What is the purpose of this restructuring?

• The Plant Sciences at CALS are consistently ranked in the top ten programs of their kind in the nation. These accomplishments, both collectively and individually, provide the college with remarkable credentials in teaching, research, and extension in these disciplines.
• Within these areas, there are already ongoing collaborations and interrelations that foster further excellence. Thoughtfully approaching a reorganization of the departmental structure of the Plant Sciences offers an extraordinary opportunity to further strengthen and respond to evolving needs.
• The tradition of Plant Sciences at CALS encompasses more than a century of being at the vanguard of foundational, translational, and applied research. Given our commitment to creating a sustainable society, and recognizing current and future challenges posed by competing demands for food, fuel, and fiber as well as by climate change, biodiversity loss, and water and food supply, this process will end with a structure and programs that continue to position CALS as a global leader in these areas.
• Our goals are to excite and attract the world’s best new faculty and students, and to provide our faculty with essential support staffing and resources.
  

What is the process for this reorganization? Has a timeline been established?

• The constitution of the newly formed departments will be determined through a process that will be led by Senior Associate Dean Jan Nyrop. Under his leadership, a committee will be assigned early in 2012 and charged with developing the structural model by mid-2013, with implementation to occur by mid-2014.  Between now and January, chairs and associate chairs of the Plant Sciences departments will formulate discussion questions to structure feedback from their faculty on the committee and its charge.
• All five of the current plant science departments—Horticulture, Crop and Soil Sciences, Plant Breeding and Genetics, Plant Biology, and Plant Pathology and Microbe-Biology—will potentially be impacted.
• As with the Reimagining CALS strategic plan, we envision a dynamic, inclusive and iterative process for both development of the plan and for its implementation.
• The restructuring of existing plant science programs into fewer departments will aggregate academic resources into larger units that promote better strategic planning and future investment ; better coordinate undergraduate and graduate education; facilitate multidimensional and collaborative research, extension, and outreach; and provide more flexibility in responding to future budget challenges.
• New units will be complementary. Each will encompass faculty and a mission that spans from basic to applied research. They will provide an appropriate balance between foundational, translational and applied plant science that encompasses molecular and cellular biology, population genetics and genomics, and more applied aspects of plant research that expand the reach to ecosystem-level dynamics. In addition to undergraduate and graduate teaching, collectively these units will have strong extension outreach and international agriculture development programs.
  

How will this impact faculty recruitment and hiring?

• Fewer departments will allow more frequent additions of new faculty members to each academic unit, which is essential to positioning CALS as a dynamic assemblage of plant science researchers and educators.
  

How will this impact administrative staffing levels in the Plant Sciences?

• There will be no reductions in administrative staffing levels in these areas.
  

How will this impact students enrolled in the existing major structure?

• All students will benefit from the new structure through increased collaborations and interactions.
• The new organizational structure will not lead to the elimination of graduate fields or substantial changes in the undergraduate curriculum. Graduate fields transcend departments, and the plant sciences curriculum is determined by the entire plant science faculty.
• The plant sciences undergraduate curriculum is undergoing revision by the Plant Sciences Curriculum committee that is composed of faculty from all current plant science departments. This process will continue and is independent of a structural reorganization of plant science departments.
  

How does this fit into the larger strategy of CALS?

• As outlined above, CALS is committed to being at the forefront of research and education that addresses the major global challenges ahead of us. A comprehensive and agile Plant Sciences presence is an integral part of that.
• In 2009, CALS was charged with developing a plan for restructuring to position the College for strategic future growth in the context of constricting revenue streams. This request came from Provost Kent Fuchs as part of the University’s strategic planning process.
• Under Dean Susan Henry, an advisory committee consisting of department chairs, faculty, administrative staff, and college leadership was assembled to create a recommended restructuring plan. This committee engaged in an iterative and consultative process with the broad college community to develop a set of recommendations. The restructuring plan was designed to align college programs with available revenues and to propel the college toward realizing its vision of being the preeminent land grant college of agriculture and life sciences. The resulting plan remains available at this website:  http://cals.cornell.edu/cals/reimagining/
• One specific outcome of the CALS strategic plan was the realization that 26 departments for a targeted 330 faculty members would not be sustainable. To this end, on July 1, 2010, the Ithaca-Geneva departments were merged, which reduced the college’s overall department numbers by four. In October, 2010, a plan was launched to assimilate our education faculty into other units, reducing our department numbers to 21. The present focus on plant sciences reflects the next step forward in that process.