The university is made up of colleges. Colleges are made up of units/schools/departments.
Colleges:
- Fulton Schools of Engineering (FSE) and Herberger Institute of Design and the Arts (HIDA) are colleges. Colleges are led by Deans.
Schools/Units/Departments:
- Colleges administer units/schools/departments (Units, schools, and departments all mean the same thing). Schools are led by Directors. (At other universities, schools are called “Departments” and Directors are called “Chairs”.)
I (and by extension, Meteor Studio) am in the School of AME and the School of ECEE. Like most science/engineering faculty, I run a research lab, which we call Meteor Studio. We have students with degree programs in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, Digital Culture and even Psychology and Chemistry. But Meteor Studio is run by me, and I’m in AME+ECEE. So Meteor Studio is also in AME+ECEE.
AME: School of Arts, Media and Engineering, led by Director Pavan Turaga
- AME is in the Herberger Institute for the Design of the Arts, led by Dean Steven Tepper
ECEE: School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, led by Director Stephen Phillips
- ECEE is in the Fulton Schools of Engineering, led by Dean Kyle Squires.
You will probably never meet either Dean, and will probably never meet Steve Phillips. On the other hand, you will almost definitely run into Pavan Turaga, since he’s in Stauffer. All of them know me by face and name. If you do sit with them for whatever reason, you can always introduce yourself as “A PhD-student/undergrad/grad-student working with Robert LiKamWa” and they’ll understand. (They won’t know “Meteor Studio”). Actually, you can introduce yourself to any professor in AME or ECEE that way; it’s highly likely they’ll know who I am.
What does a school/department/unit (like AME or ECEE) do?
Schools are designed to encompass like-minded researchers/educators to achieve missions together. This allows school-level resource allocation, hiring decisions, and curricular programs to adapt to the needs of the faculty’s interests. (That’s what those faculty meetings discuss.) Administrative staff, which includes finances/payroll/HR/curriculum, are also run at a school level, e.g., AME or ECEE, which also percolates up to college level (Herberger or Fulton).
For example, the school director decides how much each faculty member teaches and what subjects they teach. The school also determines the salary of each faculty member and recommends whether they get tenure.
Degree programs for undergraduate and graduate students are decided by schools, and approved by the College and the University. AME has the “Digital Culture” degree program for undergraduate and master’s students. AME’s Ph.D. (aka doctoral) degree program is called “Media, Arts and Sciences”. ECEE has the “Electrical Engineering” degree program for undergraduate, master’s, and Ph.D. students. SCAI has a bunch of different degree programs, including “Computer Science”, “Software Engineering”, and “Engineering Management”.
Traditionally, this is quite straightforward: Put all the Biologists in the Biology Department. Put all of the Chemists in the Chemistry Department. Put all of the Economists in the Economics department. However, to aim at “transdisciplinary” goals, which synergize interests from multiple disciplines, ASU has schools that integrate multiple disciplines together, such as SCAI, which integrates computer scientists, industrial engineering, and informatics under one roof.
Further complicating matters, there are multi-school initiatives and curricular programs that sit across multiple schools and sometimes multiple colleges. Computer Engineering is a curricular program that lets students take classes in both computer science and electrical engineering at B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. levels. This necessitates agreement between SCAI and ECEE faculty on the standards of the Computer Engineering and so there are faculty and staff in both schools working to make things work smoothly for the students. (Or so we try...). SCAI calls its Computer Engineering degree plan “Computer Systems Engineering” (CSE), while ECEE calls its Computer Engineering degree plan “Computer Engineering” (CEN).
Why is Robert in two schools?
I was hired into a 50% appointment in AME and a 50% appointment in ECEE. That means my teaching load (how many courses I have to teach) is split between AME and ECEE.
AME is my “tenure home”, meaning that it makes promotion and tenure decisions about me. AME consults ECEE for guidance in making promotion decisions. All of my teaching is also split across AME and ECEE.
