Organic Reorganization
Varied, Limited, Opportunistic, Targeted, High Value, Achievable
Paul Otteson
The assumed goal of any and all reorganization is to advance ESF, redirecting monies and operations to
achieve greater resilience, excellence and prominence.
Key premises of “organic” reorganization:
1) Reorganization steps us forward from an existing complex human and infrastructural reality that is
largely operationally successful.
2) Reorganization is most effective when targeted, using customized approaches and timing based on
specific goals, and on the realities of the people and units involved.
Certain key ideas have been in play in strategic planning and reorganization conversations:
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The four/“right” questions
Common undergraduate learning objectives
Desire for a bold reorganization solution we can embrace (and like)
Visibility, prominence, brand
Engagement with communities
Public literacy and workforce
An organic approach pursues these leading ideas from a grounded view of current realities, including:
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Limited funding for new pursuits
Status of staff: tenure/permanence, discipline/skill, personality, flexibility, age, union-ness, interests, etc.
Status of students: 2300 in existing programs, each with expectations and programmatic time horizons
Established physical infrastructure: buildings, labs, offices, classrooms, equipment, network etc.
Information overhead - plan sheets, performance programs, titles, online matter, databases, listservs, etc.
Difficulty of the small research college business model
Rapidly changing face of higher education
Our deep aspiration to grow in size and prominence
Anticipation of new infrastructure, such as the Academic Research Building or Banner system
Given all these, it is clear that ESF would be severely challenged by rapid, large-scale reorganization,
simply due to the cost and confusion of complex change. However, we also shouldn’t pretend great
foresight by pre-structuring a comprehensive, holy-grail plan to be reached years down the road.
Thematically re-conceiving org charts may make for heady conversation and attractive graphics, but it
inevitably oversimplifies, misinterpreting the intricate weave of real histories and a complex present.
Quick action is called for, but selectively so. Long vision is called for, but via guiding principles rather
than a specific organizational model. Achievable, rational reorganization should be open to varied
approaches, individually devised to yield targeted actions of great worth. With clear goals, clear targets
appear that involve manageable pathways with high value results.
Here’s what I see as plausible targets for fairly quick action. Each is derived from the initial criteria, but
developed in the light of those potent present realities. This is not a “model” per se, but is instead a nascent
‘to-do list’ for near future steps in advancing the college.
I - Orienting the College as a Whole: The Four/Right Questions
Once settled on and defined, the “right” or “four” questions seem as though they will serve primarily to
identify and orient ESF at an institutional level. But can these questions inform our academic structures
and pursuits? I can’t see them having an early impact on degree programs, or on the academic entities that
administer degree programs and other academic activities. I do, however, see two achievable, ’high value’
change targets in which our new, question-shaped orientation can quickly manifest:
1) Undergraduate common learning objectives — If we redo our approach to plan sheets and GenEd to
create a common course set to meet common learning objectives, what better way than to do so via the
lens of our leading questions? There is a strong pedagogical case for doing this, but also a marketing case,
by which our mission can have greater relevance in recruitment.
2) Trans-disciplinary bodies — Here, I envision the four/right questions getting taken up to inform new
‘entities of leading wisdom’, or, more explicitly, ‘trans-disciplinary consortia of research, outreach and
global leadership’ — umbrella entities for the question-guided trans-disciplinary pursuits we take on.
What sort of “entities”? This sample list is crafted to encompass the scope of all four questions:
• ESF Institute of the Biosphere
• ESF Institute of Human Ecology
• ESF Institute of the Designed Environment
Such institutes (or whatever they might be called) would certainly serve the pursuit of knowledge and
funding via research, but they would also be excellent vehicles by which ESF could project itself further
onto the global stage. They could be established quickly and given early form via online presence and
associated events (meetings, lectures, honors, papers, etc.). I picture administrative and self selection, and
natural affinity as the ways people and pursuits come to be gathered under an institute umbrella.
II - Academic Reorganization
Two ‘operational’ areas seem to have emerged in discussions as possible targets of fairly rapid change:
graduate studies and departments. While I would not put myself forward as a source of wisdom for either,
the rationale for changing both seems strong.
1) Departments — Departments anchor highly involved programmatic webs, have varied (and storied)
histories, are heavily embedded in physical infrastructures, and are glutted with intense personal
trajectories. So why remake departments at all? There may be at least three good reasons:
• Money Savings — administrative overhead and more
• Timely Transformation — disciplinary evolution, enrollment and student career path changes,
funding shifts, changing relevance of programs, natural convergence, etc.
• Marketability — new profile, new packaging
A straightforward look at these three might lead us to want fewer department-like entities, to use care in
selecting departments to morph, and to consider the resulting ‘attractiveness’. Here’s a food-for-thought,
post-streamlining sample set that I cooked up:
• Department of Biology — EFB is huge already, seems fully populated and engaged, and appears to
have strong prospects for continuation and growth. No need to mess with it.
• Department of Chemistry — One could split Chemistry into life/organic and inorganic for certain
reorganizational schemes, but chemists, to me, seem a coherent bunch. Besides, they have a newish,
dedicated building with all of the right gear under one roof.
• School of Landscape Architecture and Urban Design — LA also seems a coherent group, but the
name of their field doesn’t seem to express the full current range and value of their work.
• School of Sustainable Engineering and Geospatial Science — Here, clearly, I’m imagining an
administrative merging of all engineering programs: ERE, SCME and PBE. I add the geospatial
highlight because I envision it as an area we might trumpet and expand.
• Academy of the Environment: Science, Resources, Policy, Communications & Management — A
crazy notion, maybe, but scenarios I run in mind regarding marketing, admissions, collaboration, etc.,
make me smile. It’s more or less a merging of ES, undergraduate Environmental Science, and FNRM.
