St. Francis College of Commerce

St. Francis College of Commerce

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
St. Francis University was a medium-sized private University, located in a major port city in Visayas. The University is well known for its engineering and Science degree courses and was one of the better private universities in the city. The university had a total enrollment of about 26,000 at both the graduate and the undergraduate levels.
The College of Commerce was a major unit of the University. However, it has only 3000 student enrollees or so, compared to the College of Engineering, which accounted for more than a third of the University’s enrollment.
The College of Commerce has 55 full time faculty and over 100 lecturers. The faculty members taught as many as 5 courses per semester while the lecturers taught three courses. The College of Commerce was distributed among the four major fields, namely: Banking and Finance, Accounting, Marketing and Business Management.
In June 1988, Mr. Santos assumed the position of Dean of the College of Commerce following the retirement of the incumbent. Mr. Santos, who previously occupied the position of Vice Dean for Administration, was eager to improve further the enrollment of the college. The college of commerce had experience one of the more rapid growth in enrollment in the University during the past ten years. Dean Santos proposed to the Rector a reorganization of College which would reduce the existing number of departments from 6 to 3. Dean Santos considered the cost increase in running the college and difficulty in raising the tuition fee. The financial benefits would be the basis of the savings of the stated cost. The department heads are against proposal. Many believe that the merging would create a loss of academic identity in the departments.

Problem of the Case:
Is the proposed of departmental reorganization for the college of commerce should be push thru or not?