Instruction being “Future Ready”

Greetings to all my colleagues in Academic Affairs.

I hope your Fall semester is going well as we head into the home stretch of the semester and the year.  I want to update you on the work that we’re doing across Academic Affairs to ensure that we are “future-ready”. 

So many things are changing so rapidly – both externally and internally – that we need to be prepared (and preparing) for what is and what is to come to ensure that we are able to continue delivering high-quality teaching and learning experiences. 

Here’s what’s included below:

• Updates on Academic Affairs alignment and leadership structure
  • Launch of a functions and processes review
  • Upcoming work on Areas of Study naming and strategic scheduling
  • Recent organizational changes and new roles
• Our shared focus on building a future-ready Academic Affairs

If you have read the “why?” statements of your instructional leadership team (or watched the videos), you know that my “why?” embodies this future-ready focus:  

We empower individuals to envision and realize their future by designing and delivering accessible, flexible pathways that are grounded in innovative and relevant learning. We offer engaging, future-focused programs in career and technical education, transfer pathways, adult education and literacy, and continuing and corporate training.

And if you have read these first paragraphs closely, you’ll see that I’m referring to Academic Affairs rather than Instruction.  We are shifting to “academic affairs” as the umbrella term for all the work that we do (both teaching and helping) to support our mission.  For all of us in academic affairs, being “future ready” requires that we first examine our current state.  We know that we have strong, smart, skilled leaders across academic affairs.  We also know that many of our leaders at every level are tired and fretful, which is understandable – and something I hope we can collectively and directly address.  

To be future-ready, we need a leadership and organizational structure that doesn’t wear everyone out; a structure that is able to look forward strategically and tactically rather than relying on what we’ve always done.  Our current structure dates to 2017, and it’s time to look with clear eyes at that structure and how it serves – or perhaps doesn’t serve – who we are and who our students are today.

To that “clear-eyed” end, we have launched the following:

• The Distributed Leadership Implementation Work Group (DLIWG, fondly referred to as the DillyWig) is to make intentional changes to better support the work of our department chairs.  The DLIWG is building on the work of the previous Department Chair Roles and Responsibilities Work Group.
• A functional and process audit is being conducted by members of the Enterprise Project Management Office (EPMO) to help us find redundancies or gaps in our work.  This work will inform any small-scale decisions necessary to fill a gap or reduce duplication of effort.  (Academic Affairs will not go through a wholesale realignment or restructuring, if you’re worried.)
• A faculty survey to better understand how we are serving faculty development needs and how we could improve that service.

We are also moving into additional work, including:

• Launching a process based on surveys and focus groups to determine a better label for our program groupings (few people recognize or understand “Area of Study”).  This will be coupled with:
• An effort to align program groupings (whatever we choose to call them) more intentionally with dean areas to reduce confusion for students, faculty, and staff.
  • We will also take input on any possible updates to the “names” of our dean areas/program groupings as we move through this process.
• The launch in the Spring of an Office of Strategic Scheduling to centralize the data-gathering and analysis of students’ course-taking needs and to better support how we meet those needs.
• A redesign of the Program Review Process built around standardized (and widely used) program health metrics.  This new process will launch in AY 2027 after collaborative work this year with colleagues in Accreditation and Planning, and vetting and testing by instructional programs that were scheduled to conduct a program review this year.

We have already moved forward on some organizational decisions:

• The posting of a Dean of Nursing position to better lead and support the complex work associated with our Nursing Programs, and a Director of Clinical Operations and Compliance position to provide the clinical support needed across our Health Sciences programs.
• The division of the Computer Science & Information Technology department into two departments:
  • The Software Development and Computer Science Department
  • The Information Technology and Cybersecurity Department
• At the recommendation of the DillyWig, we:
  • Provided additional release time to department chairs this Fall, with a comprehensive set of recommendations coming at the end of the Spring 2026 semester.
  • Will launch a systematic approach to the work of assistant department chairs, including how faculty can access these leadership positions, terms, and other parameters, and evaluation mechanisms.
  • Will post and hire several Operations Managers.  These will be Prof-Tech positions designed to support both deans and department chairs, taking some of the operational load off of them to allow them to be more strategic leaders.

Any new positions that you see described above have been developed using existing vacancies – no new funding has been provided for any of these positions.  We are being good stewards of our resources while still making strategic decisions to support distributed leadership and operational effectiveness and excellence.  The Distributed Leadership Implementation Work Group is a model of deep collaboration and fully distributed decision-making.  This is the goal for strategic, intentional operational excellence across Academic Affairs.

The focus in all this work is to honor who we are and the great work that we’re doing while also ensuring that we can adapt to the future by putting in place the resources, skills, and personnel needed to navigate change.  

We want to ensure we have the capacity to innovate (e.g., curricular integration of skills in AI literacy, data ethics, etc.) in support of our North Star goals of 70% completion rate by 2030.  

We want to ensure that our faculty and staff can help deliver a future-ready education and can engage in the implementation of the recommendations coming from our Theory of Change design teams.  

We want to be able to respond nimbly to external change (e.g., future updates to the core curriculum as required by SB 37).  

We want to be able to serve our booming enrollment with diverse delivery models, stackable microcredentials, and AI-enabled personalized learning support.

We want to meet the future and make sure that we have the support systems in place to do right by our students, our faculty and staff, and our mission.

As we move forward, there will be opportunities to discuss these changes and other topics with your supervisors and instructional peers in the future.  I invite you to join the Chancellor and me virtually for the Faculty Town Hall on Friday, November 21, where we’ll discuss these updates and answer questions.  I also encourage you to watch the Chancellor’s monthly Town Halls, either live or by visiting the Town Hall website to watch the recordings. 

Gaye Lynn