Forced department merger

[artalot]

Admin is trying to force my department to merge with another, somewhat related department. We don't want to merge and we have different degrees (think MFA and PhD). Of course, admin wants to put the PhD holding chair in charge although this person admittedly knows nothing about what we do. Both departments have small faculties. Our department has a lot of students, while the other department has very few. I don't know that we can stop it. My question is more about learning to live together. Has anyone been through something like this before? Did it work out? Or did the faculty members end up at war over resources? How can we ensure that we get a voice in this new department and that our resources (endowments and budget lines) don't get used for other purposes?

[Stockmann]

Not quite the same, but at my former employer I was in a department created from the merger of two departments - it had been a shotgun marriage of sorts, it was basically the only way the higher ups were willing to let those entities survive in some form. To say that there was bad blood would be an understatement, though I think it was basically between one side's ruling clique and the other side's elders. By the time I was hired, they were in the process of "divorcing" - in fact, my arrival helped finalize their separation (each "side" being in a physically separate space - in fact the head of department spent alternating days in each physical location). It wasn't exactly amicable, even though I got the impression things had in fact been worse before the physical separation and the agreement to divorce were in place. The divorce was finalized before I left.

However, I think a lot of the problem was that there were several truly toxic characters and things could absolutely had been handled much better by both sides. It was more a sizeable minority ruining everything than something inevitable. My advice, FWIW, would be to build bridges with individuals in the other department, not just with the Chair, and encourage your colleagues to do the same - maybe a few people in the other department can be invited over to give a talk in your department.

[sinenomine]

My department got partnered with a series of others over the years (including, briefly, a non-academic area) and finally got remade into a different department after a number of faculty retired. I agree with Stockman about building bridges, and suggest thinking about possible interdisciplinary collaborations.

[spork]

My situation: a dozen years ago, a small group of faculty got approval to create a new department composed of low-enrollment interdisciplinary majors A, B, C, and D. A had been treated as a step-child by its much larger parent department, B had been floating in space without a home, and C and D were their own department. The changed reduced costs; duplicative courses were consolidated (e.g., one senior capstone course instead of four), and only one department chair getting course releases instead of multiple chairs/coordinators.

I was the new department's first chairperson. Everything worked fine because the relevant faculty were on board. They knew that their programs risked elimination if they stayed separate.

[Hibush]

My department experienced a series of mergers over the decades. I don't think any of them were motivated by grassroots action of the faculty.

The best thing to do is to figure out how to make it work. That part is at least largely under faculty control.

It is worth having some get togethers where there is a little general talk about shared values and goals. Only enough to reduce the tribalism separating the groups a bit. It can be associated with a softball game or other distraction that has the two groups mingling for other reasons. It takes about a year or two of regular positive interactions to build a minimum trust level so that people can work on substantive issues.

The new chair really needs to be aggressive with the adminsitration in getting some additional resources. "This merger is going to blow up in your face unless we can get..." The new resources have to genuinely serve the merger, and have benefit to both former departments. Even if the joined budget is eventually smaller than the trajectory of the separate departments, you still need some fresh stuff that wasn't there before.

The most difficult issue is developing a T&P plan so that people goign up for promotion know that they will be fairly evaluated. In general, it is bad to change the rules and expectations for assisstant professors. Having only the former department vote on tenure is one component.

The second most difficult is having the faculty believe that resources will be fairly distributed. Transparency on the budget helps, or at least clear rules or principles for allocating that budget.

Cheering things that work is also good. When you earn more TA lines, or increase enrolment, or hit some other mark that wasn't happening before, give credit to the merger. Those wins may not balance out the losses, but they still buoy the spirit.

The most recent merger has been quite succcessful. Former departments have a lot of autonomy on things where they differ in important ways. The curriculum is a lot stronger, student recruitment is a lot better, teaching load is distributed and credited much more fairly. People don't say "that department isn't pulling its weight" any more.

[Minervabird]

The bad bit is when they merge departments, and then offer incentives to get people to leave or target different subject areas for removal.  That's what is happening at my former institution. The department chairs are only on 5 year contracts, and I think the current chair is in her last year and then will retire.  So, limited pushback. Glad I retired.

It seems they are hiring more adjuncts for course cover and piling more work on former colleagues, encouraging interdisciplinary classes that can appeal to large numbers of students, or having fewer electives (option choices) and more students per class. But this scenario is par for the course anymore in the UK.  The government refuses to let universities charge more tuition, there is limited government support, and more stringent visas for international students.