The Case for Chairs Working Beyond Their Departments
Over the past two decades, the responsibilities of academic department chairs have grown in both number and complexity. The newer work for chairs has not replaced traditional duties but rather has been layered on top of them. Many of the emerging chair responsibilities are related to calls for accountability, expectations...
Institutional, Chair Challenges in Recruiting Faculty in STEM Disciplines
For many years, those in higher education have been hearing about the aging of our faculty members and the new hiring that should take place, if resources allow, to replace those who leave. The mass exodus predicted has been blunted to some degree by the end of age-related mandatory retirement...
Making Progress in Challenging Fiscal Times
There is something uncomfortable about bringing the topic of money into a conversation about how to best serve our college and university students while preserving the values, integrity, and relevance of our higher education institutions. However, there is virtually nothing we do in the realm of education that does not...
Rethinking Councils of Chairs
Over the last two decades there have been occasional conference presentations and articles in the higher education literature about collectives of academic department chairs that meet to discuss a variety of topics. These groups are not the same as a chairs’ council that is convened on a regular basis by...
The Challenge of Leading Change: Some Remedies for Resistance (Part 2)
Other examples might be a decline in department majors, using instructional technology, adding research expectations, and initiating graduate programming. In each case, there is either a problem to solve or a new venture to consider. All will bring change and all will likely generate resistors. Again, some will be the...
The Challenge of Leading Change: Some Remedies for Resistance (Part 1)
The faculty in our colleges and universities are frequently portrayed as being the focal point of resistance to change within the academy. When one spends many years in the academy, one will realize that resistance to doing things differently is a trait that exists in administrative ranks as well. In...
The Art of Framing in Academic Settings (Part 2)
Viewing the change agenda through a political lens requires significant insight, careful forethought, and planning on the part of the leader. Regardless of the level of the leader, there are immediate clusters of personnel who represent the first wave of those who must be brought into the fold of supporting the initiative....
The Art of Framing in Academic Settings (Part 1)
Have you ever witnessed a keynote address in which a new university president shared such an inspiring and imaginative future strategy that you wished you were a part of that institution’s implementation team? Innovative thinkers who transform their vision into eloquent language can have that effect on their audiences. Assuming...
Planning Department Staffing to Meet Academic Needs
As changes among traditional faculty lines have taken place, and as new appointment types have emerged and been adopted, little thought seems to have been given to establishing the ideal balance of instructional resources in a given unit, neither has there been much planning for future changes that would result...
Planning Priorities for Leaving the Chair Position: Part 2
A second strategy would be to negotiate with the dean for a package of support that would allow the chair time and resources to do some personal “reinvention” immediately following chair service. Included might be released time from partial or full faculty obligations (perhaps an in-house sabbatical) for a semester...
