Office of the President

Marketing and Communications Organizational Design

As part of Western’s Administrative Redesign, we are reorganizing how marketing and communications are structured, so the University can more effectively express its brand position, compete for enrollment, and make the best use of its talent and resources. We are aligning MarCom with Western’s mission, so our structures match our strengths.

Current state of the marketing and communications organization

Today, MarCom work is distributed across many offices and colleges, creating fragmented messaging, siloed effort and spending, and an uneven audience experience at the very moment when enrollment competition, marketing and communications disruption and AI-driven digital audience behavior are accelerating. Several listening exercises over the past year have noted that strong people are working within a system that makes it hard to show up as one university. Maintaining the status quo would weaken our competitive position.

The redesign will bring University marketing and communications teammates together as a single, coordinated enterprise guided by a shared strategy, clear brand direction and shared operating expectations, while preserving direct strategic support for colleges and units. In practical terms, this means clearer brand frameworks, stronger enrollment support, crisper and more consistent messages, shared tools and data, and coordinated strategies that advance reputation, alumni and donor engagement, and other institutional priorities. The redesign will shift our marketing and communications enterprise from a heavy reliance on generalists toward more specialized, integrated and evidence-based activations. Every college and unit can tap deeper expertise while still receiving local support. 

Benefits

For the University

  • A more enrollment‑driven, distinctive brand with resources better aligned to WMU’s most pressing competitive challenges.  
  • Stronger coordination across channels and units, producing clearer messages and better outcomes from existing investments.  
  • Greater ability to optimize for modern marketing by integrating planning, execution and measurement across the enterprise.

For colleges and departments

  • Broader access to specialized expertise across marketing and communications disciplines instead of relying primarily on isolated, local capacity.  
  • Better alignment with brand, enrollment, advancement and University goals, supported by shared planning and service-level agreements (SLAs) that clarify roles on both sides.  
  • Clearer expectations for support, escalation and prioritization, reducing ambiguity and helping leaders understand how work will be requested, prioritized and delivered.

For affected teammates

  • A people-centered transition with a fair, good-faith opportunity to demonstrate strengths, align to roles and grow in a more modern and discipline-supported environment.  
  • Greater role clarity, more precise definitions of success and a stronger professional community through clearer structures and specialization.  
  • Better career paths, supported by training, shared tools and colleagues in similar roles across the enterprise. 

Planning approach

Leadership: Tony Proudfoot, vice president for marketing and strategic communications, with governance support from the President, Cabinet and an executive advisory group. An implementation team and MarCom leadership will support and inform the work.

Planning will be phased, transparent and feedback-driven rather than immediate or one-size-fits-all. The design philosophy is based on clear expectations, stakeholder input, shared planning and service-level agreements, so that colleges and units continue to receive local support within a more coordinated institutional framework. During the planning phases, current reporting lines and responsibilities will remain in place, while we inventory work, gather input and test models before changes take effect in January. 

Timeline and phases

Discovery phase: July – October

Inventory staff roles, current skills, reporting lines, tools, vendors, contracts and spending; conduct stakeholder interviews with deans, department heads and marketing and communications staff; and draft a high-level operating model for feedback.

Planning phase: October – December

Finalize the provisional organizational structure and job descriptions; develop SLAs; map existing roles to future roles; standardize processes and tools; and finalize transition planning, training needs and key performance indicators.

Implementation phase 1: January – June 2027

Implement the provisional organizational chart and job descriptions; begin executing SLAs; begin unifying tools; establish measurement baselines; and identify high-level refinements based on feedback from staff and campus partners.

Implementation phase 2: July 2027

Finalize the organizational chart and job descriptions; continue executing service-level agreements and assess adoption through check-ins with staff and stakeholders, making further adjustments as needed.
 

Recent communications

Colleagues,

Thank you to everyone who took the time to complete the Unit Needs Discovery Intake. The intake has now closed, and the Implementation Team is beginning the next stage of this work.

