ORGANIZATIONAL MODELS FOR THE OFFICE OF THE DEAN 31 CASE EXAMPLE: University of Kentucky, College of Arts & Sciences From Mark Kornbluh, Dean, and Kirsten Turner, Chief of Staff and Assistant Dean Founded in 1864, the University of Kentucky is the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s flag- ship Land Grant institution. Designated in Carnegie as a Doctoral University - Highest Research Activity institution, the university is dedicated to improving people’s lives through excellence in education, research and creative work, service and health care. With approximately 2,200 faculty and more than 12,500 staff, the university’s total enrollment is almost 30,000, with 22,000 undergraduates and 8,000 graduate students and postdoctoral scholars. Organization of the College of Arts and Sciences The College of Arts and Sciences is one of 17 academic colleges. It consists of 18 academic departments and more than two dozen interdisciplinary programs and centers. Its annual operating budget of more than $70 million supports 440 faculty and 200 staff. The faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences teaches more than sixty percent of the university’s undergraduate general degree requirements and has some 5,000 undergraduate majors and 1,000 graduate students and post-doctoral scholars. Organization of the Dean’s Office In an institution as large as the University of Kentucky, academics can easily become mired in bureaucracy. We believe faculty should spend their time on the philosoph- ical underpinnings and vision of their work, and college staff should be empowered to help them navigate the bureaucratic structures that could impede their work. Thus, the College’s driving philosophy is that academic decisions must undergird every- thing we do, including the College’s administrative structure. Faculty governance is paramount at the College, and thus the College’s administrative mission is simply to enable the work of the faculty and students. We have focused all College operations on how to help the departments, department chairs, and faculty achieve our collective and their individual goals. For example, department chairs were previously responsible for their facilities and physical plant—something for which most had little or no expertise. To help them, we hired a retired Air Force ROTC commander who is now the director of space and facilities and has a team of people working for the department chairs. Management of all College facilities is centralized, and staff members assigned to these tasks know their primary function is to enable the departments. Our senior leadership team consists of five associate deans who come from the faculty to serve on three-year renewable appointments. Also included in the senior leadership is a chief of staff position who carries the title of assistant dean. The chief of staff has two purposes: to serve as a confidential advisor to the dean and to oversee all the staff units (non-academic) in the College, which comprises some 185 employees.