Graduate students should see less bureaucracy, and individual colleges should get greater control over their graduate programs after structural changes were made Friday.
University administrators moved graduate school programs into individual colleges and shuffled personnel into different administrative roles.
Chancellor Michael Martin said Monday the shifts were not a result of budget cuts.
“This is more related to just a philosophical change,” he said.
The most important change is the decentralization of graduate programs from the general administration to the individual colleges.
Martin said the shift would allow the colleges greater leeway to spend graduate program funds as they see fit.
“Graduate programs are best served when closest to the discipline in which they work,” Martin said.
Martin said grad students should expect less bureaucracy when dealing with admissions, research and thesis programs.
Martin said the reorganization has been a long time coming.
“When I came on board, I said, ‘This is not a model I’m comfortable with,'” Martin said of the old, centralized system. “When [Provost Jack Hamilton] came on board, he said he also wasn’t comfortable with it, so we changed it.”
Administratively, Martin said David Constant will remain dean of the Graduate School but will now answer to Interim Vice Chancellor for Research and Development Thomas Klei.
“That’s the way it’s done in most places,” Martin said. “In some places, those offices are combined, although we still think they’re both doing a full job.”
Constant will oversee continuity in graduate student theses and fundraising for the graduate school, among other duties.
LSU Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Stacia Haynie is also stepping down from her post. Martin said Haynie’s decision had nothing do with the reorganization — she simply wanted to return to the political science faculty.
“That is just a coincidence,” Martin said. “Stacia’s like many of us — our hearts are back in our disciplines. She’s paid her dues to the administration.”
Martin said he expected the administration would ask Haynie to continue some of her duties on a part-time basis, including her work with the Cox Communications Academic Center for Student-Athletes.
Hamilton, who is in charge of Academic Affairs, announced in an e-mail to faculty and staff Friday that kinesiology professor Gil Reeve will replace Haynie.
“[Reeve] is an accomplished faculty member who brings a wealth of experience with [Southern Association of Colleges and Schools] accreditation, strategic planning, assessment and academic counseling to the Office of Academic Affairs,” Hamilton said in the e-mail.
 
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Contact Matthew Albright at [email protected]