ORGANIZING THE FACULTY WITHIN A COLLEGE 87 into a School of Arts, Media and Communication. When the idea initially arose, the faculty in the other four departments in the College were not enthusiastic, but the faculty in the arts felt that becoming a school within the college would be beneficial for a number of reasons, including • both the faculty and members of the surrounding community wished to enhance the visibility of what was going on in the Fine Arts; • during a review of the College’s P&T guidelines, it became apparent those four areas were very different from the rest of the college. Having a separate category of “creative activity” rather than “research” for faculty in a separate school would better fit those fields; and • being combined into a school would create synergy among the faculty. Implementation of the change was not without challenges. There was precedent at the University for departments to split off into schools, with the upper administration sanctioning various levels of independence: a school can stay in its college, become a college on its own, or become its own school. In this case, the first approach was ap- proved, but no director would be named. The dean would serve as the school director. Currently, the faculty meets either as the College of Liberal Arts (four depart- ments) or the School of Arts, Media, and Communication (four departments). The relatively new dean has asked the chairs if it would be a good idea to all meet together each fall. He also reports: We struggle with branding ourselves, but I don’t know how we will resolve this until we have a director. We need to be raising our profile in the community with our performances and exhibitions. Right now we’re in a holding pattern without a director. Once this happens and we get our own Fine Arts building, things may change. b) The School of Arts and Sciences (SOAS) of a small Midwestern institution gener- ated two-thirds of the credit hours on campus, with the other four schools gener- ating the remaining third. There was a sense SOAS was too large in proportion to the size of the other schools. Science faculty felt it would be in their best interest in the long term to have their own school. They also felt science was different enough from other parts of A&S that they could better advocate and represent their own interests if they were on their own. Finally, they believed a separate and small- er school of sciences would allow them to be more flexible and visible in order to enhance the identity of the natural sciences, mathematics, and informatics on campus. The science faculty voted among themselves to request a reorganization of A&S; they then brought it to the dean, who supported it. This was followed by a schoolwide meeting, characterized as “very amicable,” where the proposal to reorganize into two schools was approved unanimously.