The SCIT proposal for reorganization has generated healthy debate on campus on how various units relate one to another. At the same time there seems to be some confusion as well on how to see the new proposals. This brief essay is an attempt to explain the proposed organizational structure graphically. All maps are, almost by definition, skewed representations of reality that attempt to convey a particular message. Sometimes the representations are naively ethnocentric, as in the first world maps of the European explorers, sometimes they are very deliberately seeking to convey a particular vision of reality.
Organization charts are a kind of map that presumably intend to show reporting systems.
Rarely are the dynamic activities of organizations shown independently of the static departmental elements. In one sense, this is not a particular disadvantage. Maps are, after all, a simplification of reality, and one view of reality really is represented in organization charts. On the other hand, symbolic representations take on a life of their own and constrain the way reality is viewed. To think of organizations as static does a considerable disservice to what is really occurring.