When Kemel Dawkins, former vice president for campus services, leaves Duke for the last time in June, no one will fill his position.
Dawkins’ former responsibilities, which included overseeing dining, parking and transportation, campus safety as well as auxiliaries, finance and facilities, will be distributed among top administrators and the office of the executive vice president. The reshuffling is partially a measure to reduce University spending, Executive Vice President Tallman Trask said.
“Kemel suggested that this was where he was headed probably in March, so I had six weeks to think about it,” Trask said. “This at least seemed to be a possibility where it was potentially a pretty significant, six-figure number that we could [save].”
Trask said his decision to eliminate Dawkins’ position will save the University about three-quarters of a million dollars. The University will no longer have to pay for Dawkins’ salary, which was $343,000 in the 2008 fiscal year, or his benefits. Trask, who called the move a “good faith attempt to save some money,” added that other savings will result when some of the units go through “reorganization and consolidation.”
The termination of the vice presidential position also eliminates about three or four staff jobs in the campus services office, Trask said. He noted, however, that those people will fill vacancies in other parts of the University.
Changes include placing Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta in charge of dining and for Vice President for Human Resources Kyle Cavanaugh to oversee campus safety, including the Duke University Police Department and the Office of Disability Services. Facilities Management and Parking and Transportation, among other services, will report to Trask’s office. Trask said he was attentive in reassigning roles.
“One of the things I try to do very carefully is not [give them] anything they didn’t know anything about,” Trask said, adding that all of the people in the units know each other and interacted before the reshuffling.
Although Dawkins said he first learned that the University was not refilling his position last week, Trask began meeting with people who would assume the roles immediately after Dawkins announced his resignation April 28.
Many of the vice presidents have prior experience with the responsibilities they will inherit. Moneta was associate vice president for campus services at the University of Pennsylvania, and Cavanaugh oversaw police and safety issues at the University of Florida and the University of Texas at Austin.
Cavanaugh and Moneta both said they have started meeting with people working in the units they will be overseeing next year. Cavanaugh added that he is optimistic about the reshuffling, even if it adds to his workload.
“There is no one working at Duke today that is not working harder that they did a year or two ago,” Cavanaugh said. “From my perspective, what we are seeing happening on every campus in the United States is each time you see a senior position change there is discussion about... if you could structure the University differently.... It presented an opportunity to do things differently.”
The position of vice president for campus services was created seven years ago, when Dawkins came to Duke. Trask said he created the position by merging auxiliary services with facility services, but has been considering changing the nature of the position since then.
“It was an experiment to see whether or not those units could be put together,” he said. “One of the things I’ve been concerned about is the quasi-independence of auxiliaries, not just in what they do, but in the back offices.”
Trask added that auxiliary services’ information technology and finance departments will be merged with the greater University-wide departments as part of this change, which will save money.
One of the more controversial components of Dawkins’ former position in the past few years has been dining, especially its budget issues and the number of vendors on campus. Moneta said he hopes to bring a new viewpoint to dining issues.
“Dining is challenging everywhere,” Moneta said, adding that he will focus on transparency and engaging students, when appropriate. “It’s a tough enterprise. We have high consumer expectations and we have very expensive production requirements. I have no idea whatsoever yet what the correct model should be... and I hope I can bring in a fresh perspective. But I am aware of the complications.”
Trask said he considered merging dining with student affairs when he originally created the position of vice president for campus services.
“It’s not a new idea, and the reality is that students are the vast majority of consumers of food,” Trask said.
Dawkins will relocate to Philadelphia, Pa., where his father, who is ill, resides. Dawkins added that rumors saying he was forced out of his position are “completely ungrounded.”
“I have been commuting for the past 17 years, so it is now time,” Dawkins said.
Dawkins said he is currently considering a number of job opportunities that are closer to home.
Although the transition may take some time, Trask said that the University will be in a better place than if it had launched a national campaign to fill Dawkins’s position.
“We wouldn’t have had anybody optimistically by the Fall,” he said.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.