No big announcement was made. The Banner University Medical Center’s steps will not host a press conference. No moving speeches at the town hall. After just a few well-written paragraphs and a Tuesday morning email from two administrators, a 60-day clock began to tick for 28 individuals.
After training physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and public health professionals throughout the state for decades, the University of Arizona Health Sciences is essentially being dissolved. The Office of the Provost is taking over its colleges. The Office of Research and Partnerships is becoming the new location for its research centers. And what functions are there that no one really knows how to use? According to the announcement, those are being “discontinued.”
That word is worth pausing over. ceased to exist. similar to a line of products. similar to an unrenewed magazine subscription.
According to university officials, the reorganization started about a year ago. Simplifying administration, building a more cohesive organization, and placing health at the center of the larger academic mission are all predictable framing strategies. None of it seems concerning on paper. Universities constantly reorganize, moving boxes around on organizational charts while reassuring everyone that the goal is still the same. However, there’s something about this specific move that feels different, and it’s difficult to fully explain why without taking a moment to consider the specifics.
The multimedia department known as BioCommunications, which produced films, graphics, archival photography, and media services for health sciences and the university as a whole for forty years, is closing completely. The entire team has left. According to one impacted employee, departments that depended on those services will now need to go outside the university to complete comparable work, at an estimated two to five times the cost. It’s not streamlining. Offloading is what that is. It matters that there is a difference.
The Faculty Senate chair, Dr. Leila Hudson, was candid about her top concerns. Not necessarily the decision itself, but how it came to be—without the kind of community discussion that decisions of this magnitude usually necessitate. There is a purpose for faculty governance. It’s not theater of bureaucracy. It’s a way for those who actually work in an organization to express their opinions about changes that impact their coworkers and students. Hudson recommended forgoing that procedure. or, at the very least, condensed in a way that caught faculty off guard.
Regarding the precise number of positions being eliminated, university officials have been evasive. In an early statement, the word “some” was used. According to two people with firsthand knowledge, the number is 28, impacting individuals in the fields of finance, administration, communications, and events. At least the employees were informed prior to the public announcement. However, being aware beforehand doesn’t always lessen the impact.
What this will ultimately mean for students is still unknown. The five health sciences schools—public health, nursing, pharmacy, and medicine in Tucson and Phoenix—will stay open. Degrees will continue to be awarded. There will still be research. The university has taken care to state that its mission still centers on health. However, a press release won’t address whether rearranging the plumbing affects the water pressure.
This seems to be an administrative story disguised as a financial one. Budgetary constraints have recently affected the University of Arizona, and such actions seldom take place in a vacuum of pure strategic vision. Perhaps the reorganization makes sense. In five years, perhaps everyone will look back and concur that it was the right decision. However, it’s difficult not to wonder who exactly this was intended to serve when you watch it happen this way—quietly, swiftly, with 28 people given 60 days.