Over the next few weeks, we will review and analyze the responses to better understand the goals, priorities, support needs, and recurring marketing and communications demands across Western’s colleges, divisions and units. This analysis will help us prepare for follow-up conversations with unit leaders and, ultimately, develop high-level summary findings that will inform the future MarCom structure and service model.

What to expect next

As we shared when the intake launched, not every respondent will need a follow-up conversation. In some cases, the information provided through the intake may be sufficient for this stage of discovery. In others, a conversation will help us better understand your responses, add context or explore particular needs in more detail.

Everyone who completed the intake can expect to hear from the Implementation Team about whether a follow-up conversation is needed at this time.

For those who will participate in a conversation, calendar invitations will be sent soon, with conversations planned primarily for the last two weeks of September.

After those conversations are complete and the broader Unit Needs Discovery work has been synthesized, we also plan to share high-level findings about what we heard across colleges, divisions and units. Those findings will be considered alongside Staff Discovery and other readiness-phase work as we move toward organizational design.

Thank you again for your thoughtful participation. Your input is helping us develop a more complete picture of what colleges and units need from marketing and communications and what the future model will need to support.

If you have questions in the meantime, please reach out to me at @email.  

Sincerely,

Tony Proudfoot 
Vice President for Marketing and Strategic Communications

MarCom Teammates,

As we move into the next stage of Staff Discovery, I wanted to share a few updates about the work underway and what you can expect in the coming weeks.

Staff Discovery conversations begin soon

We’re looking forward to speaking with each of you during your upcoming individual Staff Discovery conversation. These conversations are an important opportunity for us to better understand your work, skills, interests and experiences and to add context to the information you shared through the staff intake.

By now, you should have received an email from the MarCom Organizational Redesign Implementation Team with your conversation preparation materials, including:

  • A conversation preparation guide outlining what to expect and providing additional context about the organizational direction being explored. 
  • Your individual Staff Discovery profile, developed from the information you provided through the intake process.

Please take some time to review both before your conversation. If you have not received your materials or have questions about your scheduled conversation, contact marcom@wmich.edu.

New Staff FAQ available

We’ve been collecting the questions we’ve received through the staff intake, emails and other conversations and have developed a more robust Staff FAQ to address the topics we’re hearing about most frequently.

Read the Staff FAQ

We encourage you to review it before your Staff Discovery conversation. Our hope is that it will answer some of the questions you may already have and allow us to use more of our time together to learn from you and better understand your perspective.

We’ll continue to update the FAQ as new questions emerge and as we have additional information to share.

Coming Sept. 18: What we learned from the Staff Discovery intake

The Implementation Team is finishing its analysis of the online staff intake responses. We have compiled high-level, aggregated findings that help us better understand the work happening across Western, the experiences of our MarCom staff, and the opportunities and challenges that should inform the next stage of organizational design.

In my next update, I will share a summary of those findings with you, including key themes from what we heard and the implications they might have on design.

These findings will not represent final organizational or individual role decisions. Rather, they are an important part of the evidence we will use alongside the upcoming staff conversations and our engagement with college and unit leaders to inform the design process.

Thank you again for the time and thought you continue to invest in this work. I know organizational change can create questions and uncertainty, and we are committed to keeping you informed as the work progresses—even when there are not yet final decisions to share.

