Departments
Configure academic and administrative departments.
Overview
Departments are organizational units that:
- Own courses and programs
- Have assigned faculty
- Report to colleges/schools
Viewing Departments
- Navigate to Admin > Organization
- Filter by college/school
- View department list
Creating a Department
- Click Add Department
- Complete the form:
| Field | Description | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Code | Short identifier | BIOL |
| Name | Display name | Biology Department |
| College | Parent college | College of Science |
| Campus | Primary campus | Main Campus |
| Chair | Department chair | Person record |
- Click Save
Unit Administrators
Departments no longer have their own administrator records. Since July 2026 the appointment is a unit administrator against the institutional hierarchy — keyed by org_unit_id and an admin level rather than by department and a free-text level — which lets the same mechanism cover colleges, offices and vice-presidencies as well as departments.
They are managed at /organization/unit-administrators and gated on ADMIN.DEPT_ADMINS.
Appointing or removing one re-derives that person's automatic roles immediately, so the ACADEMIC_ADMIN role follows the appointment without a separate step and without waiting for a nightly job. Removing an administrator withdraws it the same way.
See Colleges & Schools for how the hierarchy fits together.
Department Settings
Course Ownership
Departments own courses:
- Subject code maps to department
- Department approves course changes
- Reports roll up by department
Faculty Assignments
Track faculty in department:
- Primary department
- Secondary affiliations
- Teaching assignments