Creating a physical and digital Service Hub is envisioned as an effective support system offering access to Student Advocates with generalist knowledge and expertise to meet student needs and, when necessary, provide a “warm handoff” to specialist resources in offices such as the Registrar, Student Financial Services and the Global Opportunities (GO) Offices.

Susquehanna can better serve its students by developing a centralized data hub. Faculty and staff will be better able to track student data across offices, reducing manual data input into multiple systems, and allowing key student data to be seen across the institution. Better data will lead to earlier and more effective interventions with students and will improve the overall student experience.

Student Life will be restructured to increase support of student wellbeing and promote a greater sense of student belonging, which should increase student retention and eventually, graduation rates. This restructuring includes the addition of a data analyst for Student Life who will provide data dashboards and the impetus to continually assess the impact of the changes and modify our approaches if needed.

Central to work in the holistic student health and wellness has been the need for SU to adjust and redefine its approach to student mental health in response to almost overwhelming increases in student needs, a national phenomenon observable on our campus. We need to better define and communicate what Counseling and Psychological Services does. The reenvisioned Counseling & Psychological Services, in partnering with a third-party service, will be able to provide faster service, more appointments and better avenues to long-term support.

The development of recommendations related to academic innovation have focused on finding an academic and organizational structure that is built to incentivize and support innovation.

1. Restructure the School of Arts & Sciences.
   The committee held an informal faculty meeting and sent out a survey to all faculty seeking their input on school structure. Based on that input as well as on extended conversations with faculty stakeholders, the committee recommended that the new structure consists of three deans overseeing four schools, as follows:
   
   
   1. Dean of Sigmund Weis School of Business
      • Accounting
      • Economics
      • Finance and Analytics
      • Management and Marketing
        
        
   2. Dean of Natural and Social Sciences
      • Biology
      • Chemistry
      • Earth and Environmental Sciences
      • Mathematics and Computer Science
      • Physics
      • Political Science
      • Psychology
      • Sociology and Anthropology
        
        
   3. Dean of the School of Humanities and the School of the Arts.
      Both schools would share a dean and function like a single school internally.
      
      School of the Arts
      Art and Design
      Music
      Theatre
      
      School of Humanities
      Communications
      Education
      English and Creative Writing
      History
      Languages Literatures and Cultures
      Philosophy
      Religious Studies
      

•  Establish an Innovation Center led by an interdisciplinary faculty advisory body.
  The center would be tasked with pursuing external funding opportunities and new lines of revenue (in collaboration with the grants office), exploring the creation of new academic programs, and promoting collaborative academic initiatives across all schools and departments. The center would serve as a place where faculty can go with ideas for innovation and it would offer a clear process for vetting and developing ideas through the advisory body.
  
  
• Establish a Grants Office similar in size and function to institutions in our peer group to support faculty and staff seeking external funding.
  This office should report to the Provost and be responsible for management, writing, and post-award administration.
  
  
• Revise the faculty evaluation process to be more transparent.
  In particular, develop a common rubric that can be used by Department Heads and shared with all faculty. That rubric should include sections on teaching, advising, scholarship and creative activity (including grant writing), and service (including support for diversity, equity, and inclusion). We recommend that diversity, equity, and inclusion work and innovation (in teaching and/or scholarship and creative activity) be added to the annual evaluation and to the tenure and promotion process.
  
  
• Develop a proposal that allows for evolving faculty portfolios over the course of one’s career.
  This work would be done by the academic steering committee, in consultation with the Faculty Personnel and Faculty Affairs Committees.
  
  
• Require that all deans and associate deans retain some advising and teaching load to remain connected to the student experience.
  
  
• Address inequities in advising load.
  The Provost and Deans should document the current variation in advising loads across academic departments and schools and then work to address inequities.
  
  
• Develop university-wide guidelines for adjuncts with respect to the following: hiring, onboarding, supporting, and evaluating.
  
  
• Implement an alternative to Activity Insight to track faculty workload and productivity.
  
  
• Retain the Steering Committee to help with the implementation of the above recommendations.
  The organizational structure can be a strong factor in providing a pathway for innovation, but an organizational structure alone will not lead to greater innovation. To prioritize innovation and reinforce a shift in culture that underscores its importance, Susquehanna must develop the metrics for success and provide incentives to innovate.

 

In SU 2.0, the university will centralize DEI’s (diversity, equity, and inclusion) extraordinarily good work that is happening across campus.

The CenSUs task force played a significant role in informing this work. Developing a truly inclusive environment in which all members of the campus community feel a sense of belonging and empowerment is critical to SU’s success and central mission. Concurrently, it is everyone’s responsibility to be strategic, coordinated and holistic about DEI work.

The Chief Inclusion and Diversity Officer will oversee a leadership group that will include Inclusive Excellence, the Center for Diversity and Inclusion, Religious and Spiritual Life, a faculty liaison, support for international students and employees, and the newly formed IDEA Council (a representative group of students, faculty, and staff who will assess DEI efforts and advise the university on future initiatives)

SU 2.0’s main emphasis for campus safety is to make students feel safer on campus and develop a healthy relationship between students and the people charged with keeping them safe. This change will come from restructuring the team, refining the training programs, creating new expectations of safety staff, and developing roles for students to serve as operational assistants. Campus Safety’s main role will be keeping campus safe and not enforcing rules and regulations as a policing body.

To reemphasize a commitment to focus on the safety of our campus community members at SU, some examples of changes include:

• Updating its name from the Public Safety Department to Office of Campus Safety.
  Eliminating military-sounding, police-rank terms in job titles. Public safety officers will now be campus safety specialists.
• Augmenting training for all staff, including conflict resolution, bias awareness, trauma-informed practice, mental health awareness and cultural sensitivity.
• Adding a new staff position to serve as a community advocate.
• Developing a student group to provide feedback in support of our enhanced policies, training and communication.

 

In addition to increased efficiency and better service delivery, an updated service delivery model in the Facilities function will provide personnel with a greater ability to positively impact the student experience.

Shifting the distribution of Facilities personnel from specialists to a more generalist focus will provide more staff support with “team leads” and also provide stronger career pathways – either towards skilled trade specializations or towards a management/supervisory role.