“As far as I know, talking to all my colleagues, everybody has been assured that they have a job,” says Illingworth.

Still, nobody has been—or can be, for now—promised that they will have the same job with the same stature and the same guarantee of face-time with their bosses.

“You can’t work in student affairs and be inflexible,” Illingworth says, considering the possibility that his job might be very different in the future.

For now, Gross is soaking up as much feedback as possible in contemplating the future structure of his office and how it can facilitate the role he expects to play in undergraduate life.

Though Kirby said in March that he hoped the reorganization would be completed by the end of this semester, Gross says that the structure of his new office will probably not be formalized until after the curricular review, which is expected to last at least two years.

“I’ll need to think about what will work for me,” Gross says. “One advantage of restructuring after I know that I have the position is that I get to consider what suits me best in terms of structure.”

He says that he has been getting advice from Faculty members and former deans. And Kirby is also offering his feedback on the restructuring.

“I have read the Lewis-Maull report,” Gross says. “The model of a ‘single-Faculty-Dean’ is sketched out there, in very broad strokes. The real work is filling in the details, which it does not attempt to do.”

“It puts a lot of work on the plate of the dean, and my job is to find the administrative structure that allows that work to be done. Fortunately, I have many talented people in University Hall to work with,” he says.

Professor of the History of Science Everett I. Mendelsohn, who is a close acquaintance of Gross, suspects that only a single new deanship will be created in the administration.

“My guess from the little I’ve heard him discuss is that he will get one additional associate dean responsible for college life and houses, which is a good part of what Harry Lewis has done,” Mendelsohn says. “There will be greater integration between undergraduate life and the academic.”

Many professors and administrators say Wolcowitz is very likely to advise Gross and to be a key player in the new structure.

Gross, who says that he does not yet want to assign titles to people, says Wolcowitz is assured a major role in his new office, although he is not sure at the moment what it will be.

Kirby, who asked Wolcowitz earlier this year to help revamp the Office for International Studies, spoke of Wolcowitz with similar enthusiasm.

“Jeff is a wonderful colleague with a rich experience,” Kirby says. “He knows the curriculum and the departments better than any single person in the FAS. He is the man in terms of undergraduate education.”