Sincerely,  

Tony Proudfoot 
Vice President for Marketing and Strategic Communications  

Hi Team,

As we envision the redesign of our marketing ecosystem, one of our priorities will be thinking about our audiences as consumers: how they behave, what they expect, and how we meet them with clarity and value. Lucky for us, there’s an upcoming conference in Indianapolis on Wednesday, Sept. 30, that aligns well with this work. The conference is called Unreasonable. Last year, members of the Advancement MarCom team attended this conference. These were some of their takeaways:

  • Work with your audience, not just for them. Treating the audience (alumni and donors) as partners, showing you understand their challenges and are there to help—not just solicit. This was great confirmation to me that the work we are doing on our engagement emails is worthwhile. It’s important for us to communicate with an audience-centric focus and realize that alumni and donor needs may change throughout the year and that providing more resources and support could in turn create better engagement and more donations. I am very grateful for the opportunity to attend this conference and look forward to applying the principles that were shared throughout the day. … This quote from one of the speakers has really stuck with me: “Don’t ask what they’ll do; ask how they feel.”
  • Choose your lane: unify or niche. WMU can position itself as a unifying force for alumni/donors or foster deeper connections with smaller, passionate affinity groups. Both strategies can strengthen feelings of goodwill and loyalty.
  • Tap new influence channels. Our communication efforts should include digital communities, algorithmic discovery and media-style content that keeps WMU top of mind. As Lewis stated, “Content is everything, engagement is the new currency, and everyone is a media company.”

In addition to the valuable content covered at Unreasonable, the conference is relatively low-cost and is a short time commitment. I’m offering support for attendance to interested marketers. If you’d like to go, I will contribute $500 toward your attendance, with the balance paid by your current division or unit—at your current supervisor’s discretion and in alignment with your unit’s policies. If you have your supervisor’s approval but resources are a barrier, let me know. I don’t know how much interest we will have. In the event interest exceeds the resources available, I’ll prioritize on a first-come, first-served basis.

Next step: Please raise your hand (a quick reply is perfect) by Sept. 9 if you’re interested. Once we know who’s in, we’ll coordinate logistics and next steps.

Thanks for all you do and for your curiosity and commitment to making Western stronger.

Thank you!

Tony Proudfoot
Vice President for Marketing and Strategic Communications
 

Dear Colleagues,

Thank you for your participation—whether complete or ongoing—in the Unit Needs Discovery. Your responses will help us build a more accurate understanding of marketing and communications work across Western.

That online component is part of two parallel discovery workstreams: one for units that rely on marketing and communications (what you have been asked to participate in) and one for marketing and communications staff. This work is foundational because the goal is not simply to redraw an organizational chart. It is to design a more unified and effective MarCom organization that makes it easier for colleges, departments and institutional partners to access the expertise they need while giving MarCom professionals clearer roles, stronger professional communities, and meaningful opportunities to grow and apply their strongest expertise to the work that matters most.

Unit workstream

After the Unit Needs Discovery intake closes Aug. 28, you will hear from us about the next step. In some cases, the intake may provide the information needed for this stage of discovery. In others, a member of the Implementation Team will reach out to schedule a follow-up conversation to add context or clarify responses.

Key dates

  • Aug. 28: Online Unit Needs Discovery closes
  • September to October: Targeted unit discovery conversations, as needed
  • Mid-October: Design sessions

Staff workstream

In early September, members of the Implementation and MarCom Leadership teams will invite our staff to individual discovery conversations. Our aim is to understand the full range of talent across our MarCom community—not to make premature assumptions about people or roles.

What’s next

Together, these discovery efforts will help us understand two essential parts of the design challenge: the capabilities and aspirations within our MarCom community, and the needs of the colleges and units we serve. In October, we will share what we have learned—including a needs assessment, gap analysis and proposed design principles—and begin design sessions with you. Those sessions will inform the future organizational model and the transition work that follows.

I also want to address several common questions.

Have decisions already been made about the future structure or where individuals will fit?
No. We have not designed the future organizational structure, developed job descriptions or mapped individuals to future roles. Those decisions come later, and the information we are gathering now will help inform them. We are also drawing on external expertise in higher education marketing and communications to help ensure this transition is deliberate, transparent and attentive to the people who will make the future model work. I will share more about that resource in the coming weeks.

