The University administration is gearing up for some big changes, but Senior Vice President and Provost John Moseley said he hopes students won’t know the difference.
“My hope is that students won’t notice,” he said. “But if they do notice, I hope it’s because we’re better.”
The changes will follow the retirement of three key administrators: Moseley, Vice President for Administration Dan Williams and Vice President for Academic Affairs Lorraine Davis.
Frances Dyke, currently the associate vice president for budget and finance and interim director of the Office of Business Affairs, will replace Williams as the Vice President for Finance and Administration.
However, Dyke’s duties and responsibilities will be different from Williams’. In addition to taking on Williams’ current administrative
responsibilities, Dyke will become the University’s chief financial officer, managing the University’s $570 million budget. Moseley currently serves as the chief financial officer.
Dyke said she hopes she can “optimize” administrative efficacy when she takes her new position.
“We can provide better services to the campus by having these units work together,” she said. “Maybe we could provide new services with some collaborative thinking.”
Moseley said Dyke’s new position will present some formidable
challenges.
“As a University, we’re financially challenged,” he said. “The job of the new VPFA will be to continue to rise to that challenge.”
In another structural change, Dyke will report to the senior vice president instead of directly to the University president.
“We felt it was important to have the financial planning of the University within the realm of the vice president,” Moseley said.
However, unlike Williams, Dyke will not manage Intercollegiate
Athletics, a unit that will now report directly to University President Dave Frohnmayer. Although Williams is officially retiring from his current position in July, he will maintain his duties as the administration’s chief liaison to the department as the Special Assistant to
Intercollegiate Athletics.
“The athletic director will report to the president but will work with me on day-to-day issues as he has in the past,” Williams said. “I will continue to have the same relationship with athletics that I have had for 20 years.”
Williams said Frohnmayer asked him to do the work because of his experience in this particular role.
“(Athletic Director) Bill Moos and I have had a very good working relationship for 10 years,” Williams said. “It’ll provide a lot of continuity in terms of the relationship between the central administration and the athletic department.”
Davis and Moseley will not retire until June 2006, and a search for Moseley’s replacement is already underway. But Davis said whoever is chosen as Moseley’s replacement will conduct the search for the new vice president of academic affairs.
Davis said she and Moseley work extremely well together, so the administration wanted to ensure that the new senior vice president could choose a good working partner.
“We balance each other in terms of what he does well, what I do well and what we do well together,” she said. “The person that comes in as the next (vice president) will have the opportunity to figure that out.”
Frohnmayer announced the retirement of the three administrators last fall. But retirement might not have been the right word.
Davis said she plans to become the deputy administrator of the E.C. Brown Foundation in July 2006.
“I don’t expect to have any free time,” she said of her life post-retirement life. “I do not think I will be a non-involved retiree. There’s too many things that I’m interested in doing.”
Moseley said he’s considering becoming a physics professor.

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