Summer 2012
Vol. 23
No. 1
A Resource
A c a d e m i c A d m i n i s t rat o r s
Working with the Passive-Aggressive
Colleague
Inside
Chairs Leading Change: Identifying
and Overcoming Resistance
by N. Douglas Lees
p. 3
Establishing a Comprehensive Chairs
Development Program
by Charles J. Haberle, Sheila Adamus
Liotta, and Patricia A. Sickinger
p. 6
Adrift and Focused in Academia:
The Chair’s Role
by Erick Howenstine
p. 8
Mentoring: A Case Study
by Robert A. Blumenthal
p. 10
Assessing Assessment
by Thomas E. Young
p. 12
A Chair: The Linchpin of the University
by Robert E. Cipriano and
Richard L. Riccardi p. 13
Navigating the Interim Role and
Avoiding the Traps and Pitfalls
by Marie Huff and
Judy Neubrander
p. 15
Supporting Adjunct Faculty
by Jeffrey L. Buller
p. 17
Preparing Young Faculty Advisors
of Graduate Research Assistants
by Sundar A. Christopher and
Kristi Caudill
p. 19
Promoting the Visibility
of Small Departments
by Katherine Side p. 20
Program Prioritization: Staying
on Course Through the Storm
by AJ Grube, Perry Schoon, and
Dan Grube
p. 23
Lawsuits and Rulings
p. 26
Reviews
p. 28
Supplemental Charts
for
pp. 16, 27, 30
by R. Kent Crookston
I
n my interaction with hundreds of
chairs I have found that the passiveaggressive colleague represents one of
the most taxing of all personnel challenges. Passive-aggressive people are
not as common as consistent underperformers, nor as daunting as bullies, but wherever they are they bring
frustration and stress to many of their
colleagues. The term passive-aggressive
(PA) is commonly used to describe
people who can be annoying, antagonistic, or even destructive in a passive
way. A common practice is to indicate
that they will accept an assignment and
then fail to do it, or do it late or poorly,
or both. Passive-aggressive people:
• Procrastinate
• “Forget” to do their share of assignments or are deliberately slow and
inefficient
• Complain about unfairness and
being underappreciated
• Are sullen or argumentative
• Blame their misfortune on others
and outside factors
• Resent suggestions and reject
criticism
• Ridicule and scorn authority
The good news is that not all PA
people are so deeply affected by their
condition that they cannot be remediated. Many of us have PA tendencies.
We are sometimes late for meetings and
assignments. Rather than being “aggressive” and declining a task to someone’s
Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).
DOI:10.1002/dch.20047
face, we accept it and then postpone
following through until it’s too late to
do it well and we make excuses. It’s a
common defensive tactic for avoiding
unpleasant jobs. Behaving this way can
quite easily become a habit—but it’s a
habit that can be corrected.
The bad news is that there are those
whose passive-aggressiveness is apparently deeply rooted in some pain or
grievance that they may not be able
to identify or express verbally. Someone in their family may have been controlling, there may have been intense
power struggles. Their emotions may
be so firmly repressed that they don’t
even realize they’re being affected by
them. Their way of behaving could be
self-protective. These people can be
extremely difficult to work with and
“succeeding” with them can be challenging—many chairs decide to not
even try.
Whether your PA colleagues are
simply work-escape artists or emotionally troubled, choosing to ignore
them is a high-cost decision. Their
weak-link behavior diminishes the
productivity of the whole department,
not just themselves. They not only fail
to make their own contributions but
they penalize those who take up their
slack. Letting them get away with it
constitutes a reward for bad behavior and undermines unit morale and
the chair’s credibility as a leader. The
2
Summer 2012
The Department Chair
following are some suggestions that
might help a chair counter a PA person’s destructive impact. They are suggestions only and do not constitute
professional advice.
Clarify Values and Expectations
It takes a special effort on the part of
the chair and perhaps the entire department to ensure that everyone,
not just the PA person, understands
expectations. Each person in the department must be held to, and comply
with, the same standards. Unless this
is the case it can be impossible to persuade the PA person to meet even a
simple expectation.
Clarify that as chair you are responsible for ensuring that workloads are
fairly distributed and that things are
done on time and in a quality manner.
Ask the PA person to discuss the obvious gap between the department’s expectations and his or her performance.
