there was replication,” she said.

“Each of those people have taken different jobs within the university, except one who decided to leave to spend more time with family, so almost everyone has a position in the new college.”

Carlson added that this combination did not change anything within the departments, only within administration.