A committee headed by Ron Seeber, vice provost for land grant affairs, examined the streamlining and efficiency of the University’s various management sciences programs in a recent task force report, providing valuable options for budget in desperate need of slimming.

“At this point, the Provost will need to provide some direction,” Seeber said. “Undoubtedly, any choice would require some further study and the development of an implementation plan.”

The task force report was discussed in a public forum Wednesday in the Bio Tech building with Provost Kent Fuchs.

The management sciences report is considerably shorter than the other 19 task force reports released by the University on Nov. 6. Potential options for streamlining and better dealing with management sciences are explained, as well as counterpoints to each option.

One option considered is to have more faculty from the Applied Economics and Management program to work as an endowed unit in a single school of undergraduate business. According to the report, the current size of management disciplines in peer institutions are considerably larger than that of Cornell’s. The report notes that “combining programs and faculties would create economies of scale in scheduling course and teaching loads.”

An undergraduate school of business would result in increased tuition rates for current New York State residents who pay land-grant college prices for the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. Regardless, the report emphasizes that financial aid could potentially be raised to offset this effect.

Another option on the table is combining portions of AEM, policy analysis and management, and Industrial and Labor Relations faculty into a single school of public policy. This goal is similar to the one outlined in the Arts and Sciences Task Force report.

“The concept of putting together a School of Public Policy is one of the directives of the Arts and Sciences report, so whatever happens would be done in conjunction with that,” said Prof. William Lesser, applied economics and management.

Another option enumerated in the report is to create a division of undergraduate business. Lesser noted that this idea was based off of the University’s division of biological sciences, which was dissolved several years ago but operated for more than 20 years. The division of undergraduate business would function similar to the Johnson Graduate School of Management, and would allow for business concentrations across colleges to experience a more focused study in their field.

“There’s not an obvious reason for an AEM student to study H.R.,” Lesser said. “A lot of H.R. classes here are taught in ILR. Indeed, right now most of my students go to AEM, and some go to ILR. The idea of having a division is where this will be done in a more centralized way amongst schools instead of bilaterally.”

The concept of a singular unit of business at the University is appealing to some students, especially those who want to explore the managerial side of their current curriculum.

“A majority of people in ILR are looking to go into business,” said Billy Donnelly ’12, an ILR major. “I think it’s run well for what it is, but they recruit a lot of students by saying it’s a much broader curriculum than there is. You should have the right to pursue the business side of the degree because that’s what they recruit you for.”

A final option presented in the report is a congregation of the principal deans from the Hotel School, CALS and the Johnson School of Management to prepare a “strategic plan for management offerings at Cornell.” In the report, the option is referred to as a final choice if none of the restructuring goals presented are agreed upon, but Lesser said he thinks it is the most equitable plan for restructuring.

“There are not a lot of huge efficiencies to be gained,” Lesser said. “There are not a lot of benefits to be thinking about combining schools. Many of our classes are probably already bigger than we’d like them to be.”

The report also suggested cutting extracurricular classes in managerial sciences, so as to save money and streamline departments.

“We ought to have another curriculum review,” Lesser said. “Over the past 5 to 10 years, we’ve added a larger number of AEM classes. We can normally get a pretty good indication of usefulness to students by enrollment