Follow Policy
Even though the PA person may not
be violating any stated policy, you
need to be sure you are not, either.
Consult with the director of faculty relations and with the dean. If
things become intense or alarming
seek professional help (and find out
how to recommend the PA person
for counseling).
Build Trust
The PA person usually has difficulty
trusting others, and extending trust
to a PA individual often backfires—
he or she may be entangled in a web
of never being forthright. But if you
are clear and concise in your interactions and remain consistent, your PA
colleague will know what to anticipate
from you—including that you expect
things to improve.
Call on the trust of other colleagues
and engage them in assisting you by
maintaining expectations and supporting you in holding everyone accountable. Accountability and peer pressure
combined can be effective.
Evaluate Yourself and
Your Perceptions
Be honest with yourself. Are you only
looking for evidence that the PA colleague is hopeless? Does ignoring or
complaining about him or her constitute your management of the situation?
If so, you may actually be contributing
to the strain on the relationship and to
the negative impact on the department.
Compassion has its place. Can you
identify some personal issue the PA
person is struggling with? Can you
think of some way you could help alleviate the individual’s struggle without offloading his or her duties onto
others?
Listen
Prepare to be influenced by what you
hear and see. Can you glean from your
PA colleague’s behavioral patterns
some way that you might be able to
better draw on his or her talents—in
a way that the individual is unlikely to
resist?
If by listening and observing you
identify an assignment that your PA
colleague should be able to fulfill,
make a special visit to his or her office
and request that person’s services.
You should genuinely express your
confidence in the individual and the
need for his or her skills. Pay attention
to your colleague’s response. What can
you learn about what motivates him
or her? Are there clues about what else
might draw the individual in from the
sidelines?
Take Effective Action
Recognize all the good behavior that
you can. Make sure the PA person
he ars your genuinely express e d
appreciation for what he or she
does well. A thoughtful and sincere
compliment or a friendly chat about
something personal can help set the
stage for a productive interaction.
D o n’t n e g l e c t t o a c k n o w l e d g e
improvement in behavior.
Never ignore counterproductive
behavior. This is essential. Passive-
aggressive people depend on others
“not noticing” what they are doing.
When you shine a light on their
behavior the game changes.
Be persistent and consistent. Don’t
expect change with one meeting. Have
regular interactions over a period of
time using both positive feedback
and evaluation of behavioral patterns.
Without persistency and consistency
it is highly unlikely that improvement
will occur.
• If the PA person misses a deadline
call him or her on it, and if it’s repeated
impose consequences.
• If the PA person doesn’t attend faculty meetings call him or her on it each
time. Start meetings on time and don’t
reward anyone who comes late by going
back and filling them in.
• Repeatedly missing deadlines constitutes a demerit. Do not give a reward
or a raise to encourage improvement.
Do not engage in power struggles
or arguments. Rather than debating
the particulars of a single incident,
call attention to the patterns you
notice in performance (build a case).
Calmly point out any performancegap repetitions you see. Keep the
department’s expectations handy and
draw from them as needed. Make it
clear that they apply to all.
Do not allow excuses or diversions.
If the PA person attempts to divert the
conversation to issues unrelated to the
department’s expectations and his or
her performance, bring your colleague
back to the patterns you see in his or
her behavior including the individual’s
diversions and excuses. Say, “Let’s not
spend time on the particulars of the
latest unmet expectation. Let’s consider
patterns and work out a plan for
putting a stop to recurrences.”
Probe complaints of unfairness.
If the PA person complains about the
unfairness of others and passes off his
or her unhappiness to outside factors,
keep in mind that people who question
or complain about rules, policies,
or the decisions of their leaders are
usually attempting to excuse their own
DOI:10.1002/dch
The Department Chair
misbehavior or violation of those rules.
This, of course, is self-destructive. See
if you can work this principle into your
discussion.
▲
Summer 2012
R. Kent Crookston is professor and associate
director over academic administrative support at
the Faculty Center at Brigham Young University and
author of Working with Problem Faculty (JosseyBass, 2012). Email: [email protected]
Chairs Leading Change: Identifying
and Overcoming Resistance
by N. Douglas Lees
This two-part article series examines
the change process as it takes place in
higher education. The focus will be on
department chairs as change agents,
but principles and examples will also
be applicable to and drawn from other
levels of institutional leadership. The first
article emphasized framing the change
agenda as a way of determining flaws
or obstacles to success and identifying
the sources and bases of resistance. This
second article will provide a discussion
of the common types of resistance
to change, strategies for overcoming
resistance, and measures needed to
maintain the momentum for change.
