ORGANIZING THE FACULTY WITHIN A COLLEGE 97 Arts. “The reason this was done was that because, while the three departments are all within A&S, each independently organized its own advertising, calen- daring … we looked so Mickey Mouse! Other universities have organized their arts programs into schools and they looked so much more professional than us. By forming this umbrella group, the departments could put out their commu- nications under a unified school of the arts. There has been no change in staff- ing, faculty, or budgets; it’s just a marketing exercise. This was a symbolic move, to signal ‘We are organized.’ Now the departments have a common calendar and collaboratively advertise their events.” Attending to the symbolic frame points to the need to highlight and even celebrate the change. A dean can attend a meeting of the new or reconfigured unit/s to wish them well. The university communications office can write a piece about the success of the reconfiguration. At a college faculty meeting, individual faculty who were in- strumental in helping bring about the change can be recognized and thanked. Still, Things Can Go Wrong! Even when a dean attends to all the frames and uses the right processes, things may not go smoothly. • A dean has attempted to broker moving Communication Sciences and Disor- ders into the School of Education, but the faculty have maintained resistance and the move has not gone forward. • There was a proposal to merge theatre (with few majors) with film studies (a thriving department) and add New Media to create an Oxford-comma en- forced department. The film faculty saw no benefit of merger while theatre fac- ulty worried that they would be relegated to teaching service courses only. With no incentive to offer either faction, discussions grew toxic. Neither side listened to the other side. • A relatively new dean attempted to reformat three biology-related departments into one or two departments. He had garnered compelling arguments and data justifying the change. He was, however, ultimately undercut by the provost de- spite keeping her informed in the process and securing her approval in ad- vance. • The idea of merging two social science programs with overlapping research and pedagogical goals into a single department surfaced and gained support among faculty from the existing departments. The move was approved up through the presidential level. A deliberative process resulted in an agreement signed by both departments that the merger would occur once a mutually ac- ceptable chair was identified through an external search. The dean appointed a joint search committee with co-chairs (one from each department), and the