The office of the dean provides leadership and management for the College of the Sciences. A commitment to a collegial style of administration focuses on faculty advocacy through an executive council of department chairs. Primary among dean’s office leadership responsibilities is the articulation of vision for the health and growth of COTS programs. The COTS dean’s office strives to lead the way in the encouragement and recognition of faculty achievements. The dean’s office acts as advocate for the advancement of science at the university. In addition, the responsible management of the college’s financial resources, prompt and accurate staffing of COTS classes, review of faculty progress toward retention, promotion and tenure, as well as the various aspects of compliance reporting, are among the management responsibilities of the office.

I. It is essential that resources sufficient to meet our needs be allocated to the College of the Sciences. A plan to disburse those resources in a judicious manner will be created by the office of the dean.

II. The CWU Faculty Code represents the primary authoritative guide for policies affecting faculty, teaching loads, and some departmental issues. The Code has been supplemented in most individual departments via published departmental guidelines. Additional procedural structure is needed, however, to insure some consistency among departments in the articulation of expectations, and also to provide guidance in cases where neither the code nor departmental guidelines are applicable.

III. A diverse and talented team of professionals staffs the College of the Sciences. The ability to achieve optimum results, particularly in the face of limited resources, depends upon their ability to work together toward common goals. Team building, among department chairs as well as among department faculty, is an ongoing and important challenge.

IV. In many ways, the College of the Sciences stands at a crossroads. In no other area is this more evident than in the research efforts of faculty and students in the college. Research experience is essential to make our graduates competitive as they search for jobs or graduate educational experiences. Research is an integral part of our own graduate programs in the sciences. Research is an essential part of the ongoing professional activities of the faculty. We need to engage in dialog to determine the limits of effort in each one of these categories in COTS, as well as to solve practical problems related to research such as reassignment of faculty time, and the acquisition of resources to support these efforts.

V. There are many opportunities open to us that we have not been able to seize due to the lack of adequate resources. Not only must we become more effective in obtaining state support for growth and innovation in our programs, but also we must find other means of facilitating program vitality outside of state funding. In some cases, this is essential, because failure in the growth and adaptability of a program may be its inevitable demise. If the state does not recognize the need for growth or the strengthening of a program through infusion of added resources, we must find ways of obtaining alternative sources of funds to make this happen.

VI. Due to Code ambiguities and recent changes in the Code, the office of the dean has not kept pace with adequate faculty record keeping. We have already begun a reorganization of the way information is collected and maintained regarding faculty professional progress, departmental growth, and decanal decision-making.

The COTS office of the dean relies on the regular exchange of information among its staff and between staff members and departmental leadership. Exchange of ideas and information occurs on a daily basis in the office, and is also formalized by means of a weekly staff meeting to discuss ongoing projects and concerns. Meetings are held weekly with department chairs together with office staff members to share information and discuss issues. The Dean meets informally on an every-other-week basis with any of the COTS faculty who wishes to discuss issues over lunch. Planning activities are supported by increasingly detailed records-keeping and data-reporting. There has been a gradual adoption of common spreadsheet formats between COTS departments, the dean’s office, and the provost to facilitate these processes.

Feedback regarding the implementation of initiatives is solicited from department chairs and individual faculty members on a regular basis. Many initiatives, such as refinement of the faculty review process, represent a work in progress so results are not yet expected. Faculty members are kept fully apprised by their department chairs, of both the issues and the college process of implementation. As part of this effort, there has been an increase in the examination of time-series data to track trends related to faculty loads, and a comparison of the practices of the individual schools/colleges and university as a whole.

Our planning as described above is directly aimed at improving departmental programs and departmental professional activities. The office of the dean is intimately involved in the evaluation of faculty at every phase of their professional careers. It is our goal to implement as many of our initiatives as possible to make evaluation processes fair, predictable, and an incentive to faculty to achieve. All data and relevant statistics are shared with department chairs and the provost. With this policy has come a noticeable increase in the awareness of all parties about the fiscal distress of the college as well as the acute need for action to correct this situation.

It is neither timely nor reasonable to include a projected operating budget for the College of the Sciences in this document. We have begun the process of identifying our budgetary needs for the 1999-2000 academic year, starting with our continuing resource needs to support tenured and tenure-track faculty. We will continue this process under the guidance of the provost to outline similar needs for exempt and civil service personnel, for adjunct faculty, and for departmental operating expenses. Resolution may take readjustment of the budgets of the four colleges/schools of the university according to programmatic need, as well as dedication of a greater share of the university budget to academic affairs.

Simply said, funding for the programs of the College of the Sciences is inadequate and a continuing source of concern. It has been a major effort of this office this year to identify the cause and extent of our budgetary inadequacy. One contributing factor to the COTS deficit is the fact that the university does not recognize and fund the general education program. COTS and CAH both carry this responsibility in addition to traditional majors and professional programs. In addition, it is clear that COTS has not been adequately funded from its inception in 1996, and the problem has become more profound each year. There are many reasons for this, but central is the fact that approximately 90% of the COTS budget is obligated to faculty, exempt, and staff salaries, leaving few resources for programmatic needs. This figure compares with an 84% obligation in the other colleges for salaries. With COTS salaries untouchable, it is easy to understand why the universal obligation of 1% of operating budget for ASSP and 2% for faculty salaries in 1998-1999 was devastating to the College of the Sciences. Along with this understanding has come a dedication to correcting the problem with the design of a realistic budget for 1999-2000. With specific reference to the dean’s office budget, we must report a similar level of inadequacy. We have been unable to reserve funds for such necessities as searches, purchasing computers for new faculty, occasionally assisting faculty with exceptional travel/professional development opportunities, emergency equipment repair, assisting with student research symposia, etc. This situation must be corrected when a more realistic budget is established for the College of the Sciences.

The office of the dean occupies modest but adequate space in the new science building. The suite contains three individual offices (for the Dean, Associate Dean, and Administrative Assistant), a small meeting room, a reception area with space for our office assistant, and a small storage room for photocopying and record storage. The space occupied by this office was designed to be used by the faculty of the Science Education Program, and should be returned to them at earliest opportunity. Perhaps with the eventual renovation of Dean Hall, the COTS dean’s office could be moved to new quarters making room for Science Education as originally designed. No changes in our assigned space are anticipated.