When nursing, education, and human science and services majors returned to school this fall they found that there had been a major restructuring of their college.

On Aug. 25, faculty unanimously voted to support organizational changes that eliminated the College of Professional Studies and divided it into two new colleges, the College of Education and Human Sciences and the College of Nursing and Health Sciences.

“I do think the current arrangement … is the right arrangement for now,” Chancellor Donald Mash said at the Sept. 16 Chancellor’s Roundtable.

Students were alerted to the changes via e-mail before classes started.

For the immediate future, students are noticing few changes.

“I received an e-mail that said something about it, but I haven’t noticed any changes,” sophomore education major Jenna Helbing said.

“There are not going to be many changes that affect students directly,” Patricia Christopherson, Associate Dean of the College of Education and Human Sciences said. “It’s more of a structural change.”

“How it’s going to affect students directly for a period of time actually will be seamless,” Mash said.

Mash said that restructuring the college would eventually pay off for all the parties involved.

“I think that over time in terms of some programs being developed and the way that faculty are working together, students will see a difference,” he said.

Christopherson said that the main benefit to the new colleges will be exposure.

“I think what (the restructuring) brings to the two colleges is better visibility.”

She added that this visibility as a college will help attract prospective students and enhance the college’s visibility in the community.

The restructuring comes after several years of requests from people within the College of Professional Studies. Mash said that before the College of Professional Studies, the Schools of Education and Nursing were separate, as they are now. The College of Professional Studies was created when Mash began his tenure, and from the beginning he heard dissent.

“In my view the system we just moved from didn’t work very well,” Mash said.

Christopherson said that the old system was unable to give the individual schools the exposure they needed.

The new system has been effective thus far, she said.

“It’s working very well.”