Like a bomb being dropped on her head — that’s what Mary Linnenbrink, senior in family and consumer sciences education, said it felt like to hear her college would no longer exist.

“It came so suddenly. Students and faculty weren’t prepared for it,” she said.

Despite student and faculty protest, heated debates and a tie-breaking vote of approval from the Faculty Senate, the Iowa Board of Regents decided unanimously at its Dec. 16 meeting to approve the university’s proposal for combining the two colleges under the name College of Human Sciences.

Plans call for the elimination of five staff positions between the two colleges, as well as the reduction of one dean and two associate dean positions. One dean and three associate deans will lead the college.

Through these reductions, the combination will generate nearly $500,000 in annual savings. These savings will be used for supporting academic work, which includes hiring new faculty and funding the remodeling of the east wing of MacKay Hall — which would be the location of the new college’s student services office, according to the university’s proposal.

Students and faculty in the College of Family and Consumer Sciences still remain guarded about its integration into a new college, fearing the combination with the College of Education will mean a loss of their identity.

“I initially didn’t support the combination, and I’m still not in favor of it, but I will work to make it work,” said Sedahlia Crase, professor of human development and family studies and member of the Faculty Senate’s FCS College caucus. “I hate to see us swallowed into another unit. That’s my fear, that we’d lose our identity, that focus on the family that’s been grounded into the FCS college.”

Linnenbrink and Crase said they don’t foresee the combination affecting the structure of the colleges’ departments or programs. No academic programs or majors are scheduled to be eliminated with the combination, according to the approved proposal.

Ben Allen, provost and vice president for academic affairs, said he will appoint a committee of faculty and staff from the colleges to oversee the combination’s implementation.

The search for a dean for the new college will begin spring semester, with the combination expected to take place July 1.