It’s about growth, Kevin Eichner says.
Eichner, president, said the university’s summer restructure
will help fuel that growth.
Eichner announced to faculty in May, that a new Center for Holistic Education would be created to help tie the university’s three schools – School of Arts and Sciences, School of Business and School of Education – together.
“We’re organizing it this way to get additional emphasis on curriculum development and program enhancements,” Eichner said.
In addition, Eichner said the new CHE will help keep the other university campuses in sync with the Ottawa campus.
“It’s very important to an institution that is now serving 9,000 students nationwide
for us to have consistency in our programming across all of these sites,” he said.
Ottawa University has sites in Phoenix, Ariz., Kansas City, Milwaukee, Wis. and Indiana, in addition to its online programming.
Provost Dennis Tyner said the naming of the schools already has happened, and students should not notice a significant change.
“The programs here at Ottawa University are the exact same,” Tyner said. “The fact that we have schools really should be very seamless to them.”
Even though students may not notice a major change, Tyner said faculty members might not be as comfortable with the switch.
“The faculty are clearly concerned,” he said. “There are changes within their world. And they’re not sure how these changes will affect them.”
Tyner said some of the concerns might be with the academic and governance structure since the concept of separate schools still is new.
“If we’re looking for structure within the academic disciplines, I think we’ll be functioning fully on the fly,” he said.
Tyner said another change to the campus community is the hiring of a new dean of instruction instead of an academic dean, who will be in charge of collaborating with deans of the three new schools.
“I ensure the intellectual climate for this local site,” Karen Ohnesorge said.
“We’re going to reorganize the way the majors are designed and upgrade our offerings so they are top of the line and competitive with excellent institutions across the nation.”
Students may notice some of these changes – like the new dean of instruction – immediately, but Tyner said many of them will be worked out by the end of the year.
“What guarantees that a business degree on the KC campus and on our Ottawa campus are the same?,” Tyner said. “That’s what the school’s structure is supposed to do for us.”
Not only will the new structure help to ensure consistency among the many campuses, but Eichner said it hopefully will help with donations and school finances.
“Part of this is that we can go nationally and also attract donors for these schools,” he said. “It will help us to build up our program.”