DEPLOYING PERSONNEL IN THE DEAN’S OFFICE 45 the dean of the college. Both division and line associate dean assignments can work well in large colleges, freeing the dean from too many direct reports and annual evaluations, allowing them to focus on more strategic priorities including the growing demand for fundraising and working with the legislature and other external constituencies. Using division-assigned associate deans has several benefits. Experienced senior fac- ulty members know many of the faculty within their division, so as an associate dean, they are familiar with the people with whom they work (Bright and Richards 2001, p 69). As their research and teaching background falls within their division assignment, they also will have an invested interest in represent- ing the division and advocating for its success. The position of division associate deans is akin to being a department head and the position can represent an easy transitional step into a future deanship. One of the drawbacks of using a division asso- ciate deans model is that the college is largely man- aged along the lines of academic programs, which is counter to the key rationale for having a unified college of Arts and Sciences in the first place (Bright and Richards 2001, p 69). When each division is separately managed, it is too easy for division A/ADs to defend their areas beyond the point where it is productive for the college as a whole. Should an- tagonism develop among the divisions (and it will arise periodically), it predisposes the college to separation into discrete colleges along the divisional lines by which it is managed. The dean must regularly connect with department chairs to be aware of college progress (Bright and Richards 2001, p 69), but without circumventing the line officer function of the division associate dean (Krahenbuhl 2004, pp 45-46). In some cases, associate deans have a “blended assignment” that includes division responsibilities as well as other functional ones. The University of Colorado Boulder acts as an example of blended associate deans (Table 3.2). The University of Notre Dame functions as another example where an associate dean is over the humanities and faculty affairs, with another associate dean heading up social sciences and research. Blended positions come with additional challenges. First, conflicts of interest will be natural to the position. It is difficult for associate deans to make decisions tru- ly independent of their own division, for example, when they represent the natural sciences as division A/AD as well as manage grant proposal development across the entire college in a functional role. Some deans have handled the potential for a con- flict of interest by assigning the ‘function’ to the division A/AD with the least at stake in that function; for example, the division A/AD with few space-related challenges oversees space allocation for the college. The second specific challenge is that any small error or oversight can be a large transgression in the eyes of others located in other academic divisions. Additionally, when a person in a blended assignment steps down or retires, the role may not be No line separates portfolio from line division A/ADs; they sit at the ends of a spectrum of more dependent to less dependent upon the dean of the college.