UWRF proposes merger of business, teaching colleges

UWRF will merge College of Business  and Economics (CBE) and the College of Education and Professional Studies (CEPS), and if approved by the Board of Regents, the official merger would happen on July 1st, 2023. 

Dawn Hukai, the interim dean of College of Business and Economics and College of Education and Professional Studies spoke about the benefit of the merger, saying, “There is more administrative support for both so, I think that is the idea. If you go to our office over in South Hall, on the business side, there is one person in the office because of all of the budget cuts.”

According to an article written by the Falcon Newsroom, “Merging CBE and CEPS will save about $250,000 a year in administrative costs and will help to ensure that multiple professional accreditations can be maintained, including the prestigious Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International Designation.”

Together, both colleges serve around 2,000 students. With the potential merger, Hukai said, “Hopefully the benefit for the students will be that, eventually, we will have better coverage over both of the colleges as a result.” According to Hukai, the professors in both colleges will not feel any effects of the potential merge and the administrative staff will have more help.

The proposed college name is the College of Business, Education, and Allied Health. Hukai spoke about the current idea of having three different schools under the college. “Schools aren’t a structure that we have had on this campus for a long time, so we are trying to figure out if it makes sense to have these schools.” 

Hukai also mentioned the possible difficulty of marketing the new college and that the three new schools will help with that. “In the end the schools may just be more symbolic than anything but it’s at least giving us a way to try to think about, how our areas are grouped? How might we organize what’s in those areas? But it’s a very college centered campus, it's a very department chair centered campus, so building this additional mezzanine level in between is proving challenging.”

The new college will house all the same majors as the current two and the departments will all stay the same, unless they decide to restructure. If the merger does not get passed by the Board of Regents the school will work until they get it approved.

If the merger does get approved, according to Hukai the school will go through a new dean hiring process in the spring, the official merger will happen in July, and there will still be plenty of work to do after that.