Serving as Chair: Beyond the Job Description

Transcription

1 Serving as Chair: Beyond the Job Description 2013 CIC Workshop for Department and Division Chairs Philadelphia, PA, April 4, 2013 Catharine O Connell

2 Beyond the Job Description 1. Defining the Position 2. Creative Tension in the Chair Position 3. Collegiality and Leadership 4. Dean s Expectation (Avoidable Mistakes)

3 Defining the Position 1. Term strict rotation, chair for life, other 2. Compensation stipend, course reduction, none 3. Training (other than this workshop!) 4. Department/Division Size 5. Responsibilities: hire/fire adjuncts; required to make tenure/promotion recommendations; develop budget (as opposed to implement)

4 The Chair s Challenge: Creative Tension Model 1: Us versus Them faculty and administration (model focuses on one axis of creative tension) Model 2: Triangulation priorities of faculty, of administration, of academic program in creative tension Chair s imperatives in Model 2: Ensure programmatic integrity, manage resources responsibly, support faculty

5 Model 1 Admin. Priority: Manage Resources, Human and Material Faculty Priority: Support and Defend Faculty

6 Model 2 Ensure Program Integrity Manage Resources Support Faculty

7 Model 3: Additional imperative for understanding competing priorities serving students. All four areas pull chair in potentially different directions. Model 3A (suggested by discussion): CIC schools put serving students first, so all other priorities subsumed. Model 3B (suggested by discussion): Programmatic integrity must be foundation for all other elements; without that, nothing else can exist (accreditation implications, etc). Challenge with Model 3B: who defines programmatic integrity?

8 Model 3 Serve Students Ensure Program Integrity Manage Resources Support Faculty

9 Model 3A Student Centered Serve Students Program Integrity Manage Resources Support Faculty

10 Model 3B Academic Program Centered Ensure Program Integrity Serve Students Manage Resources Support Faculty

11 Creative Tension, Scenario 1 Department has special funding for a course release to support student-faculty research. How do you choose between worthy faculty candidates, one junior person working on cutting edge research with two graduate-school bound students, and the other a midcareer workhorse who has a dozen student research assistants but research won t be publishable. What if one person s core course can be covered by a strong adjunct? How much should that matter? How do you support faculty, promote program excellence, serve students, and use these resources (which you won t get again) as effectively as possible?

12 Creative Tension, Scenario 2 The department hired a superstar scholar who is now in the second year of service. Teaching has been problematic from the beginning, and there is no improvement after much counseling. The junior faculty member asserts that other faculty dumb down the content. The dean is pressuring you to do something; lines are precious at your institution. The colleague who chaired the search can t imagine you would disrespect the discipline by recommending against the renewal of the best scholar the department has ever hired. What decision supports faculty, makes best use of resources, serves students, and ensures the integrity of the program?

13 Collegiality and Leadership Key lessons from the articles Chairing is not so different from teaching in terms of caring about the intellectual and professional development of others. Talk to your colleagues, a lot, face to face. Respect the democratic nature of the academic department. Expect deferred gratification (at best).

14 Collegiality and Leadership, cont. 5. Defend your time someone else s crisis does not have to be yours. 6. Respond to provocative s only with request for in-person conversation. 7. Take breaks to avoid inflammatory response (and turn off your phone!). 8. Be the morale officer (because no one else will be!). 9. Advocate passionately for your department (but never forget the overall institutional perspective).

15 Five Avoidable Errors 1. Trying to address issues with legal implications: it is not passing the buck to send these cases along; Please do! (Includes disability accommodation conflicts, accusations of discrimination, and anything sexual). 2. Engage in wars: you will receive outrageous s; don t ever send any. 3. Overpromise: you want to deliver for your constituents, but if you can t deliver, you will lose credibility; if you commit the institution (e.g. in promises to a candidate), there will be implications with the dean/cao.

16 Five Avoidable Errors, cont. 4. Neglect to account for friendship factor: one of the leadership challenges for chairs is that they are often supervising long-term colleagues and friends (who may one day in turn supervise them!). This is a very complex relationship, the implications of which should not be underestimated. You cannot favor friends (or appear to) nor forget that your relationships complicate your role as leader (sometimes they may help). 5. Take it personally: it is very hard not to, but just don t. It isn t personal, even when it feels intensely so.