Will the redesigned MarCom organization continue to support colleges and departments?
Yes. A central objective is to expand access to specialized expertise and build more reliable, responsive support for colleges and departments. The redesigned model should make it clearer how work is requested, prioritized, escalated and delivered while preserving the local insight needed to serve distinct audiences and goals.

Will there be opportunities for professional growth?
Yes. Clearer roles, stronger professional disciplines and better development opportunities are important objectives of this work. We want to build an organization where MarCom professionals can deepen their expertise, grow their skills and see meaningful career pathways.

Please continue to share your questions, ideas and concerns. Thank you again for your participation, expertise and continued commitment to Western.

Sincerely,

Tony Proudfoot
Vice President for Marketing and Strategic Communications

Dear Teammates,

Thank you to everyone who completed the Staff Discovery Intake. The time, candor and thought reflected in your responses are helping us build a more accurate understanding of marketing and communications work across Western.

That online component is part of two parallel discovery workstreams: one for staff and one for units that rely on marketing and communications. This work is foundational because the goal is not simply to redraw an organizational chart. It is to design a more unified and effective MarCom organization that makes it easier for colleges, departments and institutional partners to access the expertise they need while giving MarCom professionals clearer roles, stronger professional communities, and meaningful opportunities to grow and apply their strongest expertise to the work that matters most.

Staff workstream

In early September, members of the Implementation and MarCom Leadership teams will invite staff to individual discovery conversations. These conversations will add context to the intake responses and help us better understand your current responsibilities, strongest skills and expertise, and the ways you hope to grow and contribute in the future. You will receive an invitation in advance, along with the discussion topics and information about how your input will be used. Our aim is to understand the full range of talent across our MarCom community—not to make premature assumptions about people or roles.

Key dates

  • Sept. 8-30: Staff discovery conversations
  • Mid-October: Design sessions

Unit workstream

At the same time, we are gathering input from campus leaders through a Unit Needs Discovery. Deans, vice presidents and leaders of areas that need marketing and communications support are sharing their goals, priority audiences, current sources of support, and opportunities or gaps they see. That intake began Aug. 12 and will close Aug. 28.

What’s next

Together, these discovery efforts will help us understand two essential parts of the design challenge: the capabilities and aspirations within our MarCom community, and the needs of the colleges and units we serve. In October, we will share what we have learned—including a needs assessment, gap analysis and proposed design principles—and begin design sessions with you. Those sessions will inform the future organizational model and the transition work that follows.

I also want to address several common questions.

Have decisions already been made about the future structure or where individuals will fit?
No. We have not designed the future organizational structure, developed job descriptions or mapped individuals to future roles. Those decisions come later, and the information we are gathering now will help inform them. We are also drawing on external expertise in higher education marketing and communications to help ensure this transition is deliberate, transparent and attentive to the people who will make the future model work. I will share more about that resource in the coming weeks.

Will the redesigned MarCom organization continue to support colleges and departments?
Yes. A central objective is to expand access to specialized expertise and build more reliable, responsive support for colleges and departments. The redesigned model should make it clearer how work is requested, prioritized, escalated and delivered while preserving the local insight needed to serve distinct audiences and goals.

Will there be opportunities for professional growth?
Yes. Clearer roles, stronger professional disciplines and better development opportunities are important objectives of this work. We want to build an organization where MarCom professionals can deepen their expertise, grow their skills and see meaningful career pathways.

Please continue to share your questions, ideas and concerns. Thank you again for your participation, expertise and continued commitment to Western.

Sincerely,

Tony Proudfoot
Vice President for Marketing and Strategic Communications

Colleagues,

As part of the readiness phase of the MarCom organizational redesign, we are beginning a Unit Needs Discovery process to better understand the marketing and communications goals, priorities and support needs of Western’s colleges, divisions and units.

This is distinct from the Staff Discovery Intake already underway. The staff intake is gathering information about the work, skills and experiences of individual MarCom staff members. This Unit Needs Discovery Intake is focused on the needs of the area you represent, and the marketing and communications support required to advance its goals.

