Chancellor Victor Boschini said he will deal directly with athletics when geology chairman Nowell Donovan takes over as provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, eliminating one of the current duties of the position.

Provost William Koehler, who retires at the end of the semester, said the chancellor has always been involved in the athletics reporting structure. Now, athletics director Eric Hyman will only report to Boschini.

“It’s just that in the past or currently, the athletics director has a working relationship with both the chancellor and the provost,” he said. “In the future, the athletics director will not have a formal working relationship with the provost.”

Koehler said when the change is made, TCU will have a more common athletics reporting structure. Boschini said this is the reason he is making the change.

“It’s just the model I’m more comfortable with,” he said.

Boschini said he doesn’t expect much change for his role in the direction of athletics.

“I’m already pretty involved in what goes on with athletics, because I think for the chancellor you have to be,” he said.

Hyman said he doesn’t see the new system as much of a change.

“I’m sure there’s still going to be some overlap between the provost’s office and the athletics department,” he said.

Hyman said the only change will be that one person will be discussing athletics issues with him.

“When decisions have been made in the past, there’s been three people and now there will be two,” he said.

Donovan said he welcomes the changes.

“I think it allows the provost more time to deal with other issues,” he said. “And I know very little about what’s happening with athletics.”

Donovan said he still expects to deal with some aspects of athletics.

“My understanding is that the academic eligibility part of athletics will still go through me,” he said.

Koehler said he became involved with athletics when the title of provost was added to his job in 1994.

“Most things evolved as opposed to a spontaneous happening,” he said. “In my position I had worked very closely with then-Chancellor (William) Tucker.”

Koehler said one of the areas in which he worked closely with Tucker was athletics.

“Because of my working relationship with Dr. Tucker, I got more involved with athletics and evolved into the role,” he said. “That’s an unusual role. It came about because of my close relationship with my boss. The position of provost will be more traditional now than it has been.”

Hyman said he sees no pros or cons to the new reporting structure.