What is the difference between faculties and departments of a university ответы на вопросы

Difference Between Faculty and Department

May 7, 2011 Posted by Clarisse

Faculty vs Department

Faculty and department are two different terms that are often used with no distinction from each other, especially in universities. These words are usually referred to a certain body in an educational institute that focuses on a particular subject matter.

Faculty

Faculty is the name given to a certain body in a university or other applicable institutes that specialize on a specific subject or several subjects that are closely related to one another. Specifically, a faculty is a group of people working within an institution. For universities, a faculty may be comprised of teachers or professors which focus on a specific field of teaching.

Department

Department is a subdivision of an organization that covers many different fields which calls for a segregation of its constituents according to their field of focus. For example, in a university campus, there may be a need to create departments for each field of study, ranging from engineering, medicine and science to psychology and the arts. A department is generally comprised of the staff, the students, and the facilities.

Difference between Faculty and Department

While a faculty is mainly composed of a human workforce such as the staff in a university or the group of employees in an institution, the department may consist of not only the participating populace but also the physical structure of the headquarters, the tools used for the associated research or other purpose and also the concepts behind the subject matter being represented by the department itself. One may notice that the term faculty is used more often in educational institutes, while the department has seen wide-ranging use in areas other than universities, like in government organizations or companies.

In multi-structured organizations such as universities, it is important to remember that a faculty may refer to your teachers assigned to teach a specific subject, while a department is a sub-organization that is comprised of the faculty, the students enrolled under the subject of focus, as well as the infrastructure.

In brief:

• A faculty is composed of the teaching staff of all similarly specializing on a certain subject.

• A department refers to a sub-organization in the university which focuses on a particular field, and is composed of the faculty, the students, the upheld ideas and the infrastructure itself.

What is the difference between department and faculty?

I understand that most of these structures come from the university history, but how these structures affect the department performance, and why universities prefer different structures, instead of a standard one (which should be most efficient).

7 Answers 7

The distinction between «faculty,» «department,» and «school» depends a lot on where you are. As Peter suggests in his answer, a faculty can be a collection of «departments.» However, a faculty in Germany (for instance) consists of a number of «chairs,» each of which is closer to a professorship in a department than an actual «department.» Thus, the faculty is effectively halfway between the American «department» and «faculty» in its function, as it combines some of the hierarchy and responsibilities of each.

The reason for having multiple subdivisions is that there are often many university functions—including personnel and budget decisions, facilities management, teaching, and so on—that can vary widely across the entire university, but significantly less among certain departments that have a similar focus. For these departments, it makes sense to combine these duties in a central administration, rather than duplicate the effort across multiple departments.

The faculty is a collection of departments. In my system we have the Faculty of Sciences, Law, Humanities, and Social Sciences. In addirions there can be Faculty of Theology, Arts, Languages, Educational Science, Medicine, Pharmacy and probably many others.

The term Faculty is known from the University in Paris already in medieval times. It was a way in which major fields distinguished themeselves from a genral body of learning. The faculties of Philosophy, Law, Theology and Medicine can be found back to the 13th century. As the universities grew and knowledge became more specialized departments started to form within these faculties and we now have the system of faculties as an administrative level in many university systems. Departments are, however, relatively modern creations from the late 19th century.

Sometimes using one word or another is seen as more prestigious or as more independent than another. In one place I was at, they made a big deal of changing their name from «Department of Computer Science» to «School of Computer Science».

Similarly, some people perceive one Faculty as more prestigious for the purposes of undergraduate recruiting. In many Universities in North America, computer science moved from «science» to «engineering» and my father perceived that computer science departments in «engineering» were more promising than those in «science» (as at the time engineers made more money and had more job opportunities than scientists). Of course, the real reason that this happens is often a question of autonomy, funding, and mutual interests behind the scenes.

In the Nigerian University system, a college has several faculties under it. A college is headed by an elected provost while an elected dean heads a faculty. Departments are under the faculties with an acting or substantive head (HOD).

In Spain, «Faculties», «Schools» and «Departments» (literally facultades, escuelas and departamentos) are legally defined in articles 8 and 9 of the «Organic Law» (ley orgánica) that governs universities. One might summarize (paraphrasing the law) the technical distinction as that faculties/schools (these are essentially equivalent) are charged with organizing teaching and academic processes, while departments are charged with realizing teaching and academic processes. What a department teaches is determined by the faculty/school in which it teaches, but how it teaches the material is determined by the department. The power to create or destroy faculties/schools resides with the regional government, while the power to create or destroy departments resides with the university. A faculty has a Dean (decano), a school has a School Director (functionally equivalent to a dean), and a department has a Departmental Director. A department can belong to several schools/faculties in the same university (for instance a mathematics department can be responsible for the teaching of math in several different engineering schools in the same university, although there are also universities in which each school has its own mathematics department). While the overall organization is similar in concept to what one finds in US universities, it is more rigid in the sense that the powers, competencies and responsibilities associated with each administrative structure are fixed by law.

