When times are good, there is little urgency to evaluate fundamental assumptions, as investments can be made in new projects and structures while the old continue. Constrained resources do not allow this luxury. The current economic crisis and associated budget woes in universities requires individuals to be open to more radical and rapid change than they are used to. This article describes a method to transform the academic organization of the university to fit the current mode of intellectual inquiry--which is broader, more individualistic, and more interdisciplinary than previous modes--and at the same time to conserve university resources. The method described in this article offers an alternative: to reduce the number of academic departments by combining faculty and their related intellectual interests into larger multidisciplinary groups. Such a strategy, not incidentally, also conserves university resources in hard times. (Contains 1 table, 4 figures, and 4 resources.)