You will soon receive an invitation to an online discovery intake that will ask about: 

  • Your unit’s most important goals and audiences. 
  • The marketing and communications support your unit currently receives. 
  • What is working well and where there are challenges or gaps. 
  • The services and recurring support your unit needs. 
  • Seasonal demands, upcoming initiatives and capacity constraints. 
  • The outcomes that matter most to your unit.

The invitation will arrive later today as a separate email directly from Qualtrics containing your personalized link. Please use that link to complete the intake by Friday, Aug. 28. If you do not see the Qualtrics email, please check your junk or spam folder.

Please respond from the perspective of the college, division or unit you have been asked to represent. We encourage you to be thoughtful, candid and specific. The more complete the information gathered during discovery, the better equipped we will be to understand demand across Western and use that information to inform the future MarCom structure and service model.

Responses will be associated with your name and unit and will be accessible to the Implementation Team and MarCom leadership team. Information will be handled thoughtfully and sensitively within those groups.

Qualtrics will save your responses as you go, so you may leave the intake and return later using your personalized link.

After the intake closes, you will hear from the team about the next step. In some cases, the intake may provide the information needed for this stage of discovery. In others, a member of the Implementation Team will reach out to schedule a follow-up conversation to add context or clarify responses.

Everyone who completes the intake will receive confirmation about whether a follow-up conversation is needed.

If you have questions or concerns, please reach out to the Office of Marketing and Strategic Communications or directly to me.

Thank you for helping us develop a more complete understanding of how marketing and communications can best support Western’s priorities and the needs of its colleges, divisions and units.

Sincerely,

Tony Proudfoot
Vice President for Marketing and Strategic Communications

MarCom teammates,

The first step in the discovery phase of the MarCom organizational redesign is a staff discovery process to develop a complete and accurate understanding of our current marketing and communications landscape.

You will soon receive an invitation to an online discovery intake. It will ask about the work you currently perform, the audiences you communicate with, the skills and experience you bring, the tools you use, how work reaches you, and the types of work you would like to do more or less of in the future.

The invitation will come later today as a separate email directly from Qualtrics containing your personalized link to the intake. Please use that link to access and complete your responses. If you do not see the Qualtrics email, please check your junk or spam folder.

Please answer based on the work you perform in practice, which may extend beyond what appears in your formal job description. We encourage you to be thoughtful, candid and specific. The more complete the information gathered during discovery, the better equipped we will be to understand the strengths, responsibilities, needs and opportunities across all MarCom teammates to inform future planning.

The information you provide is unique to you. Be aware that responses will be associated with your name and will be accessible to the Implementation Team and the MarCom leadership team. Personal information will be treated confidentially and sensitively within those groups.

Please complete the intake by Friday, Aug. 14. Qualtrics will save your responses as you go, so you may leave the intake and return to complete it later rather than finishing it in one sitting.

After the intake closes, you will hear from the team about the next step. In some cases, the intake may provide the information needed for this stage of discovery. In others, a member of the Implementation Team will reach out to schedule a follow-up conversation to add context or clarify responses.

Everyone who completes the intake will receive confirmation about whether a follow-up conversation is needed.

If you have questions or concerns, please reach out to the Office of Marketing and Strategic Communications or directly to me.  

Thank you for taking the time to provide thoughtful and complete information. Your perspective is an important part of developing an accurate understanding of how MarCom work is currently performed across Western.

Sincerely,

Tony Proudfoot
Vice President for Marketing and Strategic Communications

Frequently Asked Questions

For the Administrative Redesign as a whole, our goals are:  

  • To simplify work through clear lines of authority  
  • Strengthen support for Western’s mission 
  • Identify opportunities to reduce costs and generate revenue 

For MarCom, work is distributed across many offices, units and colleges, creating fragmented messaging, siloed efforts and spending and an uneven audience experience at the very moment when enrollment competition, disruption in marketing and communications and AI-driven digital audience behavior are accelerating. Several listening exercises over the past year have noted that strong people are working within a system that makes it hard to show up as one university. Maintaining the status quo would weaken our competitive position.

