Administrative Structure

Within the context of reduced enrollment and our summer 2020 budget reductions, the Administrative Structure Group will:

  • Assess the most significant sources of non-degree revenues:
    • Highlight opportunities to grow existing revenue sources
    • Consider how operational changes have impacted revenue generation
  • Assess resource needs of administrative structures:
    • Reinvestment in anticipation of funding availability
    • Reallocation based on emergent needs and School priorities
    • Reductions in the event of further enrollment decline

Administrative Process

The Administrative Structure Group has engaged on two separate tracks—reviewing requests from vice presidents and deans for budgetary increases and staff additions necessitated by the expected increase in the size of the entering first-year class and developing plans to boost revenue generation from non-degree programs. The group recommended funding a number of requests that directly support the projected increase in student and faculty traffic on campus this fall and sent several requests back for further information or development. Subgroups are currently at work in refining staffing plans that were not initially approved and in developing first drafts of the revenue generation plans. Once these plans are approved by the group, they will be presented to relevant campus stakeholders for feedback. Ultimately, the plans and campus feedback will be delivered to the Academic Steering Committee for its review and approval.
 
The Administrative Structure Group helped us quickly address the immediate challenges presented by the anticipated increase in the size of the first-year class and the need to grow our non-degree revenue. Its work was made all the more important because we were in the second year of our biennial budget process. In year one of the process, each vice president and dean takes months to prepare proposed budgets, which typically request new spending and hiring, for the next two years. Approved budgets then extend for two academic years. Since the pandemic overlapped with year two of the budget process—and vice presidents and deans were too involved with the day-to-day challenges of the pandemic to spend time on the usual budget-building process, we streamlined the process to allow for the presentation of critical requests. With effective vaccines, a mandatory vaccination policy, and a return to more normal operations, we are now able to return to our standard budgeting process as we enter the first year of our next biennial budget process. All of this means that Administrative Structure Group will complete its ongoing projects by December 2021, and allow us to resume our standard budget process, as practiced under our shared governance process, in the 2021-22 academic year.

Administrative Process Timeline

  • Complete Phase 1: summer 2021
  • Complete Phase 2: December 2021

Administrative Structure Membership

Chair: Brian Esker

Tom Buechele
Vice President for Campus Operations
President’s Cabinet / Provost Posse / Academic Steering Committee / Fiscal Affairs / FBS IRTC / Department Heads

Felice Dublon
Vice President and Dean of Student Affairs
President’s Cabinet / Provost Posse

Hope Esser
Associate Professor, Adjunct, Contemporary Practices
Part-time Rep.-at-Large / FBS Adjunct Senator / Part-Time Concerns / Fiscal Affairs / Department Heads

Eric Hotchkiss
Assistant Professor, Adjunct, Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects
DAG Connectivity Committee / ARC SAIC in North Lawndale Subcommittee

Eric Lebofsky
Senior Administrative Director, Painting and Drawing
Department Heads

Rose Milkowski
Vice President of Enrollment Management
President’s Cabinet / Provost Posse / Department Heads

Dev Ravichandran
Vice President of Educational Technologies and Chief Information Officer
President’s Cabinet / Provost Posse / FBS Curriculum Committee / FBS IRTC

Anne Sullivan
Associate Professor, Historic Preservation
Co-Chair FBS Fiscal Affairs Committee

Gretchen Talbot
Dean of Administration, Budget, and Planning

Jan Tichy
Associate Professor, Photography, Architecture, Interior Architecture, and Designed Objects, and Art and Technology Studies
FBS Senator / Chair, Remote Events Committee / Workplace Accessibility and Accommodations Committee