Chapter 5: Governing and Structuring the University
A small number of special assistants support the president and a handful of division heads with titles of vice president or executive director are direct reports. Beneath these division leaders are a modest number of deans and directors who oversee various functions: academic affairs, administration & business affairs, student services & student affairs, university development, information technology services, marketing and communications, community outreach, and enrollment management. Administrative growth and complexity over time remained consistent with the growth and complexity of the university (see Appendix D for a review of the SVSU organizational charts from 1989 through 2013). On the top administrative level immediately below that of the president, the 1989-1990 chart stipulates two vice presidents, one non-academic dean and a director of development and the SVSU Foundation. By 2010-2011, this top executive level included a provost/vice president for academic affairs, an executive vice president for administration & business affairs, a vice president for enrollment management, a vice president for student affairs, an executive assistant to the president/executive director of public affairs, an executive director of the Center for Business & Economic Development, an executive director of information technology services and an executive director of the SVSU Foundation. Adjustments to this organizational structure at times reflected a strategic plan or the departure of key personnel; other times these changes were designed to streamline operations. An example was changes that took place in 1995-1996 when John Fallon III resigned as vice president for public affairs to accept a university presidency out of state. This allowed for one of the senior administrative positions to be redefined. Gilbertson, as he explained to faculty and staff during his beginning of the school year orientation remarks Aug. 24, 1995, “created a new position, vice president for student services & enrollment management, to bring together all of those administrative functions directly related to the recruitment and retention of students.” At the time, institutional planners were giving highest emphasis to recruitment and retention of students, and that remained the case at least through 2013. Other times, administrative change involved adjustments to functions and their oversight. That was the case in 1998-1999, when the president separated responsibility for admissions into undergraduate and graduate offices to reflect expanding interest in graduate education. Over the years, Academic Affairs has had a history of the greatest stability in organizational structure: deans of SVSU’s five colleges, as well as directors of Zahnow Library/ Learning Resources, Instructional Support Programs, Writing Center, Registrar, Institutional Research, Sponsored & Academic Programs Support, and Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum. Appointments to middle and upper administrative positions in Academic Affairs explain, in part, the collegial relationships that developed during the history of SVSU. (See listing of administrators and their affiliations in Appendix E.)
Academic Programs and Leadership
Offices administering the university’s growing and increasingly complex student population underwent far more varied modifications. The 1995-1996 creation of vice president
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