While the discovery process will inform our final design principles, which will be shared in planned design sessions, our vision is that WMU MarCom will become the best of breed among mid-major universities. In action, this means we will meet the full measure of our mission by becoming:

  • An enrollment-driven, distinctive brand that integrates advancement in a goal-oriented division spanning all University MarCom resources while serving local strategic needs
  • A team of specialized subject-matter experts organized to be responsive and future-focused on the disruptive, breathtaking change in the marketing and strategic communications sector
  • A dynamic learning organization that leverages the power of social science, analytics and design thinking
  • Audience advocates that continuously listen, gather and share insights and respond to our audiences

As we work together to design the most effective marketing and communications function at Western, an important role will be MarCom team members who will work intimately with college and unit leaders to understand their needs and help them achieve their and the University's goals.  

Colleges and units will have a key point of contact who will have access to the full complement of expertise that MarCom will provide—more than they have now. Central to the design is having more specialists. One specialization will be understanding the needs of a specific college or unit and how to activate MarCom expertise and capacity to accomplish its ambition in alignment with institutional goals.

How we will do that is still being designed. 

In December or January, staff will receive provisional job descriptions. Here are the major milestones:

Fall 2026: Complete a comprehensive review of the marketing and communications function from the staff and need perspective.

Late 2026: Finalize a provisional design.

January 2027: Implement the provisional design with organizational structure, job descriptions and service level agreements.

July 2027: Finalize the structure, jobs and 2027-2028 service level agreements.  

Yes. Staff will have at least two formal opportunities to provide feedback on their assignment. The first will be in late 2026, when we will share the provisional design and job descriptions. The second will be in mid-2027, after several months of implementation, before we finalize the jobs and structure. We envision an organization with a high level of productive communication, so we  expect informal opportunities as well.  

MarCom leadership wants individual feedback about fit. We don’t anticipate significant mismatches, but if they occur, we’ll need to take a collaborative approach to problem-solving. Change is inherent in this process. So, advocating in a future-focused way for how your strengths, ambitions and interests enable the University to achieve its goals is the most productive approach to this feedback.  

That’s not currently known. The future model will not be completed until we have heard from all marketing and communication professionals across Western, key stakeholders and leadership. Here’s what we know now:

Colleges and units will have a strategic point of contact in the new MarCom organization who will have access to the full complement of expertise that MarCom will provide—more than they have now. As part of the shift to specialization, one area of expertise will be understanding the needs and “business” of a specific college or unit and knowing how to activate MarCom expertise and capacity to accomplish its ambitions in alignment with institutional goals.

We also know that many world-class marketing and communication organizations follow a model in which work is primarily completed by teams of professionals with similar expertise. For example, the current MarCom function has a very small creative team, while much of Western's creative work happens outside that group, often performed by people who do not have expertise or even interest in the work. Conversely, the MarCom creative team often does much of the heavy lifting in planning, strategy and event management, which impinges on creative excellence. Conceptually, then, there is likely to be a creative team that focuses exclusively on exceptional creative work that supports strategic needs identified and codified outside that team.

In the future, the strategic point of contact for a college or unit will tap into teams with expertise in creative, digital, strategic communications, internal communications, planning and research.

Though the future model will not be completed until we have heard from all marketing and communication professionals across Western, key stakeholders and leadership, the possibility that reporting relationships and team structures change is likely once the reorganization is complete. 

Input from marketing and communications professionals, key stakeholders and leadership is very important in this process. To create the best, most efficient and effective marketing and communications structure for Western, leadership needs a clear understanding of the current efforts, staff responsibilities and marketing investments.

