UNDERSTANDING AND IMPLEMENTING MANDATED REORGANIZATIONS 109 nimble curricula, so with the course efficiencies they implemented, the dean and unit heads could expand the curriculum for some areas with high student demand. Although the dean anticipated pushback, the number of people resisting change was in fact higher. Numerous faculty long-known as “team players” resisted the change with arguments that bordered on the ludicrous. The dean reported, for example: “The faculty fought over moving offices. Even when presented with a nicer, larger office, one faculty member argued that she didn’t want to move as she ‘didn’t know how to fill all the space!’ While office placement and size as related to the seniority of the faculty had never been raised as an issue, it suddenly became a hot political topic [Political]. Faculty and staff members who were experiencing personal issues outside of their faculty roles felt beleaguered by the change process, and several approached the dean asking if they could be “immune” from the changes given all that was happening in their lives [Human Resource]. To end this case on a positive note, the dean reflected in the following way: “I became a Renaissance dean!” The College roughly doubled in size, providing the dean the chance to meet many new faculty members and broaden her thinking about research, pedagogy, and even students. Case: ‘All in’ for administration A public research university had Arts and Sciences programs divided between two colleges. After several years of service, the president asked most of the deans to come together for a meeting with no stated agenda. Of the two Arts and Sciences colleges, only the dean of the liberal arts college was asked to attend. At the meeting, the president announced he would like to merge the colleges of natural sciences and of liberal arts into a single college. He offered no justification other than that most major research universities have a single college of A&S and this would align them organizationally with their peer/aspirant universities [Symbolic]. The deans present were asked if they supported this concept. Negligible negative feedback was given to the president at the meeting, and with her fellow deans seated around the table, the dean of the liberal arts college was asked to be the dean of the merged college. The president then stated he expected the merger to be completed within one year. The faculty of the colleges were largely against the merger. The faculty had not been consulted, and the dean of the college slated to lose his position to the merger was blindsided. The president did not offer any convincing rationale and so faculty conjectured additional “justifications”: perhaps the merger was envisioned to save some money [Structural], or it may create a more equitable workload/learning environment across undergraduate programs in the new college (since faculty had long been jealous of each other’s workloads between the colleges) [Human Resource]. Although the faculty of the liberal arts college met several times to discuss the reorganization and vent their frustrations (with that dean in attendance primarily as a listener), they