One would merge the faculties of Arts and Letters, Social Sciences and Natural Sciences and Mathematics into a College of Arts and Sciences. The other would merge Arts and Letters and Social Sciences into a College of Arts, Humanities and Social Science while merging Natural Sciences and Mathematics and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences into a College of Science and Engineering. Headrick said he will appoint a panel to gather information on the options to help in making a final decision. Institutes, which would have relatively large memberships, would bring together faculty with related and common interests. They would require minimal administrative support to run conferences, internal colloquia and ensure good internal and external communication.
Initiatives have an academic focus for collaboration that as of yet has no formal structure.
Initiatives could, in time, evolve into institutes. Among the proposals for institutes and initiatives that are under discussion are those to establish a humanities initiative and institute, a policy institute, a biological sciences initiative, chemical sciences initiative, information and communication technology initiative, urban initiative, women and gender institute, environmental institute and a neuroscience initiative. Within the institutes would be located a number of research centers and interdisciplinary program centers. These centers would be operating units of faculty and students working together in a well-defined area of academic and intellectual endeavor. They would foster collaborations and joint work in research, scholarly writing and teaching.