Miami University Regional Campuses held the first of three public forums this week seeking input on the process to create a new academic division for the three campuses.

Recommendations about the name of the academic division, its organizational structure and the process for hiring new faculty will be made by the Regional Campus Implementation Committee to the university provost and University Senate.

The creation of the academic division, similar to the Farmer School of Business or the College of Arts and Science, will allow the campuses to create their own degree programs without the approval of academic departments in Oxford.

Pat Schaefer, a member of the MUM Citizens Advisory Committee, expressed concern that creating a separate academic division for the regional campuses would have a negative impact on the perception of having a degree from the Regional Campuses as opposed to Oxford.

“Are we going to be tagged as a different kind of school because we are in Middletown?” she asked. “If we become a division, are we going to still have a close connection to the mother school or be floundering?”

“It doesn’t matter if you take your classes in Oxford, Middletown, Hamilton or Voice of America,” committee co-chair James Oris said. “I believe very strongly that the introduction of a new division is to allow (the Regional Campuses) the flexibility to thrive, not to flounder.”

“Everything about this place is still Miami University,” committee co-chair Cathy Bishop-Clark said.

Overall, Schaefer said, the input she has received from the community regarding the new division has been positive.

“To be able to receive a full degree is the jewel in the crown for this campus and this town,” she said. “We’ll continue to grow.”

The committee has also conducted a survey for possible names for the new division. The preliminary recommendations are “College/School of Interdisciplinary and Applied Studies,” “College/School of Applied and Professional Studies” and “College/School of Professional and Applied Sciences.”

The naming of the division and whether to call it a “college” or “school” brought to light “a conversation that should have been had a long time ago,” Oris said, regarding the use of the words “division,” “school” and “college,” and a separate committee has been meeting to come up with guidelines.

“Nearly every word we have up there is problematic,” Oris said, “but we have it up there so we can have a conversation.”

In a draft plan, new faculty members would follow one of three pathways in regard to promotion and tenure, according to Bishop-Clark.

New hires in one of the degree programs that are specific to the Regional Campuses and the new division will follow a promotion and tenure track entirely within the division.

For other hires, whose teaching duties at the Regional Campuses also fall under the authority of an existing academic division in Oxford, it would be determined at the beginning of the search whether the position would follow a promotion and tenure track in the new division or in the existing division.

That decision would be made by the search committee, the deans involved and the provost, said Oris, but there would be enough flexibility in the process that which track is appropriate could be changed.

“We’re trying to provide options and possibilities,” Oris said. “After we make our recommendations, it is up to the Governance Committee.”