Improving Organizational Effectiveness at a Top Liberal Arts College

Opportunity  |  The Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of the College retained us to assess the organization structure and associated staff capacity of the Academic Affairs Division and to provide recommendations to ensure it is organized and managed optimally for to ensure excellence in execution of the operational plan and to provide the infrastructure needed to secure their future success as an institution.  In addition to the Dean, we worked closely with the Associate Deans for Academic Affairs, CFO, President, Department Chairs and the Strategic Planning Advisory Group (ten faculty members) throughout the project.

Approach  |  Over the course of the work we assessed the effectiveness and efficiency of the current Academic Affairs structure and identified opportunities, challenges and problems associated with the current organization. After our discovery and diagnostic work had been completed we generated and assessed alternative structures, engaged stakeholders to vet the possibilities, and created alignment among key stakeholders around the “best” structural choice for the college.

Results

• Enabled the Dean to lead more, manage the day-to-day bureaucracy less, and partner with President and the Senior Vice President for Development more gainfully on external development efforts.
• Streamlined decision-making protocols to improve quality, speed and buy-in.
• Improved the division’s ability to support faculty development, faculty recruitment, grant acquisition, student advising and other student academic support services.
• Created a sanctioned, coherent and entrepreneurial mechanism for fostering academic innovation.

We worked with the Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of the College to determine the changes required in processes, information systems and inter-unit collaboration so the new structure would be set up for maximum success, and we developed the roadmap for successful implementation.