Columbia has yet to finalize plans for where the new schools will be located and which faculty may need to move their offices under the major restructuring that is taking place this summer.
That means as faculty prepare to return in August, many of them still do not know if they will have to move their offices.
“Discussions are ongoing about where the administration of the new schools will be located, but concrete decisions have yet to be made,” said Tom Dowd, the interim director for the School of Design.
The eight new schools became official Thursday, Aug. 1, when interim directors also began their new role. Department chairs are scheduled to step down on Aug. 15.
Ann Kalayil, associate vice president of Facilities and Operations, said she was in the process of “initial conversations” with both the interim directors and the provost’s office. They are still trying “to identify some of the priority moves,” she said. The college did not provide a timeline for the moves.
Department offices have been historically spread across campus buildings. Restructuring the 15 departments into eight schools has moved various departments into new schools.
The School of Design, which Dowd now heads, merged the animation, environmental and sustainability studies, graphic design, interior architecture and immersive media programs.
The School of Visual Arts, led by director Duncan MacKenzie, will include departments such as photography, illustration, fine arts and art history.
The School of Communication, Culture, and Society, led by interim director Ames Hawkins, will include the former English, ASL Communication and Humanities, History and Social Sciences departments.
Other programs in the former Communication Department, including advertising, public relations and social media and digital strategy, have relocated to the School of Business and Entrepreneurship.
At the time of publication, Gerardo Brindisi, the interim director of the School of Business and Entrepreneurship, did not respond to multiple emails requesting information.
“What I’ve been doing is reaching out to the directors of various schools and trying to understand what their potential immediate space needs would be, [such as] relocating faculty in some cases,” said Kalayil. “From a facilities point of view, it’s minor.” She added that there will be no major construction needed.
In terms of new department signs, Kalayil said she hopes to get signage up before classes begin in September.
“Those are the conversations that we’re still having right now. Wayfinding is important because otherwise it’s like you don’t know where you’re going,” Kalayil said, “We don’t want that. We don’t want students to be in that position.”
Dowd said some faculty members within the School of Design may move their office, faculty will remain spread out across the two buildings: 916 S. Wabash Ave. and 623 S. Wabash Ave., Dowd said.
Duncan MacKenzie, the interim director of the School of Visual Arts, said that the seventh-floor office within the 623 S. Wabash Ave. building will continue to “be the base of operations for the School of Visual Arts as it was for Art and Design.”
Any faculty movement will be to build a sense of community, he said. “Some of the faculty will move their offices close over here and just so that we can tie the faculty better together and operate to better support students,” MacKenzie said.
Some faculty have already begun office transitions. At the end of July, Laura Bauknecht, former director of academic operations for the Photography Department, moved her office from the 600 S. Michigan Ave. suite to the School of Visual Arts central administration location at 623 S. Wabash Ave.
Bauknecht, who spent 25 years with Columbia in her former office, said she feels positive about the change in location. “Moving went smoothly. The best part is how welcome I feel in my new office,” said Bauknecht, now an academic manager for the new school.
In terms of physical changes within the School of Visual Arts, MacKenzie said that most are “administrative” and not “student-facing.”
Columbia also has said students should not notice a big impact as a result of the restructuring, the Chronicle previously reported.
“There are a lot of changes here that we couldn’t physically move to the office, like even if we wanted to move super fast and change stuff that it doesn’t necessarily make sense to just boldly jump into that and that might be more disorienting for students,” MacKenzie said.
Although Hawkins moved their office from the fifth to second floors of the 33 E. Ida B. Wells Drive building, they said that they do not foresee any faculty relocation before school starts.
“We will make the second floor of 33 E. the main office, and we’ll communicate that to students,” Hawkins said.
Ames, Dowd and MacKenzie expressed their intention to reach out to students soon concerning any updates.
“Early in August, we will begin outreach to the School of Visual Arts students to clarify any questions they have,” MacKenzie said. “But I do not believe there will be many changes that impact student experience and where students are finding their classrooms, where they’re finding their faculty, where they’re connecting to the places they do their work.”
Copy edited by Doreen Abril Albuerne-Rodriguez
