With five vice presidents at UNA, some students are unaware of their individual roles and how they pertain to the university system.

“I don’t know a lot about them or their roles,” said Hannah Summers, UNA student. “To be honest, I don’t even know their names.”

Some students, like junior Jordan Graham, recognize the names of the vice presidents and their importance on campus but are unable to explain how the vice presidents collaborate together.

“I think they are well-respected figures on campus, but their jobs are not necessarily well-known,” he said.

According to the university website, each of the five vice presidents focus on distinct administrative duties. They then collaborate to better promote the university as a whole.

“Universities run much like companies — you have divisions within companies, so each of the vice presidents have a functional area of the university that they oversee,” said David Shields, vice president of student affairs.

The vice presidents are as follows: Shields for Student Affairs, John Thornell for Academic Affairs, Steve Smith for Business and Financial Affairs, Dan Hendricks for University Advancement and newly-named Thomas Calhoun for Enrollment Management.

“There are five diverse functions that support the campus,” Thornell said. “Each requires specific background, education and training suited to that particular function. While it may sound reasonable to drop all administrative responsibilities into one office, it isn’t practical. UNA would suffer in terms of effective management and ultimately in terms of quality that students expect.”

According to the UNA homepage, the goal of Academic and Student Affairs is to provide a positive learning environment for students, while Business and Financial Affairs work to support internal and external elements of the university, like academic programming.

Likewise, Enrollment Management ensures that student needs are being addressed and University Advancement helps to raise funds to support the growth of the university.

Shields said that though Student Affairs and Academic Affairs vice presidents have the most contact with students on a daily basis, each of the roles are imperative toward the running of the university.

Shields also said the university vice presidents work well together.

“One of the neat things about our executive team is that we like each other — we really do,” he said. “We work very well together. We are not territorial.”

Most recently, the vice presidents worked to create the incoming Academic Success Center, which will be located in the future Academic Commons Building. The center will house various academic programs like the Writing Center.

Shields said that because the vice presidents work so well together, they are able to initiate more programs into the university.

“I think that because we like each other, because we work so well together, because the chemistry is so good, that as an institution we are able to do a lot more things,” he said.