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According to Article II, Section 5 of the Regulations of the Board of Trustees, “An academic department is an administrative unit established to combine the various offerings of a particular academic discipline or area of knowledge. The number and designation of such departments shall be determined by the President, subject to approval by the Board.”

Requests for name changes to academic departments (or programs) and/or divisions, after consultation with the relevant parties, are reported on the University Senate consent calendar and require the approval of the following bodies: department chair (program director, if appropriate), academic dean of the division, the Provost, and the President.

Department and divisional names should clearly relate to the mission of the unit and be clearly understandable to students.

To avoid confusion, every effort should be made to ensure that department and divisional names are as distinct as possible from the existing department and divisional names.

Because changing names requires a great deal of effort (manual labor) on the part of many offices, names should be changed under rare circumstances.  The change should have a clear purpose.

Name changes need to be fully approved by all bodies prior to May 1 for the change to be in effect by the next fiscal year.

When at all possible, name changes to departments and divisions should not lead to a change in the unit’s subject code (e.g., the Department of English’s subject code is ENG). Subject code changes can take up to a full year to be implemented after the unit’s name change has been fully approved.

When a department intends to change its name, the chair should contact the following offices: Office of the Provost, University Registrar, Office of Institutional Research and Effectiveness, Business and Finance Services, Academic Personnel, IT Services, and General Accounting.