102 ORGANIZING ACADEMIC COLLEGES: A GUIDE FOR DEANS Please note that the genders, names of colleges, and other details have been altered in the following case studies, as they are tangential to understanding why and how changes occurred. But additionally, we wanted (as much as possible) to protect people from potential political fallout. In all but the first case, the names of individuals, institutions, and dates are not included. Splitting Colleges into Two or More Colleges These first cases involve dividing a single college into two more colleges, or moving a significant segment of a college from one college to another (i.e., the college of origin will perceive a “split” while the receiving college will perceive a “merger”). Case: A rose by any other name, revisited At Georgia Southern University, Bret was dean of the Allen E. Paulson College of Science & Technology. It housed the sciences, mathematics, and engineering tech- nology programs. At the time, Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly known as Georgia Tech, held a monopoly on state engineering programs, enforced by the state Board of Regents. The faculty and administrators at Georgia Southern had been trying to break this monopoly for 25 years. They knew this would involve converting their existing engineering technology programs into pure engineering programs. The president made the decision to again try to convert these programs. Other research universities possessed stand-alone colleges of engineering and the president aspired to look like them. The president also believed having a distinct college of engineering was a signal to the nation that Georgia Southern was indeed a quality institution, and that the institution had grown beyond its normal-school origins and deserved recognition as an impactful doctoral-research university. If the degree changes were approved by state authorities, he intended to split off departments from their current STEM college and create a new stand-alone engineering college. Thus, the stated rationale for reorganizing colleges was largely symbolic [Symbolic]. When the reorganization was proposed, the engineering faculty and department chairs were pleased because they been advocating for this change for a long time. The dean was also excited by the opportunity because the campus felt like the underdogs. They wanted to bring down the barricade set up by the top research university. But beyond the enthusiasm about the symbolism of reorganization, no one was really reflecting on what the college reorganization would mean. Surprisingly little discussion about the potential reorganization occurred on campus. Faculty from non-engineering departments in the College voiced no concerns. No one seemed to hold reservations. When the state Board of Regents approved the change to engineering programs, the president announced the degrees would be implemented the following fall (nine months away) and the college reorganization would be effective at the start of the following fiscal year (19 months away). After his initial statement, however, the