Loyola administrators have formalized a process to oversee the more obscure areas of the university.

These areas, known as centers and institutes, tend to fall between the cracks and, until now, weren’t accountable to anyone.

The provost’s office and the Standing Council for Academic Planning have formalized an evaluation process for the centers and institutes which could lead to their potential discontinuance.

“To truly value an entity requires periodic measurement of structure processes and outcomes in order to optimize a plan for improvement, growth or any other recommendation,” Ann Cary, vice chair of SCAP, said.

These centers or institutes include the Women’s Resource Center, the Office of Service Learning, the Shawn M. Donnelley Center for Nonprofit Communications and the Small Business Development Center as well as tutoring centers like the Academic Resource Center and Writing Across the Curriculum.

Luis Miron, dean of the College of Social Sciences, said that before leaving office, former Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs Edward Kvet initiated a template and structure for review of existing and potential centers and institutes.

Miron stressed that the definition of “centers and institutes” has not yet been approved. The proposed definition says that there must be enough sustainable funding or revenue and staffing in place so the university would not need to provide long-term funding for these institutions to exist.

According to SCAP documents posted on the committee’s webpage, this decision would also be based on the conclusion “that the educational mission of the university as a whole will be maintained or enhanced by the discontinuance.”

Marcus Kondkar, SCAP voting member, said that these evaluations could be to the benefit of centers and institutes.

One of the driving forces behind this was to establish the criteria and procedure for any consideration of terminating a program, center or institute so that they are protected from arbitrary termination, he said.

But Miron believes that

the recent operational budget cut is problematic, and those centers or institutes which do not meet financial criteria could be “potentially shut down.”

“Given the budget climate, there’s no secret that there’s a multi million shortfall. Those centers will have to demonstrate strong potential for future independent funding. My only worry is that we will need to provide some seed funding to incubate innovation,” Miron said.

Without these centers and institutes, Miron said Loyola students could have reduced off- campus involvement.

“Depending on how extreme the budget constraints are, there could be fewer opportunities for the students to participate in civic and community engagement,” he said.

Karen Reichard, director of the Women’s Resource Center, views the evaluations in a positive light.

“The SCAP evaluations allow us to reflect on the past five years and to highlight the work we do on campus. And in doing so, we’re better able to set strategies for the future,” she said.

Review scheduling will be set for Spring 2013.

Jennie Gutierrez can be reached at [email protected]