Physically, we’re located alongside other AME faculty in the Stauffer building. But we have all the resources and personnel of both AME and ECEE at our fingertips. For example, we can get FURI grants for undergraduate research, which is only accessible to Fulton faculty. And we can get access to the AME Fab Lab, Electronics Workshop, and poster plotter, which is only available for AME students, staff, and faculty. And I get to be involved in decisions that affect both schools. (Unfortunately, that also means I have to go to two sets of faculty meetings.)
I really like the split AME/ECEE situation we have. I like the workings of both schools and the faculty and leadership of both.
What is an “assistant professor”? Whom do you assist?
Assistant Professor is the title given to tenure-track professors; professors during the first 6 years of their time at a university. (It’s just a title. They don’t “assist” anyone.) In those first 6 years, the department evaluates whether there is a good fit with the university, maintaining a strong profile of research and a reasonable profile of teaching. Strong profile in research means bringing in grant money, graduating Ph.D. students, writing conference and journal papers, and generally being respected by researchers in and around your research field, especially those outside of the university. A “reasonable” profile in teaching just means that the professor was able to teach a variety of classes in the department, and that the student evaluations are reasonably good. An average of 3 out of 5 for teaching is often good enough! The school/college/university doesn’t care if a faculty is not superb at teaching. They do care if a faculty is not superb at research. That is, if a faculty member is bringing in money and publications, but is not very good at teaching, they’ll still get tenure. If a faculty is not bringing in money and publications, then no amount of teaching or 5/5 evaluations will save them.
Once a professor gets tenure (for me, this was Spring 2022), they get promoted to Associate Professor. What tenure means is that the university cannot remove a professor from its faculty unless they have extraordinary reason to. Even if an associate professor is really bad at teaching and doesn’t bring in any money/publications, the university cannot get rid of them. But the department can make them teach more classes and serve on more committees. The original purpose of tenure is to protect professors who want to conduct socially controversial research and not get kicked out of the university despite outrage or favoritism. This isn’t typically a big deal in engineering.
If an Associate Professor continues to do well for another 5-6 years (or longer), they can get promoted to Full Professor, also just called Professor.
A Faculty Associate is a non-tenure-track “contingent” personnel who teaches classes on a one-off basis. They’re guns-for-hire, so only get hired on a class-by-class basis. They’re not considered “part of the faculty” when it comes to faculty governance.
Chaired Professors are professors that are supported by a large external donation (a single time millions of dollars, which produces investment dividends that boosts the prof’s salary by a lot), often from some alumnus who wants to give back to the university/school after reaching massive financial success, e.g., founding a successful company.
An Emeritus Professor is a retired professor who just hangs around for fun/socialness and maybe to carry out some light research activities because they want to, but not because they have to. The school doesn’t really get to tell them what to do, but appreciates having them around for their name/prestige, as well as for their social.
List of Colleges:
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Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering (Fulton, FSE, IAFSE) has 6 Schools (Other universities call these Departments), led by Dean Kyle Squires.
- ECEE: School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, Director Stephen Phillips
- SCAI: School of Computing and Augmented Intelligence, Director Sandeep Gupta
- SEMTE: School for Engineering of Matter, Transport and Energy (Includes Mechanical Engineering and Material Science)
- SBHSE: School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering;
- SSEBE: School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment
- The Polytechnic School (formerly, College of Technology and Innovation)
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Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts (Herberger, HIDA) has 5 Schools + the Art Museum, led by Dean Steven Tepper.
- AME: School of Arts, Media and Engineering, Director: Pavan Turaga
- Art: School of Art
- Design: The Design School
- FDT: School of Film, Dance and Theater
- Music: School of Music
- The ASU Art Museum (yes, this is coded as a school)
- Gammage (yep)
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The College (of Liberal Arts and Sciences): School of Life Sciences (SOLS), Chemistry, Psychology, School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE), many others
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Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law
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Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College
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College of Health Solutions
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Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation
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College of Global Futures: School of Future of Innovation in Society (SFIS)
Some Schools are their own College… it seems they are either important enough by themselves or that the university couldn’t figure out where to put them.
- Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication
- Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability (and the School of Sustainability)
- WP Carey School of Business
- Thunderbird School of Global Management
- Watts College of Public Service and Community Solutions
Some colleges seem purely administrative:
- Barrett, the Honors College
- The Graduate College
- The University College