St. Cloud State University President Earl Potter revealed the organizational future for the university to faculty and staff Friday. The president says the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities system approved the plan earlier this week.  S-C-S-U will be reduced from five colleges to two, and the rest will fall under four schools and institutional centers.  The president estimates it will take about three years to implement the changes. The re-organization will focus on downsizing to two college deans and the schools will be run by associate deans who will supervise anywhere from 40 to 80 faculty.

The College of Liberal Arts and the College of Science and Engineering will augment with the Herberger Business School, Schools of Education, Health and Human Services, Public Affairs, Arts and Computing-Engineering and Environment.  Potter says the new organizational model nails down about two-thirds of the framework, but more work is to be done. He also realizes this puts more workflow onto university employees.

The reorganization is estimated to save SCSU $4.4 million of the $14 million it must cut by June 30th, with most of the savings coming from job reassignments and an estimated 50 jobs being cut in all positions including directors, deans and classified employees such as technology support, secretaries and maintenance workers. Potter also expects to reduce the number of administrators, there are currently 33 exempt MnSCU employees at the school.

Finally, the president touched on bright spots—he hopes to notify some faculty by January 15 who were told their jobs were going to be cut that they will be spared, and that the administration is moving ahead with early retirement incentives for staff and classified employees that qualify—and that will help alleviate job cuts that will happen in 2011.