Update on Linking the College of Adult & Professional Studies, Bethel Seminary, and Graduate School

Colleagues:

I'd like to provide another update on our work to link the College of Adult & Professional Studies (CAPS), Bethel Seminary (Seminary), and Graduate School (GS).

We began this work in the fall to link several areas across the three schools with the goal of providing an outstanding educational experience for all of our adult students. In the fall we focused on the student success area (e.g., advising, orientation, student support) and created the new Office of Student Success and Retention. We then focused on the operational aspects of the three schools (e.g., budgeting, faculty contracts, catalogs) and created a new Office of Academic and Business Operations to lead these efforts across all of our adult areas.

Most recently, we have focused on the administrative support area. We have decided to move away from the structure of a "pool" of administrative assistants in CAPS and GS to administrative assistants directly supporting specific areas in CAPS, Seminary, and GS.  All persons who were in administrative assistant roles in all three of our schools will continue in positions in this new structure that will be led by Annette Abel. This change was effective at the end of May.

Work continues on creating new shared governance processes that work for faculty in all three schools. These include, for example, faculty committee structures, promotion and tenure processes, etc. We anticipate completing that work in fall 2017.  

I am grateful for all of the work by our colleagues in these areas to move these changes forward well for the benefit of our students.

Please contact me if you have any questions.

Grateful to serve with you,

Deb

Debra K. Harless, Ph.D., executive vice president and provost