116 ORGANIZING ACADEMIC COLLEGES: A GUIDE FOR DEANS Although the regents did not impose a timeline, the merger had to be approved by the university’s regional accreditation agency, which introduced deadlines. The accreditation agency visited each campus, and the accreditors made it clear they were looking for plans and working documents showing progress and earnest efforts on each campus to make the merger happen. The dean selected for the unified Humanities & Social Sciences college followed a similar process to develop its structure. At a college retreat, the dean offered a straw model as a starting-point for discussion, and then faculty drafted a model for departments and schools within the college. Multiple programs in a single department (e.g., Department of Physical Sciences with chemistry, geology and physics) potentially could be split into programs within their own department if there were enough faculty and majors from the two campuses to warrant it. The faculty considered department equity in terms of number of faculty, majors, and student credit hours. The faculty from some programs lobbied to be moved to specific departments to help balance the college. This was followed by open fora to discuss the model, surveys, and ultimately a vote to select the final organiza- tion of the college. The final vote was in favor of the proposal. While the process (post-announcement of the merger) created strong buy-in for the new institution, challenges did arise. Differences in general education require- ments were thought to be easily resolvable because statewide guidelines for general education proficiencies existed that in principle could limit the changes needed between the two institutions. However, one campus used traditional courses to meet these proficiencies (e.g., Introduction to Sociology, Introduction of Psychology) while the other campus had created interdisciplinary courses to do so (e.g., Gender Studies, Sustainability, Global Challenges). Additionally, distinct college-level general education requirements required reso- lution. For example, although the A&S colleges on each campus required language proficiency, one accepted American Sign Language (ASL) to meet the requirement while the other campus opposed using ASL to meet the requirement. And each campus had different requirements within their majors, yet there could only be one degree post-merger. Trying to negotiate an “intermediate” degree removed the distinctive nature of the programs each faculty had worked hard to establish. Thus, standardizing course numbering, course pre-requisites, course learning outcomes, program requirements and learning outcomes, all involved facilitation by the dean. Trying to bring together the cultures of two different campuses was by far the largest challenge for the dean. The campus-based cultural differences informed the differences in their philosophy of general education, college requirements, elective courses in majors, degree requirements, and plans of study for students. Where similar Trying to bring together the cultures of two different campuses was by far the largest challenge for the dean.