Dickinson State University implements major administrative overhaul

May 26—DICKINSON — Dickinson State University is undergoing significant administrative changes as it prepares for the upcoming 2023-24 academic year. Dr. Steve Easton, president of DSU, is moving forward with alterations to the structure of administration by separating the historically unified Vice President of Academic Affairs and Provost positions into two new positions at the university.

According to Easton, the original search produced two strong candidates whom he believes the university would benefit by having as leaders. He says that two highly-qualified and strong candidates were identified during the original search and that prompted restructuring ideas.

The three finalists for the original search, under the traditional combined position, included Dr.Holly Gruhlke of DSU, Dr.David Fitz of the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford and Dr.Huijian Dong of New Jersey City University.

Easton said that in order to accommodate these candidates, he personally sought permission to split the positions — a decision that legally required reopening the search process.

"We had three finalists on campus. Two of the finalists, I thought, were very strong candidates. And so I then contacted our state office and said 'Am I allowed to split the jobs and have a Vice President and a Provost?'" Easton said. "And the state office said, 'No, you have to reopen up if you're going to. Not that you're not allowed to do that, but you cannot offer it to candidates who became finalists under the search for the combined position."

Ultimately, the decision was made to move forward with the split positions and relaunch the search process in an effort to hire the two candidates — a decision that has raised concerns with a professor on campus who says that campuswide communication practices and transparency surrounding such a drastic change has been lacking.

Dr. Eric Grabowsky, Associate Professor of Communication at DSU, says he feels that the changes are not a good look for the university and has reservations with the publicly voiced reasoning behind the decision.

"As of the timing of my words to your publication, President Easton has not provided a campuswide explanation of the rationale for the change in approach to two searches," Grabowsky said. "With the campus and community publicity for the initial VP/Provost search, such campuswide explanation should have been provided weeks ago."

Grabowsky called into question the restructuring efforts following the departure of the Dean of College of Arts and Sciences, saying that any argument that it served as a catalyst for the significant change would be misleading.

"From the start of the VP/Provost search in January 2023 until now, there is no groundbreaking information regarding any changes in the circumstances of the institution," he said. "For instance, many DSU employees have known since December 2022 that the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences will be leaving DSU before the start of the 2023-2024 academic year. Unfortunately, this situation involves a deficiency in organizational campuswide communication at DSU."

According to Easton, under the new structure the Vice President would head one college, while the Provost would oversee the other. Both positions will report directly to Easton and will be responsible for various duties, including academic program planning, implementation, coordination and evaluation, faculty appointment, retention and evaluation.

While Easton's approach is certainly novel at institutions within the North Dakota University System, he says he remains unusually optimistic about its potential.

"It's a somewhat unusual way to approach these...I feel good about working it up," Easton said. "I am not, by nature, an overly optimistic person. I'm a lawyer who spent the first half of my career practicing law representing people. Part of the lawyer's job is to see around the corner where there's more danger ahead for your clients. There are no guarantees, but I really like our chances of ending up with some really strong leadership for Dickinson State."

Nationwide there are many universities which operate in a similar administrative structure, though DSU would be the first in the state to implement it at the university level.

As the search committee begins its work to select candidates for both positions under the new system, factors such as experience, record of excellence, program development success, commitment to DSU, and familiarity with DSU and the North Dakota University system are being considered and weighed.

On the issue of financial costs associated with the new system and relaunched searches, Easton emphasized the importance of saving funds for the small university whenever and wherever possible. He says the new search process adds a new position and introduces financial strains, but will result in a net savings of nearly $50,000. He explained that with the new managerial structure the university would effectively save the equivalent of a "half position."

Although public comments from the university have primarily focused on the benefits and cost savings aspect of the changes, open records show that Easton had some concerns. An email to his administrative team acknowledged the necessity of addressing budgetary constraints due to limited funding for inflation, and in light of the decision to separate the provost and VP positions into two distinct roles. The email was sent to an administrative team that included Gruhlke, one of the candidates for the open positions.

The search for the Vice President and Provost positions remains ongoing, with campus interviews tentatively scheduled from May 30 to June 7.