Задание 8. Письменно на английском языке ответьте на следующие вопросы исходя из текста:
1. What universities are called “redbrick” and why?
2. What educational establishments does the University of London include?
3. What is the difference between colleges and institutes within a university?
4. Where can most of the redbrick universities be found?
5. How do the redbrick universities organize their academic work?
6. What universities refer to the group of “new” ones?

FAMOUS BRITISH UNIVERSITIES
1. English universities differ from each other in date of foundation, size, history, tradition, general organization, methods of instruction, and way of student life. The universities, which were founded between 1850 and 1930, including London University, are known as redbrick universities. They were called so because that was the favourable building material of the time, though they are rarely referred to as “redbrick” today.
2. The University of London is by far the largest university, with about 39000 full-time students. It was established by the union of two colleges: University College (1827) and King’s College (1831). Later many other colleges, schools and institutes were added, and it also could be called a kind of federation of colleges, but the system is entirely dif-ferent. The largest of the London colleges are like universities in them-selves, having many different faculties and departments. Others specialize in certain subjects, like the London School of Economics and Political Science, the Imperial College of Science and Technology, the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, the School of Oriental and African Studies, the School of Architecture.
3. There are also institutes attached to London University as well as to other universities. Whereas colleges within a university teach all subjects, and schools – a group of subjects, these institutes specialize more narrowly, and are often more occupied with research than teaching undergraduates. In London University, for example, there are the Institute of Archeology, the Courtauld Institute (specializing in the his-tory of art) and some others.
4. Most of the redbrick universities founded in the nineteenth century are scattered throughout the country and are to be found in Birmingham, Bristol, Exeter, Hull, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Nottingham, Sheffield, Southampton and some others.
5. The redbrick universities organize their academic work in a va-riety of ways. Subjects are taught in individual departments which are in turn grouped into faculties covering the main subject grouping, like arts, science, engineering, social science.
6. The “new universities” were all founded after the Second World War. Some of them quickly became popular because of their modern approach to university courses. The first of this group was Keele Uni-versity (in Staffordshire), founded in 1948. In 1961 seven new universities were approved: the universities of East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Lancaster, Sussex, Warwick, York. The traditional faculty structure in these universities has been avoided in an attempt to prevent overspecialization. One form of organization (at Sussex) is school, which embraces a range of related subjects. York and Warwick have structures which are closer to older universities.

What is the difference between a school and a department?

Some universities have a School of Something and some a Department of Something. Are they identical and just two common terms for the same thing, or they are different in the university structure?

My impression is that a School is generally larger than a Department. Probably, school is an academic unit between department and faculty. Maybe, a faculty has a few schools, and each school hosts some departments.

4 Answers 4

The term school and department are going to mean different things at different institutions. Generally speaking, the term school refers to a larger unit within a university than department and many schools will contain multiple departments. For example, Harvard University contains a School of Public Health (and other schools) which contains a Department of Epidemiology (and other departments).

That said, names are often not even used uniformly or consistently within universities. For example, at the same organizational level as the School of Public Health at Harvard is the Faculty of Arts and Sciences which runs both Harvard College and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. My current university uses the concept of an academic «unit». Many units are «schools» (e.g., the School of Public Health or the Information School) but others are not (e.g., the College of Arts of Sciences). There is also an organization within the university called the Graduate School which cuts across and oversees work in different units and schools.

Sometimes, smaller «schools» will not contain separate departments. Sometimes, a large department in a large school might be larger than entire schools elsewhere in the university! Sometimes, the terms might be used interchangeably. In many other cases, they won’t. In some cases, one or both terms might not even be used at all!

department vs faculty vs school

русский translation: факультет и отделение

In the US, a university will be divided into **colleges** (colleges). A college often contains different departments. For example, the College of Arts and Science might have a foreign language department, but also a sociology department. Students in the US have to take elective courses, so they’ll attend classes in a variety of departments to complete their majors.

In the UK, the most common divisions are **faculties** (faculties), which are then subdivided into **schools**. Each faculty is responsible for a broad subject area, and the school is responsible for a particular subject. Generally speaking, you’ll be surrounded by people who are in the same or a similar field of study for your lectures and tutorials. Almost all your classes will be related to your major, so all your educational needs are serviced by your college. Faculties are considered separate from each other.

Я видела заданные здесь ранее вопросы про кафедру и факультет (http://www.proz.com/kudoz/russian_to_english/law_general/279. и просто про факультет.

Подскажите, сильно ли я нагрубила в переводе, подтянув его к нашим реалиям.

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