Minnesota Restructures Grad School

The University of Minnesota is restructuring its graduate school, changing it from a "free-standing" administration to part of the provost's office, the Minnesota Daily reports. Under the new system, which will launch in fall 2010, individual deans and departments will have more responsibility and, according to a press release, the move will reduce costs and "strengthen graduate education and programs."

There are no estimates on how much money will be saved by the restructuring, but the Daily reports "the Finance and Personnel Department, one of the Graduate School's largest departments, will be completely cut and administration will be 'substantially downsized,' according to the University documents. Both departments currently have nine employees."

The graduate school has around 50 full-time employees.

The move for many was a surprise, according to the graduate school student president. "It's a pretty big bomb," he said. "The gist of what I have been hearing is that a lot of the big higher ups in the graduate school themselves didn't even know this was happening."