Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the Aug. 19 Daily special section “Welcome Back.”

University groups working on plans for the merger of two ISU colleges have made steady progress throughout the summer, group members said.

Susan Carlson, associate provost and facilitator for the Planning Committee for the Combination of the College of Education and College of Family and Consumer Sciences, said the committee has met every month since the spring session ended in May.

The committee brought three University of Nebraska-Lincoln officials who were key players in the combination of Nebraska’s former colleges of education and family and consumer sciences to the ISU campus May 17 to speak with them about their experiences with that merger, Carlson said. A public forum was also held so those interested in hearing from them had a chance to ask questions.

In early June, Carlson said the committee held a retreat so it could discuss everything that happened with the merger in the previous semester, confirming the timeline it needs to follow to make their recommendations about the merger and planning their next move. The merger is slated to be complete in June 2005.

“Fall semester we are planning to produce a proposal for the combination of the colleges and facilitate discussion,” she said. “It’s really going to be the semester in which we’ll really have a plan that will make people excited about this project.”

The committee decided the 12 working groups it designated to deal with specific tasks related to the college combination must have their final reports to the committee by Sept. 17, Carlson said.

“Once we have the reports, then our job will be to compile the suggestions and come up with a proposal we can share with the university community, and we’re hoping we can have that sometime in early October,” she said.

The committee’s first charge and timeline called for the merger proposal to be submitted to the university by Sept. 15.

In late July, the committee met with Virginia Clark Johnson, dean of the College of Human Development and Education at North Dakota State University, in a meeting similar to the visit from the Nebraska staff in May, Carlson said.

“The big difference here is that this merger happened about 10 years ago,” she said. “It’s a good way to look at how things might look later on down the road.”

Carlson said a joint convocation will be held Thursday for faculty and staff of the two colleges as a way for them to get to know one another and discuss the work groups’ plans so far.

“It’s really important for them to explore this combination together,” she said.

Two work groups, College Name and Mission and Dean’s Office: Organization and Operations, have been especially active over the summer, Carlson said, because they are making recommendations to the committee on a few of the most important aspects of the merger.

Mary Linnenbrink, senior in family and consumer sciences education and member of the College Name and Mission work group, said much of her group’s work this summer has been done through e-mail. The group is in charge of making recommendations on the new name and mission of the combined college.

“We decided to focus on the mission first and hopefully the name would come out of that,” she said. “We’ve basically got it down to three different mission statements.”

At the August convocation, Linnenbrink said there were roundtable discussions about the mission statements and an appropriate name for the college. In discussion about the mission, in particular, she said the group is trying to be as flexible as possible, maybe even cutting and pasting different parts of proposed mission statements together.

“I think a lot of the people on the committee are just trying to come up with something everyone will like,” she said. “You have to put your personal biases aside and say this isn’t just about me, what would other people like? Will all majors fit under that name?”

The proposed missions will not be released until after the August convocation.

The group is planning to hold open forums in the fall to get input from students, faculty, staff, alumni and other interested parties, she said.

Maurice MacDonald, professor and chairman of human development and family studies, said his group, Dean’s Office: Organization and Operations, has developed a main leadership structure and is trying to determine what staff will be needed to help them.

“The [Dean’s office structure] matrix hasn’t been provided to the committee yet because it’s not completed,” he said. “The materials are too preliminary. We’re not trying to be secretive or anything, but we really want this to be voted up and down by the staff and faculty and for it to be in final form before it’s released to the public.”

MacDonald, who is also a member of the planning committee, said this particular part of the college merger is a very sensitive issue with everyone involved because with a restructuring of the dean’s office comes the elimination of some jobs and addition of new responsibilities into others.

“We’ve identified a substantial percentage of positions that could be eliminated for cost savings, but we’ve got to be careful,” he said. “One specific thing we’re struggling with is the importance of continuing to get the good support [both colleges] have had from alumni. We need to be very careful we don’t downsize that at all, or at least too much.

“We’ve been working with human resources and individual employees to make sure there are as many transition opportunities as possible [for those whose positions may be cut]. We want to know what we’re doing before any talk of layoffs begins, and we’re far from that yet.”

He said the committee is concerned about maintaining strong communications and public relations efforts with alumni about the college merger and making sure the two colleges’ traditions can be represented adequately after the colleges are combined.

“It can be the case that, as we’re combining budgets and learning how to work with two alumni groups with two traditions, we’re going to need even more support in the coming few years than we’ve needed in the past,” he said.