Update on Workforce Planning

Dear colleagues,

Last summer, I launched the Task Force on Workforce Planning to reimagine our administrative structure and support. A collaboration between faculty and staff, the Task Force has twin goals: to strengthen how we work together, addressing longstanding challenges of our decentralized and siloed working environment, and to realize financial savings. Today, I’m writing to share an update about this effort and to speak directly about what comes next.

In the fall, the Task Force recommended that the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) adopt a federated model that balances the local, dedicated support that our faculty and students value and the consistency and coordination that come from better integration across the FAS. I accepted this recommendation because it promises to create a more coherent administrative organization—one that strengthens our support for teaching, research, and students; builds upon and strengthens the expertise of our staff, creating clearer pathways for career growth; and leverages systems and processes that are less burdensome and more intuitive to unlock cross-FAS administrative capacity.

Over the winter, 10 design teams, comprising more than 80 staff and faculty drawn from across the FAS, have undertaken detailed work to apply that model, reimagining our core administrative functions. These colleagues brought deep knowledge of how our systems operate today, candid insights into where our current practices work well and where they fall short, and a shared commitment to improving how we support our academic mission. Their work was informed by input from across the FAS, including faculty and staff advisory groups, individual and community meetings, surveys, and nearly 150 ideas submitted through an Ideas Box. I am deeply grateful for the rigorous and careful work each team member has contributed, while continuing to manage their significant day-to-day responsibilities. The resulting designs reflect their real expertise and dedication.

The next phase of work builds on that foundation. The administrative leaders responsible for each function (such as information technology, for example) will build on the work of the design teams to develop proposals for the core organizational structures of each unit and bring them forward for my review. I have asked that these proposals be carefully reviewed and pressure-tested to ensure they are practical, sustainable, and aligned with our mission before they are brought forward. This pressure testing will draw on the expertise of managers and staff who understand how these systems work on a day-to-day basis, as well as on the experience of faculty who rely on them. We will not pursue change for its own sake. Rather, we will adopt new models when it is clear they are stronger than the current state.

I will also review this work with senior colleagues and with leaders who run these operations to ensure that the proposed designs operate together as a coherent system across the FAS. Many of the administrative challenges we are trying to solve are the result of historically siloed operations, so it is essential that we examine how these new designs operate together as a coherent system.

Warren Petrofsky, who will join us on April 20 as our new Dean of Administration and Finance, will play a central role in this next stage of the work as we finalize the design.

As you know, this work unfolds in a context in which the FAS faces both a large structural deficit, including a $100 million endowment tax, as well as ongoing uncertainty in the federal research funding landscape. Through the efforts of the Faculty Resources Committee, the Research Continuity Committee, the Task Force on Workforce Planning, and our annual budget process, we are identifying deliberate and sustainable ways to reduce our annual expenses and become nimbler in our ability to put resources behind our core academic work. Though financial considerations were an important motivation to launch the work of the Task Force, I have come to believe that the potential gains it offers go well beyond cost savings. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make deliberate and sustainable changes that will reduce complexity in our administrative work and improve the support we provide for our teaching and research.

Our goal is to complete this review and begin introducing the new organizational structure over the summer. I am optimistic about the emerging organizational vision but realistic that we will not get everything right from the start. This is to be expected. Implementation will inevitably teach us important lessons, and some adjustments will be necessary. It is through testing and iteration that responsible organizations evolve and continue to innovate over time. When challenges arise, we will work through them together. We are fortunate to have deeply experienced staff across the FAS who understand how our work gets done. That experience will be essential as we bring this new model to life and improve it over time.

Staff are not expected to absorb this change alone. As we prepare for implementation, we are engaging faculty directly—through the Faculty Advisory Group, the Council of Chairs, the Faculty Council, and discussions in the academic divisions—about what will change. The responsibility for navigating this transition does not fall on any one person; it requires all of us to make it work.

I will close by acknowledging plainly that this period has been stressful, especially for our staff. Uncertainty about roles, reporting lines, and what change may mean personally is difficult. I do not take that lightly. We are at a stage in this work where many details are still being developed, and we do not yet have all the answers about how these changes will affect specific roles. You have my commitment that we will communicate decisions clearly and directly, and we will approach this process with care and respect for the people who have helped build and sustain the FAS.

Our goal remains to build a clearer, more sustainable administrative model that better supports faculty, researchers, and students and creates stronger, more viable pathways for staff expertise and growth—allowing us to focus more of our collective energy and resources on the core teaching and research mission of the FAS.

Sincerely,

Hopi

Hopi Hoekstra
Edgerley Family Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences
C. Y. Chan Professor of Arts and Science
Xiaomeng Tong and Yu Chen Professor of Life Sciences