How we organize and label academic divisions will change when Workday Student goes live. We will manage the associated data, processes and policies in a different way but to mostly the same ends.
Today academic divisions have many uses across the university for organizing our people and related data, processes and policies. In addition to driving day to day operations in the schools and academic units, academic divisions are a key data point for many reports and system integrations.
However, academic division designations represent different data points in different schools. In some schools, divisions differentiate between graduate and undergraduate levels. In others, divisions group related graduate programs together. Workday Student uses three labels (academic unit, academic level and program of study) to represent the type of information currently signaled by academic divisions.
“The shift away from academic divisions is going to be a big change for everyone as these designations are key drivers behind many of our academic processes and how we manage data today,” said Trevor Bilhorn, Academic Foundations and Admissions functional lead. “We anticipate that academic units, along with academic levels and programs of study, will allow us to organize and classify our data in a more consistent way across the university, leading to more meaningful reporting.”
Academic divisions today
Academic divisions refer to the schools, departments or programs that make up the academic structure of the institution in WashU’s current Student Information System (SIS). Today, we have nine undergraduate academic divisions and 24 graduate divisions.
Prime divisions today
Currently a prime division is the academic division of a student’s last open major program (MP) that was marked prime (as opposed to joint). In our legacy SIS, all current and former students have one and only one prime division at any given time.
There are several important implications to a student having a particular prime division, including:
- Who manages and can access a student’s record
- How tuition is charged to a student and allocated across the institution
- Which policies and processes apply during a student’s time at WashU
Academic & prime divisions in the future
In Workday Student, each academic division will be replaced by either an academic unit (AU) and corresponding academic level or by a program of study.
Academic divisions as academic units
Most academic divisions will translate to academic units, which are used in Workday to represent WashU’s schools or any other unit that admits students and offers programs of study or courses. WashU also has two academic levels in Workday: graduate and undergraduate. We can configure Workday to apply different policies to the graduate academic level than the undergraduate level within a given academic unit.
Today, a school might have different academic divisions representing undergraduate and graduate programs within the same school. For example, the Sam Fox School has both an academic division for the undergraduate programs in Art (abbreviated FA) and a separate academic division for the graduate programs in Art (abbreviated GF). In Workday, these two divisions will be represented by a single academic unit (College of Art) with two academic levels (graduate and undergraduate).
Academic divisions as programs of study
A few academic divisions are more appropriately categorized as a program of study in Workday because Workday has specific criteria for what should be an academic unit (AU), and some of our legacy academic divisions don’t meet those criteria. Programs of study organize course requirements and any associated credentials (e.g., degrees, certificates) for WashU’s various academic program offerings, including majors, minors, concentrations, etc.
Workday requires each student to have a “primary” program of study on each academic record. The primary program is by default the first active declared program into which a student is admitted. For students with only one major, their major is their primary program. Primary programs affect which policies (as configured in Workday) apply to a student. Primary programs also impact reporting, for instance, which programs of study appear in search results for some reports.
In Workday, students may have more than one academic record, which means they may also have more than one primary program of study, which is not possible today. As an example, a student who is starting their graduate program while wrapping up their undergraduate program would have two academic records. (An upcoming Workday Student 101 topic will address records in more detail.)
The tables below illustrate how today’s academic divisions will translate to academic units (and academic levels) or programs of study in Workday.
Changes to Academic Divisions: Undergraduate
| Current State | Future State |
| Architecture (AR) | AU: College of Architecture; Academic level: Undergraduate |
| Art (FA) | AU: College of Art; Academic level: Undergraduate |
| Arts & Sciences | AU: Arts & Sciences; Academic level: Undergraduate |
| Beyond Boundaries | AU: Beyond Bondaries |
| Business (BU) | AU: Olin Business School; Academic level: Undergraduate |
| Engineering (EN) | AU: McKelvey School of Engineering; Academic level: Undergraduate |
| Lifelong Learning Institute (UU) | Will not exist in Workday |
| School of Continuing & Professional Studies (CAPS) | AU: School of Continuing & Professional Studies; Academic level: Undergraduate |
Changes to Academic Divisions: Graduate
| Current State | Future State |
| Architecture (GA) | AU: College of Architecture; Academic level: Graduate |
| Art (GF) | AU: College of Art; Academic level: Graduate |
| Audiology & Communication (AC) | AU: Audiology & Communication Sciences |
| Biostatistics and Genetic Epidemiology (GN) | This will become various programs of study in Biomedical Informatics & Data Sciences |
| Business – Executive MBA (GX) | This will become a program of study in AU: Olin Business School/Graduate |
| Business – Professional MBA (PB) | This will become a program of study in AU: Olin Business School/Graduate |
| Clinical Investigation & Biomedical Informatics (MM) | These will be separated, with two AUs: Clinical Investigation and Biomedical Informatics & Data Sciences |
| Engineering (SI) | AU: McKelvey School of Engineering; Academic level: Graduate |
| Engineering Sever Institute (TG) | AU: Sever Institute |
| Graduate School of Arts & Sciences (GR) | AU: Arts & Sciences; Academic level: Graduate *Note that some of the current PhD programs which were previously housed in the Graduate school will be housed in schools than other Arts & Sciences (for example, McKelvey School of Engineering or Olin Business School) |
| Health Behavior Research (HB) | AU: Applied Health Behavior Research |
| Law (GL) | Will be a program of study in AU: School of Law |
| Law (LW) | Will be a program of study in AU: School of Law |
| Medicine (ME) | AU: Doctor of Medicine |
| Occupational Therapy (GO) | AU: Occupational Therapy (GO) |
| Online Law (OL) | Will be a program of study in AU: School of Law |
| Physical Therapy (GP) | AU: Physical Therapy (GP) |
| Social Work (SW) | Will be a program of study in AU: Brown School |
| School of Continuing & Professional Studies (CAPS) | AU: School of Continuing & Professional Studies; Academic level: Graduate |