HR and Faculty Affairs Shared Services Model

Wednesday, May 5, 2021, 3:00pm

TO: All Employees
FR: Karen Moranski, Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
       Joyce Lopes, Vice President for Administration and Finance

As you may know, the divisions and the Cabinet have been exploring ways we can reduce the budget and gain efficiencies through shared services. One of the shared services ideas that has come from Cabinet discussions is a merger of human resources functionality across the divisions of Administration and Finance and Academic Affairs. This spring that idea became more urgent when Associate Vice President Deborah Roberts informed me that she would be returning to the faculty in Fall 2021. 

AVP Roberts and AVP Jeff Banks are working now on a plan that would move much of the human resources functionality in Academic Affairs to the Human Resources Department. The staff in Faculty Affairs would form an Academic unit within HR that would maintain most services currently offered by the unit in the Provost's Office. AVP Banks brings to Sonoma State a wealth of experience in Faculty HR and will serve as the executive leadership for faculty and staff Human Resources.

One of my top concerns as Provost is to ensure the level of support faculty currently receive from Faculty Affairs will continue to be provided in this new organizational structure. Academic Affairs and Administration and Finance are collectively committed to this goal. We will maintain a position in Academic Affairs that would function as a point person around issues of re-appointment, tenure, and promotion, which is a fundamentally academic enterprise. That position would serve as a contact for faculty for those important processes and for problem-solving and would work with Human Resources to ensure our faculty recruitment and retention processes continue to prioritize the diversity of our faculty and the equity of our processes.

We are still working on that position, and I will seek out advice on this position from shared governance partners before the end of the semester. We will send out more details as soon as they are available. The collective commitment of Academic Affairs and Administration and Finance is to ensure the level of support faculty currently receive from Faculty Affairs will continue to be provided by Human Resources in the new organizational structure.