TUCSON, Ariz. -- As colleges and departments at the University of Arizona begin to examine ways to slim down and refine their missions as part of a major institutional shake-up, campus leaders are embracing one college as an example of how others can improve their programs in the face of cuts. After a decade of cutting some programs, merging others and realigning resources, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences is viewed by University of Arizona administrators as a blueprint for the broader campus changes they hope to make in administrative structures, degree programs and research goals. Besides becoming a national leader in plant research, agriculture and consumer sciences, the college has led the campus in interdisciplinary collaboration and has tried to produce graduates who respond to the state's agricultural needs. Yet even as the college is held up as an example of the type of change that University of Arizona President Robert Shelton says is necessary to keep the university strong in the face of an economic downturn, questions remain about whether its solutions could be applied across the campus or create much-needed financial savings. While some of those solutions could be immediately applied elsewhere, others might prove problematic, especially for liberal arts and social science programs, one department head said. And even the dean of the Agriculture College said that while the changes saved money, it took several years before those savings were realized. "The principles will work in most places, but some aspects won't transfer," said Dean Eugene Sander, who also is the University of Arizona vice president for outreach. "There won't be instant savings, but they'll occur eventually." Sander's drive to reinvent his college began after a revelation similar to what Shelton recently shared with the entire university: You can't be good at everything. Rather than offering a comprehensive college education in areas such as plant science, dairy production and life sciences, Sander and members of the college came up with a handful of areas in which they wanted to excel. Then, talking to industry leaders in the state and region, they tried to determine whether there was a need for graduates of specific programs. For example, the college used to offer training in dairy production, which included how to manufacture cheese, yogurt and other dairy goods. But it turns out that hardly any dairy farmers in Arizona produce anything other than milk, Sander said. "We decided that there were other colleges in California and Wisconsin that do that well, and we let somebody else teach that," he said. "We tried to focus on areas where we could be competitive." Departments across campus, regardless of whether they're liberal arts or hard-science programs, should try to determine where they can focus their efforts and look at ways to be more responsive to industry, said Chris Segrin, head of the University of Arizona communication department, in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. "Not only do I think it can be done - I think it has to be done," he said. "We are presently supporting more departments and colleges than we can afford to." But Segrin cautioned that changes made quickly or for the sake of responding to industry demand could jeopardize a long-held university goal of providing a broad-based education to students. Additionally, people need to recognize that what works in one college may not work in another. "The changes can't be dictated exclusively by what the job market or student demand is," he said. "There might be small areas that are really vital to this idea of creating well-rounded citizens." Kevin Gosner, head of the history department, said many liberal arts disciplines already collaborate with each other to teach classes and conduct research, and it wouldn't be a stretch to do more. And while there are good incentives to cut costs and become more efficient, Gosner said people need to focus on the potential consequences of the process. "The reorganization will be very difficult for the staff," he said. "We're really talking about layoffs - there's no other way to think about it." In addition to trimming some programs, the Agriculture College merged several others in an attempt to realign resources and eliminate some redundancy. The college combined several plant science fields under one umbrella department, with each of the former units retaining some small form of autonomy. E-mail Aaron Mackey at amackey(at)azstarnet.com. (Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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