The committee, whose members have not yet been named by Provost Odom, also will gauge support for such a merger among faculty in those two colleges.

In fall 2002 the two colleges accounted for about 8,000 full- and part-time students (about 6,000 in liberal arts and 2,000 in science and mathematics), including about 1,200 graduate students. Liberal arts garnered $8.2 million in grants and sponsored research in fiscal year 2002; science and mathematics accounted for $18.7 million.

The merger topic was briefly discussed at the May 1 General Faculty Meeting, and the recent announcement by liberal arts dean Joan Stewart of her appointment as president of Hamilton College, effective July 1, has added impetus to the discussion.

In 1992, then-President John M. Palms convened a committee to study the same merger possibility. Long-time science and mathematics dean Jim Durig was stepping down from that post, and Palms was urging the University community to consider the steps necessary toward membership in the Association of American Universities. Many AAU institutions have combined arts and sciences colleges.

The 1992 committee, chaired by law school dean John Montgomery, ultimately recommended against such a merger.

“No one really saw the value of combining the colleges back then,” Montgomery said. “No tremendously negative things about such a merger came out of the study, but there was a feeling at the time that there was no reason [for the colleges] to get larger for the sake of being larger.

“But there weren’t things like major budget cuts and value-centered management on the table then, either.”

Under USC’s value-centered management, a budgeting process that takes effect July 1, colleges will receive tuition revenues based on student enrollment in their respective courses.

Charles Mack, a veteran art professor and member of the 1992 committee, said he had an open mind about the merger concept as did other members of the 10-person committee.

“But as we interviewed people from both colleges, it seemed that everyone thought the new college would be too large and unwieldy and that any savings would be offset by the need for ‘super’ associate deans to help run things,” Mack said. “I don’t know which way faculty would go this time.

“The sciences would potentially benefit from liberal arts’ larger tuition base, and the arts would potentially benefit from the sciences’ larger research base.”

Jim Sodetz, a chemistry professor who served on the committee, recalled talking to associate deans at many peer institutions around the country. There didn’t seem to be significant correlation between a university’s standing—such as AAU status—and the arrangement of its humanities and science units, he said. Some were merged, others weren’t, “and it was often based only on tradition—that’s the way they’d always been,” he said.

Don Greiner, associate provost for undergraduate affairs, also served on the 1992 committee and was the only member in favor of a merger when the committee’s work was complete. With value-centered management in place for the coming academic year, Greiner sees compelling reasons—both strategic and ideological—to consider again such a merger.

“A combined college would realize lots of tuition dollars from the liberal arts side and research funds from the science side,” Greiner said. “A merger also would put those colleges in parallel with the five health sciences colleges, which soon will have their own vice president.

“Aside from purely practical reasons, a combined arts and sciences college would end some of the ideological split that exists between the two areas. I think students get the idea that sciences and arts can never meet—that they, as students, have to choose one or the other, which is absurd when you consider that academia is rooted in the notion of liberal arts and sciences as a common base.”


05/03