By Wayne Allen

Wallen@

communitycommon.com

At its July 9th meeting Shawnee State University (SSU) board of trustees took a number of actions including approving a reorganization plan for the Academic Affairs Division. The trustees also passed a measure to slightly change SSU's Mission Statement adding the words "applied research."

"It's been a long time since our structure has been evaluated, and we have gone through a great number of changes since then," Dr. Jeff Bauer, Interim Associate Provost said. "We've grown in size, we've added some new offices and new programs. If you add all of those together, the growth in size, the growth in new offices and also the state strategic plan for the university system of Ohio. We've restructured reorganized to accommodate that."

The reorganization requires a new unit to be created called research and community development. "Most of the offices or programs that are affected are existing offices or programs. They are just being brought in and organized in a different fashion," Bauer said.

Under the research and community development unit will be the office of Outreach Services, all of SSU's research functions and a Center of Excellence for Applied Research and Regional Innovation.

According to Dr. Rita Rice Morris in a released statement, "research and community development will be led by a Dean. A national search is anticipated with an Interim Dean appointed for the short term. Although our long term plans are to make this unit a division of the University with a Vice President, it was initially placed in Academic Affairs as our immediate focus will be on building our faculty's research capacity."

"Within the reorganization there will be a university college established. In that college the person who will be overseeing that will be overseeing the general education program, the student success center along with university college courses, such as university 1101," Bauer said. "Right now we have a bachelors degree in individualized studies, we will soon be converting that into a general studies degree."

"The reorganization does not mean that we are going to be making new positions, we have existing positions," Bauer said.

As a part of the reorganization the responsibilities of the Associate Provost will be expanded to oversee SSU's Graduate Center, Honor's Program, Teaching and Learning Center, Women's Center and other various programs.

Morris stated the phrase "applied research" will be "added to the list of ways we strive to enrich the lives of the community."

"As we are moving forward one of those areas we will be dong more and more with is research. Applied research makes more since for us at this moment. This is something that will have the most benefits for the community and the region," Bauer said.