74 ORGANIZING ACADEMIC COLLEGES: A GUIDE FOR DEANS split focus of the leadership team, and the dean reported a better relationship with his department heads along with the associate deans being more responsive to the dean’s needs. The change also removed an intermediate administrative level and made the organization chart more horizontal. Centralizing Support Functions Heads of departments and schools appreciate having support staff report to them. It is easy to understand why: a staff assistant proximate to one’s office is preferable to one located in another building, and decisions of who best fits for positions in terms of skills and personality is up to them. So inherently, pressure exists against consoli- dating staff in a central office with hiring controlled by the dean’s office. Some func- tions are decentralized by their nature, for example, students dropping by the unit office for help need to have someone present to point them in the right direction, but when functional services are decentralized (e.g., purchasing, IT, advising), workload is not distributed evenly across departments, resulting in underutilization of some staff members, or having their workload spread across so many functions that they are ineffective at some of them. The quality of those services is also variable, as the managers of those staff and faculty do not have the time or expertise to provide opti- mal oversight on a wide range of functions. Therefore, there can be a high fiscal and functional cost to maintaining separate services. As Figure 2.10 (page 36) illustrates, centralized support offices for the college often emerge as the college grows in scope and complexity. This allows for the work that accumulates at uneven times across units to be averaged out by fewer staff who report to a director specialized in overseeing this type of work, increasing efficiency and effectiveness. Most are familiar with examples of decentralizing services. Any time a new de- partment or center is created, or departments or colleges are split, at least one staff line is assigned to the new unit, effectively decentralizing services. Following are two examples where resources were added to improve services through centralization, and one example of centralization due to budget cuts. When Bret was a dean at Georgia Southern University, he centralized advisement services for his college. Faculty had previously advised students, but despite the time needed for the activity, they were not given any reassigned time for this service [Hu- man Resource]. Therefore, most faculty members did not relish serving as advisors, with advisement degenerating into “course scheduling” for students. Students wrote scathing reviews of advising every year (and some even sent anonymous letters to the Governor’s office about poor advising). Colleges had been tasked with increasing student retention, progression, and grad- uation rate—not an uncommon exercise. A small group of administrators and faculty came together to develop a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant based on adopt- ing best practices used by other institutions. One of the initiatives identified—based