UNIVERSITIES, especially those with several clusters of disciplines and disciplinary specialties, designate academic deans in each specific academic unit which usually is a college. Academic/College deans differ in the nature of their area of responsibility from the dean of student affairs or dean of admissions. Academic deans report to an official referred to as vice president for academic affairs or vice chancellor for academic affairs or provost.

Service colleges. In our country, smaller institutions, such as community colleges, have no individual deans. An academic dean will oversee all academic programs. Medium-sized or large universities have colleges besides a College of Arts and Sciences (CAS). In this case, the CAS usually becomes a 'service college' while the rest of the colleges are not. This means that there are a number of subjects in the CAS that are also subjects in other colleges. These subjects are mostly in general education — freshmen and sophomore subjects — such as English 01, General Mathematics, Philippine History, Social Science, General Chemistry, Physics, Biology, etc.