The UW College of the Environment (CoE) officially opened its doors this quarter with two departments noticeably absent — the School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences (SAFS) and the School of Oceanography

Given the Earth’s geographic makeup, the two schools would be integral to the CoE’s success. Despite initial reluctance, however, faculty from both schools recently decided to unify under the CoE banner.

The two departments, along with the Washington Sea Grant, will become a part of the CoE at an undetermined date later this academic year.

“It is great that Oceanography and Aquatic and Fishery Sciences will join [the CoE],” said Dennis Hartmann, interim dean of the CoE. “These are both strong units that will make tremendous contributions to the success of the college. We are also looking forward to Washington Sea Grant joining the college.”

The School of Oceanography, SAFS and the Washington Sea Grant program are under the College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences. When the CoE invited the departments to join the new college at its formation, faculty from the three programs were not convinced they would be better off in the newly formed college than they were in their original organizational structure.

Faculty in the School of Oceanography and SAFS said their departments were already engaged in interdisciplinary collaboration with other departments, and changing the administrative structure would not directly affect the collaborative research already taking place. Funding was also a concern for the departments as the College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences received a large portion of their funding from external resources.

“The range of topics that were under discussion represented a desire on the part of this faculty to get more evidence and examples of potential future benefits that would say in total why better to be in the College of the Environment than remain in the College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences,” said David Armstrong, director of SAFS.

As in other science colleges, external resources provide significant funding to the School of Oceanography and SAFS. The schools receive more than 80 percent of their funding from outside grants and contracts, with a much smaller fraction of funding coming from the state.

But the state cuts in funding to higher education have led faculty from both schools to re-examine the benefits of joining the CoE.

“There are financial benefits associated with merging into a larger college, but I think more importantly is the growing perception of programmatic benefits, both with respect to teaching and research,” Armstrong said. “Those factors began to work in a positive way to convince individuals that there was less risk and more possibility of benefit to joining the College of the Environment.”

Each school has asked its dean to begin the process of Reorganization, Consolidation & Elimination of Programs (RCEP) that will make them a part of the CoE in 2010.

“We expect that the RCEP process will be completed during this academic year,” Hartmann said. “In the meantime, the School of Oceanography, the SAFS and Washington Sea Grant are participating in all our planning activities for the college so that they are part of the culture of the college from the outset.”

Hartmann said the individual academic and research programs will not change when they move to the CoE, but they will be part of a larger college with a broader set of objectives and will create additional opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration in teaching and research.

“We have already seen faculty from schools and departments formerly in different colleges getting to know each other through the various working groups that we have organized,” Hartmann said. “The curriculum committee is working on developing new learning opportunities for students that will be facilitated by the new college structure.”

Reach reporter Michael Truong at news@dailyuw.com.