Easy to dismiss? Yes! But it is a response that, 1) achieves fewer units, 2) doesn’t involve ‘change for
change’s sake’, 3) rearranges the more easily rearranged, and 4) encourages some disciplinary
transformation. Others will know much better than I what slate makes more sense.
The takeaway I would emphasize is that, in reorganizing, we do not need to fixate on equivalency of
names, sizes, relation to questions, etc. — org chart symmetry has low relevance. Post-department entities
simply have to be ‘disciplinarily valid’, must operate in a department-like manner when managing internal
business, and must collectively provide an improved, complete, marketable portfolio for the college.
I’ll note that it makes no sense to me that we should radically remake departments to somehow yield the
founding structures of the right/four institutional direction questions. I believe such a pairing would end up
being forced via expensive and bitter confusion, or would be distractingly phony.
2) Graduate Studies — It has been suggested that our graduate programs should be extracted from
departments and gathered under the umbrella of the ESF Graduate School. It seems a popular notion, and
an academic layman like me sees how flexibility and trans-disciplinarity can be enhanced by doing so. A
more robust and independent grad school fits well between departments (that remain necessarily tied to
existing undergraduate programs) and the “entities of leading wisdom” I describe above.
III - Administrative Reorganization
The important administrative organizational changes are those that serve to answer a motivating need or
goal, or to fill an operational void. They are likely to be most intensely effective when specific and
confined. Where are we weak or weakening? What could targeted reorganization solve or enable?
Here are two profound need areas that I am certain could be advanced by way of administrative change:
1) Technology — ESF can’t be both excellent and technologically second rate — not when excellence is
judged according to the standards set by other leading institutions. Even so, we are not significantly
involved with any important tech trends at this time, and thus have little to offer anyone aware of the
promise of technology in advanced higher education. I and others have tried to make the technology case
to a variety of audiences, but it is clear that many are not yet aware of what is both possible and
increasingly important among our contemporaries. We do not now operate as would a top tier institution.
A funding response would be very helpful, but an organizational response would do wonders to elevate
cooperation, pool skill sets, integrate planning, and broaden horizons. With smart change, re-crafted units
could be much better coordinated from without and collaborative within.
2) ’Nimble’ Academic Programming for Online Engagement — I don’t see our degree and certificate
program portfolio evolving quickly and responsively enough as it relates to advancing our involvement in
the online realm. The goal should be academic ‘nimbleness’ with full utilization of ESF-appropriate online
and hybrid options. It should be a major responsibility area for an individual with authority over the
faculty. For a terrific overview of the realm to be mastered and managed by such a person, read: The
Learning Evolution: How Technology Is Transforming The Classroom of Tomorrow. Also, please read this
brief take of mine on the complexity of online education planning.
What Else? — Numbers 1 and 2 are areas that I understand to depth, but I can guess at other areas that
could be advanced by way of administrative organizational moves. Regardless, I don’t believe a final list
should be a long one. Key administrative organizational changes in areas such as those above will
necessarily precipitate other significant changes, but a wholesale ‘re-templating’ of admin can be avoided.
IV - Leveraged Strengths
This last category involves organizational action based on the principle of leveraging. Put plainly, if we
have a strong suit, play it better. In part this involves better ‘packaging’, so that the ESF brand is more
vividly associated with the works of faculty, but there are also organizational responses worth exploring.
“Water” seems a timely example. We have ‘wet work’ in spades — Great Lakes, Hudson Valley, Amazon
fish … (much else) … and, of course, Onondaga Lake. How these are brought together academically and
research-wise is not a question for me, but I can easily picture how they might be brought and held
together in the public mind, and then how they can carry the ESF brand onto the global stage.
Other ‘leverageable’ areas include species, invasives, Adirondacks, tree restoration, etc.
This leveraging works by way of marketing, but because of substance. I don’t think we should force the
spinning up of ‘centers’, but where they make substantial sense, they should be formed (or re-formed),
named and described in ways that make clear their merit, and then given maximal appropriate presence in
the public eye. Such centers can become regionally, nationally and even globally appreciated as lasting
sources of authority, expertise, and accessible online content and data models.
Summary
In sum, the following might be smart and valid choices for near term, “organic” organizational change:
1) Create a right/four questions inspired common undergraduate experience by modifying GenEd
and program course requirements. This also plants the seeds for the evolution of degree programs.
2) Create right/four questions inspired trans-discipinary ‘entities of leading wisdom’ to anchor
research, and to carry our expertise and brand onto a bigger stage, perhaps such as these:
• ESF Institute of the Biosphere
• ESF Institute of Human Ecology
• ESF Institute of the Designed Environment
3) Reorganize academic departments to achieve administrative efficiencies, support ‘timely
transformation’ of academic offerings, and improve marketability, yielding a set such as this:
• Department of Biology
• Department of Chemistry
• School of Landscape Architecture and Urban Design
• School of Sustainable Engineering and Geospatial Science
• Academy of the Environment
4) Migrate graduate programming from departments to The Graduate School.
5) Make administrative organizational changes to advance in areas of weakness.
• Technology
• ’Nimble’ Academic Programming for Online Engagement
• Etc.
6) Develop/reform ‘centers’ to leverage our strengths, extending the reach of our expertise and brand.
It makes perfect sense for us to take organizational action where such action will solve persistent problems
and/or advance the college in important ways. It also makes sense for us to avoid the degrading upheaval
of arbitrary change, regardless of the conceptual elegance of envisioned models.
We are what we are for countless reasons, by way of myriad stories. When we step forward, we do so from
where we now stand, and that truth should be fully embraced and utilized.