Chancellor Oblinger announced a new division within the Office of Finance and Business Thursday morning, which will begin its work next Wednesday, but specifics remain unclear.

Oblinger could not be reached for comment Thursday.

This new division, called the Campus Enterprises Division, will include the Campus bookstores, University Dining, campus convenience stores and the All-Campus card.

Responsibilities of the division entail management of the Talley Student Center, Witherspoon Student Center, Erdhal-Cloyd Atrium and facilities in the future Town Center and Alliance Center on Centennial Campus.

Funding will come from non-appropriated sources and Charles Leffler, vice chancellor for finance and business, said it is yet to be determined if the addition of the division will increase student fees.

“If we decided as a campus we wanted to create new or different services, there could be an increase in fees,” Leffler said.

The mission is to provide facilities, such as the new Talley Center, and support student activities from a funding standpoint, ultimately maximizing  endeavors, he said.

“Because they are businesses and because they have a lot of commonality, we think we can get more bang for the buck and raise them to a higher level,” Leffler said. “All of them are good services — this is not about fixing, it’s about bringing them together.”

The decision to create the division received no student input, but Leffler said students would have an opportunity to voice opinions.

“To be quite candid, I don’t know any students who are experts in auxiliary,” Leffler said. “As we move to implementing this, there’s going to be a lot of discussion on how to make it most effective and keep good things going and students will be involved.”

Jay Dawkins, student body president, said it seems like it is all preliminary and there will be future opportunities for students.

“It sounds like it’s a big first step,” Dawkins said. “There will be opportunities for students to speak out once we have a bigger picture of what this will be.”

Leffler said doing business more economically is certainly good with the economic downturn. However, he said this idea has been on the table for a while and the timing is now appropriate.

“With the new Talley Center coming up, we are now in a migration process,” Leffler said. “There is a lot to be sorted out, details to be thought of and it’s going to take several months.”

Bob Wood, current director of materials management in the purchasing department, will be appointed as the interim associate vice chancellor for Campus Enterprises April 1 until a national search can be completed for the position.

Leffler said Wood was sort of thrown into the mix. Wood declined to comment Thursday.

Leffler said when he appoints the search committee to head the division, he intends to have students on board.

While he has an abundance of ideas, Leffler said he is unsure of how they will manifest.

“The new Talley Center is the key ingredient,” he said. “It’s going to be much larger and have a different approach to how it provides services. We are looking for a common aggregation of services so we can provide a more evenly distributed service to campus.”

One of the entities involved, University Dining, will play a large role in Campus Enterprises, Leffler said.

“Randy Lait [director of Dining Services] and Art White [associate vice chancellor of student affairs for University Dining] may be critical to this transition,” he said. “This is in no way indicating they are doing the wrong thing. We just have to think more effectively and efficiently than we did 30 years ago.”

Lait said he is unsure how the change will affect University Dining and also declined to comment Thursday.

Dawkins said the new division should continue sound business practices.

“A lot of these pieces of the puzzle have been loosely affiliated with the University and incorporating them can help save money and improve communication,” he said.