Navigating FAS Administrative Services

Under the previous model, administrative practices varied widely across departments and centers, and staff often covered a broad range of responsibilities without the chance to build deep expertise in any one area.

The new model addresses this by:

• Organizing staff into functional teams with deeper expertise in specific administrative areas
• Standardizing core processes where appropriate while still supporting the needs of individual disciplines
• Clarifying roles and responsibilities, so it's easier to know where to go for help
• Ensuring administrative support continues when staff are on leave, on vacation, or leave the university
• Creating larger administrative teams with clearer paths for training and career growth

Managing Directors represent the needs of departments and centers as these services are coordinated across the FAS.

An administrative grouping is a cluster of departments and centers that share a dedicated administrative team, led by a Department Administrator (DA) or Executive Director (ED). Each grouping connects to the broader FAS through a Managing Director, who represents the group's needs in FAS-level decisions and serves as an escalation point when issues arise. This is solely about how staff support is organized; it doesn't change the academic independence or boundaries of individual departments and centers.

Most administrative services are fully or partially up and running. Please see the Launch Dates for details on individual service areas. 

Some disruption should be expected. Any organizational change of this scale involves a period of adjustment, and finding a rhythm within the new model will take time. Support structures, including the Rapid Response Team, are designed with this in mind. We expect to respond quickly when something isn't working optimally.

We have convened two important governance groups. The FAS Administrative Services Governance Board, which will provide oversight of FAS administrative services. The FAS Administrative Services Advisory Council will offer a structured way to offer feedback on the effectiveness of the administrative support. 

We will also be launching a new dashboard that tracks how long some common requests take and how much work each team manages. The dashboard will be updated monthly and open to everyone in the FAS. 

The “Tell us how we are doing” form and a new email address are now available. Please use them to offer suggestions, identify challenges, ask questions, or propose ways to improve administrative support and processes.