Any future changes in the organization of liberal arts and sciences will not come from the administration, but will "bubble up" from the faculty, MSU officials say.

Last week, acting Provost John Hudzik released a report updating members of Academic Council on the status of multiple university initiatives, including the reorganization of the liberal arts and sciences.

"I thought people needed to know in a thorough way where we were on various initiatives," Hudzik said. "The rumor mill can generate a lot of false rumors. It's important to tell folks what's going on and what isn't."

Last spring, a proposal by then-Provost Lou Anna K. Simon that would consolidate all traditional liberal arts disciplines into one college was introduced into the Academic Governance system. At the time, many faculty thought the proposal was created without their input.

The original proposal included combining the College of Arts & Letters and the College of Communication Arts and Sciences into one large college devoted to the study of liberal arts and sciences. The new college had a tentative name of the College of Communication, Arts, Languages and Media, or CALM.

The proposal also included dissolving the College of Human Ecology and moving its programs to other parts of the university. That process has begun with some programs already moved to other colleges and some still looking for a home.

The College of Social Science also was slated for reorganization to incorporate other programs in the proposal.

As a result of the large-scale changes proposed for the university, the Academic Senate convened for the first time in eight years last spring for staff to discuss what they thought was a lack of faculty voice on campus.

But Simon's original proposal was misunderstood, Hudzik said.

"It was too strongly interpreted," he said. "It should have been interpreted as a question rather than a statement."

Now, after more than a year of discussion, the administration has decided it will not initiate the formation of a single liberal arts and sciences college unless faculty members want to pursue it. Any proposed changes for reorganization of liberal arts and sciences will begin by faculty suggestion.

"One idea that had been floating around has been creating a single college - like many other institutions have," Hudzik said. "That question was put before faculty, and I think we got a response. I don't think there is support for it among the faculty, and unless there is broad-based support, I would find it difficult to move forward with something like that."

Simon introduced the reorganization plans to foster discussion on ways to improve education.

"We have been through that process of self-examination and renewal. Every idea was reviewed by academic governance - no idea has been acted on formally without the support of governance," Simon said. "Who proposes the idea is not the key issue. The key issue is using governance once the idea has been proposed to vet the idea and make a recommendation."

Although the majority of faculty members have said that the creation of a single liberal arts and sciences college is not something they want, they have discussed collaborating with each other to combine programs and create new areas of study.

Many faculty members said they were pleased that their input and ideas were considered during the process.

"The outcome is a testament to faculty given the opportunity to have a voice," said Charles Salmon, acting dean of the College of Communication Arts and Sciences. "Faculty committees met for nearly six months to discuss it and ending up with (this result) reflects that faculty voices were heard."

Still, some think the initiatives of the reorganization, and the resulting year-long discussion were unnecessary.

"I totally deny that there has been any benefit at all," said Grover Hudson, linguistics professor and president of the MSU chapter of the American Association of University Professors, who favored the single liberal arts and sciences college.

"It's been largely a waste of faculty time. I'm aware that there have been cross-collaborations, but I'm not aware that those wouldn't have happened anyway."

Other parts of Simon's proposal that met less resistance from faculty include the creation of a residential college for the study of liberal arts and humanities, and evaluating the integrative studies programs on campus.

Both of those initiatives are currently in the Academic Governance system.