Cheryl Regehr looks south from her sixth-floor Factor-Inwentash building window. University College tower aligns with the CN Tower in Regehr’s view overlooking the entire St. George campus.

“It’ll be a shame to give this up,” sighs Regehr. Currently the dean of the Faculty of Social Work, she is one of three top profs getting a new role in the provost’s office for five years as of its July 1 restructuring.

Regehr and professor Scott Mabury will receive newly created vice-provost roles, while professor Edith Hillan will begin a second term as vice-provost in a redesigned role.

Cheryl Misak, U of T VP and provost, describes all three as “absolutely stellar, deep-thinkers who really care about this place and want to make it even better.”

Regehr will become vice-provost academic programs, dealing with quality assurance and accountability. The role involves reviewing programs and faculties as well as aligning multiple external review processes as formerly done by the Ontario government. Overseeing interdisciplinary initiatives and academic integrity are also part of the job.

Hillan will leave her role as vice-provost academic to become vice-provost faculty and academic life. Misak said Hillan’s former role was “becoming too much” and that transferring academic program responsibilities to Regher’s portfolio will allow Hillan to focus on matters involving faculty, librarians, researchers, lecturers, and postdoctoral fellows.

Mabury, current chair of the Department of Chemistry, will become vice-provost academic operations. Misak said this will replace Safwat Zaky’s role as vice-provost planning and budget, and covers budgets, information-technology, and space and planning.

Mabury was the architect of the controversial flat fee structure proposal to be put to a Governing Council vote on May 20. Misak said his appointment had nothing to do with his involvement in that project and that she “approached him well before” the matter.

Misak said there has been no change in budget, adding that her office took a base cut of $943,000 and a one-time cut of $522,000 for the 2009-2010 academic year.

“In these troubled economic times, I would never take money out of the student experience to put it into administration,” said Misak, describing U of T’s administration as “lean” and comparable to smaller, less complex universities with identical structures.

The changes were ratified in January after an advisory committee’s review, which was voted on by the executive committee of Governing Council.

Professor Brian Corman will take over the roles of vice-provost of graduate education, previously held by Susan Pfeiffer, and dean of the School of Graduate Studies, previously held by Jonathan Freedman.