After a major college restructuring, Boise State combined the College of Education and School of Public Service into one, bringing together 15 undergraduate degrees and 20 graduate programs.
Although both colleges were formally combined on July 1, integrating their new academic and administrative operations is expected to take about two years, according to Andrew Finstuen, former College of Education dean and interim dean of the newly established college.
The merger comes in the aftermath of the university absorbing a 3% budget cut, The Arbiter previously reported.
Boise State officials emphasized that students will face no immediate disruption to their classes, major requirements, or progress toward graduation.
“Your programs and curriculum aren’t changing. Yes, there’s a new name, but you’ll take the same classes and move through your degree as planned—there won’t be disruption to your degree pathway,” Finstuen said.
Boise State plans to reinvest administrative savings from reduced overhead directly into hiring new faculty, growing student program budgets, and funding research centers, Idaho EdNews reports.
According to Boise State’s website, the integration will “utilize each college’s strengths in policy and governance, and faculty expertise in education and public service.”
“The School of Public Service and the College of Education are two of our most public‑service‑focused colleges, so leadership saw a strong mission alignment between them, along with an opportunity to gain some administrative efficiencies,” said Finstuen.
However, Lauren Kelley, one of the student government senators for the School of Public Service, expressed concerns about how students may lose a sense of identity due to merging the two colleges.
“One of my immediate concerns was that College of Education and School of Public Service students might lose their sense of ownership over their own colleges,” Kelley said. “I feel like in university having a sense of ownership over something is really important.”
Former School of Public Service senator Charlotte McNeely said the merger came as a surprise to her. She felt caught off guard by the decision, especially as a student representative.
“I definitely was really shocked, and I felt kind of blindsided because I was serving as the representative for the school,” McNeely said. “If they are to ever do something like this again … my request would be to have a bit more student involvement and transparency.”
Throughout the summer, a planning committee overseeing the merger has met three times already and continues to hold several more meetings before the start of fall semester.
“We did meet with students to hear lots of questions, and we’ll do more of that in the fall,” Finstuen explains.
The merger timeline will depend on several factors, including receiving state approvals, updating policies, keeping student services running during the transition and aligning academics with student support services. The university will continue to share details involving programs, resources and administrative changes over the next two years. McNeely and Kelley hope Boise State will inform students about future changes like this. Both also believe that students should be more involved in decisions that affect them.
“Even though we can’t change the outcome of the merger, we really want to make it a smooth transition, not one that creates more tension than there needs to be. Rather than fighting the outcome, what can we do with it to create the best experience for students overall,” Kelley said.
