AMHERST - University of Massachusetts Chancellor Robert C. Holub is proposing to replace four of the university's colleges with two colleges, as the campus seeks to deal with a $46 million deficit in fiscal 2010.
In a memorandum posted on the university's Web site on Tuesday, Holub said that the plan could conservatively save between $1.3 million and $1.5 million a year. He named a task force to review the proposal and report back to him by March 6.
Under the plan, the College of Humanities and Fine Arts, the College of Natural Resources and the Environment, the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, and the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences would be eliminated.
The names of the two new colleges will be left to the faculty, but Holub's memorandum referred to them as the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences and the College of Natural Sciences.
The humanities college would include such programs as English, classics, foreign languages, sociology, and political science, while the College of Natural Sciences would include the traditional sciences and mathematics, as well as the Stockbridge School of Agriculture, polymer science, and many other programs.
Holub said a dean "has told me that he believes additional savings will accrue over time owing to increased efficiencies. These savings are substantial."
The proposals followed a meeting with faculty last week in which Holub talked about reorganization as one way to help meet the deficit at the university's flagship campus.
Faculty members asked the chancellor for more details about cost savings and what a reorganization might look like.
Holub also wants the task force to consider the reinstitution of a College of Arts and Sciences that would unite many of the departments in the four colleges.
"I have serious reservations about the establishment of such a college, but I do think that the idea is worth exploring," he wrote.
Holub also proposed that the School of Nursing retain its autonomy and have an associate dean or executive director from the current School of Nursing, but that it be administered through the College of Public Health and Health Sciences.
"There will be some members of the faculty who will be disappointed by the reorganization I am proposing, and even by reorganization in general," he said. "I hope, however, that the majority will understand both the necessity for reorganization and the advantages that accrue from the proposed structure."
At the meeting with the faculty last week, many spoke against reorganizing. Holub is slated to meet with faculty members again on Monday.