Said simply, the staff discovery will identify team and individual strengths, interests and ambitions. The unit discovery will identify institutional needs at the University and local (college and unit) level. The discovery will reveal areas of strength and alignment as well as gaps between needs and resources. That information will be used to develop an organizational design that leverages strengths and closes gaps.  

The Implementation Team is leading the creation and execution of the discovery and design process. The vice president for marketing and strategic communications, with counsel from the MarCom Leadership Team and informed by discovery and design sessions, will finalize the design. Ultimately, the vice president for marketing and strategic communications and president, with the counsel of Cabinet, will decide the best path forward for marketing and communications at Western.

The reorganization will be transitioned over time, through July 2027. Much of the work during that period will focus on managing an effective transition and executing current and recurring projects that advance University and local goals.  

The entanglement of marketing and nonmarketing work has emerged as a key design issue to address. The best way to plan for that today is to be comprehensive and detailed during discovery about where that entanglement exists so that solutions can be developed. 

Although reorganization can be unsettling, employees may find an even more advantageous career path, especially within their discipline.  

The MarCom leadership philosophy is that we all do our best when we apply ourselves to the work we enjoy, that makes us feel confident and that gives us a sense of meaning. This process is also future-focused. All staff are encouraged to shape their input about what they want to accomplish in the future, how they want to grow and what their ambitions are. 

Though the future model will not be completed until we have heard from all marketing and communication professionals across Western, key stakeholders and leadership, opportunities for career progression are likely to be greater in the new structure. A goal of the design is to create clear career paths and opportunities for professional growth.  

The discovery and design work will help us identify needs, which will be formalized into Service Level Agreements (SLAs). SLAs will make clear what colleges and units can expect from the new organization. Today, MarCom focuses heavily on overall brand, domestic undergraduate enrollment marketing and University Advancement communications. That will continue. But as we bring together MarCom staff who meet needs beyond those areas, the MarCom function will expand to meet them. 

We intend to work with every employee to find the best fit for both the individual and Western. Although we are optimistic that ongoing communication and collaboration will result in preferred outcomes for most employees, we recognize we may not be able to make every assignment ideal. We are doing our best to create good fits.  

Compensation will remain the same or, in rare cases, increase. There’s no anticipated impact to cost-of-living increases.  

Unit leaders will have the opportunity to articulate their input through the intake process to be completed in fall 2026. There is not currently a process planned to systematically consult current supervisors. If that need emerges, the process will be shared with the impacted staff member(s), including notice that supervisors are being consulted. Performance appraisals on file with HR may be reviewed.  

This is something we will need to address based on the eventual organizational structure. Currently, the Office of Marketing and Strategic Communications space in Walwood Hall does not have the capacity to house all marketing and communications professionals at once. Work locations and the physical arrangement of teams are likely to evolve over time. 

While disciplined performance reviews, goal setting and shared accountability will be priorities in the new organization, details about how they will be executed are not yet defined. Conflict resolution is an inherent part of working in human systems. Established processes for open communication, mission-centered decision-making and focused problem-solving will be the tools for resolving conflict.

Staff are encouraged to bring any and all information about their professional accomplishments and preferences. The more information the discovery session articulates, the better the reorganization outcomes will be for employees and Western.

Miller Fountain spraying up water.

Connect with Administrative Redesign leadership

Contact us to share your perspectives, questions or concerns about the Administrative Redesign.
Share your feedback

Other Administrative Redesign initiatives

Financial and administrative operations

A campuswide assessment is underway to identify where shared services could ease routine finance and HR work.

Explore the financial assessment

IT redesign

Campus technology teams are coming together under unified leadership to strengthen security and simplify support.

Explore the IT organizational design

Strategic sourcing and spending

A new approach to procurement and contracts aims to stretch every non-personnel dollar further.

Explore the sourcing strategy

Space utilization

Classroom scheduling and investment decisions are shifting to match how space is actually used.

Explore the strategic space utilization plan