Since last summer, we have been reconsidering how we might best realign the organizational structure of our graduate programs to support the larger strategic vision for the College. In many ways, the current structure is a legacy structure that was established at a time when we offered fewer and more homogeneous graduate programs. As we’ve added graduate programs and redesigned aspects of our offerings, we have made alterations to the structure. We now have the opportunity to comprehensively reimagine the structure to better serve our current graduate students across our many different graduate programs.
In this reorganization process, our goal has been to holistically re-examine graduate student needs and larger trends in order to build an organization that will enable the College to thrive and to be responsive to innovations and disruptions in the graduate business school landscape. Perhaps most importantly, the new structure is an opportunity to continue elevating all of our graduate programs.
I’m excited to introduce a new organizational model for staff members who directly support our graduate business program operations. This is the outcome of a collaborative process where many of our staff and faculty provided great feedback and were willing to share their concerns and ideas. We are very grateful for all of your engagement, which has been led by Kara Palmer through conducting a series of focus groups and meetings with graduate business program staff and key stakeholders.
While the graduate programs staff members have had the opportunity to learn about the model during informational meetings, I want to provide an overview for all of the Mendoza faculty and staff, as the scope of change across the College is extensive. You can view a chart depicting the high level organizational structure here.
As you will see, the model organizes staff members both by function (e.g., admissions and marketing, student services and operations, career services, experiential learning and alumni relations), and by program group (e.g., Executive Education, MBA and Specialized Master’s). The result is a matrix model where dual reporting fosters:
- Functional excellence through the direct reporting relationships (solid lines) and
- Academic excellence through accountability to the programs and ultimately the graduate students and faculty (dotted reporting lines).
A few details to note:
- Staff members will report directly to functional directors (solid line) and are accountable to meeting program-specific goals and requirements (dotted line).
- Our current organizational structure of Graduate Business Programs (GBP), Nonprofit Professional Development (NPD) and Executive Education will transition to a model that aligns and differentiates by student profiles and experiences under the following structure: Executive Education, MBA and Specialized Master’s Programs.
- Certificate programs (non-degree), both executive and nonprofit, will be part of Executive Education.
- Each program group will be overseen by an associate dean and have a designated academic faculty or program staff director.
- Functional directors as well as the chief marketing and graduate enrollment officer will report directly to the dean with accountability to the associate deans.
In addition to elevating all of our graduate programs, this new organizational structure is intended to help facilitate:
- Sharing functional knowledge and overcoming information silos for staff and faculty both across functions by program and across programs by function,
- Encouraging collaboration between faculty and staff members, and
- Providing greater strategic clarity for those working within a program.
The new organizational model is still very high level. Our next steps include identifying how our existing staff positions can be best allocated across all of our functions and programs. This involves identifying roles and responsibilities, creating new position descriptions, determining budget strategies, posting open positions internally and filling any unfilled positions. I anticipate our transition to continue through the next few months with an ambitious goal to have our new structure in place by mid-summer.
I want to emphasize that the goal of the reorganization is not to reduce staffing, cut costs or address performance issues. In fact, I hope that we will be able to add staff positions. Rather, the impetus for change is to implement a new structure providing greater collaboration across functions and programs, as well as more flexibility and agility, with the goal of elevating all of our graduate programs.
I acknowledge that this level of change is disruptive for many people across the College and that continued transparency is very important. We want to be intentional as we put the model into place and involve all the relevant stakeholders. I will continue to share news as the structure develops. Your input is critically important. Please continue to provide feedback via this form or directly by meeting with Kara Palmer, the associate deans or myself. Also, please think of me as always available to meet in person. I will have open office hours later this semester again, and you can always email Beth directly to schedule a meeting with me.
I’m grateful to the many people at Mendoza who have devoted a great deal of time and thought to designing and implementing this new organizational structure, including the associate deans, chairs, directors, staff members and others who participated in the focus groups. Special thanks to Kara and associate deans Kristen Collett-Schmitt, Mike Mannor and Walt Clements for their leadership and providing thoughtful and candid feedback along the way.
In Notre Dame,
Martijn