J
ust as the concept of framing was a
product of the business community,
we again turn to business (Kotter &
Schlesinger, 1979) to identify the forms
of resistance a change agent might encounter. It is important that the change
agent sort out the rationales behind the
resistance of a change initiative such
that the appropriate strategies can be
applied to either convert the resister
to a supporter or at least diminish the
impact of the resistance.
Types of Resistance to Change
Self-interest. One of the most prevalent
forms of resistance to change in higher
education is self-interest. Everyone
has seen this many times and some of
our colleagues are widely known to
formulate their decisions by thinking
of themselves first. They are the same
individuals who overuse “I” and “me”
but never do so with “we” and “us.”
Some realize this flaw while others
DOI:10.1002/dch
think that their motives and intentions
have been carefully cloaked through
the use of false justifications.
For example, consider a situation
where the chair and other faculty feel it
is time to hire a second faculty member
in an area within the discipline where
there is only one long-serving faculty
member. The chair and her supporters
believe this area is becoming more relevant to the discipline and have observed
that student interest in the area has
grown. How would that senior faculty
member react? What rationales would
be predicted for embracing or resisting
the new hire? The resister might surmise that he will have to teach a different course(s) (more work) and would
have to share graduate students interested in the research area (more competition). He might also view this as a
threat to his stature in the department
as the expert-in-residence in that area.
Finally, the new faculty member might
bring new information, skills, or technical capabilities the he does not possess.
The supporter, on the other hand, would
welcome the opportunity to collaborate
on teaching and research, embrace the
learning of new techniques and skills,
and view the new strength in the unit as
a way to recruit more graduate students.
Lack of trust. Another type of resistance occurs when one does not
understand the importance of the
change or is suspicious of its origin.
This is especially true when the initiative comes from “above”—that is, upper
administration. This lack of trust can
be avoided if the chair provides the appropriate background and rationale,
3
assuming that these are revealed by the
original source.
Fear. Another common form of
resistance, and one that can overlap
with self-interest, is what business calls
“a low tolerance for change” (Kotter
& Schlesinger, 1979, p. 108) but what
can more accurately be labeled as
“fear.” Fear has many manifestations
and can generate aggressive resistance
when individual faculty members
perceive that the change initiative will
result in the loss of personal value or
influence, being seen as obsolete and
noncompetitive, or feeling they have
insufficient knowledge or skills. These
perceptions are difficult for highly
educated professionals to accept.
For instance, imagine how the
twenty-five-year faculty veteran might
respond to a change in which the department proposes to move from
strictly undergraduate education to one
with research-based graduate programs
(Lees, 2012). While some may successfully make the transition, others might
feel obsolete, undervalued, and lacking
in the skills to participate. Similarly, developing a department-level focus (new
hires, new resources, new marketing
strategies) that does not include all faculty members (the inorganic theoretician in a chemistry department now
focusing on the life sciences) or a curriculum change that moves a course
from required to elective status would
result in possible feelings of obsolescence and devaluation, respectively. All
changes must be implemented in such a
way that all faculty fulfilling their traditional and modified roles are valued and
fully engaged. This is where the chair
needs to express reassurance of continued value for all.
Differing values of change. Resistance can also arise when someone
values the costs and benefits of change
differently. In some cases this is based
on incorrect or incomplete information, a situation that can be addressed
by accurate data. In others, it represents
a different value system. This form of
resistance can be a challenge to over-
4
Summer 2012
The Department Chair
come, but the chair can make progress
by using hard data that has multiple
outside evaluations as to validity.
Delaying tactics. This final form
of resistance is one not found in the
literature but instead comes from
personal experience. Delaying tactics can
progress into active resistance, driven
by those consumed by process and by
those who want to control the pace of
the agenda. It can also be personally
motivated if the faculty member has a
past issue with the chair and is trying to
make things difficult as a result.
Dealing with Resistance
A chair who effectively frames the
change initiative will be able to anticipate many forms of resistance as well
as their sources. Based on this information, strategies to avoid and counter resistance can be formulated. The
following are several approaches that
chairs can take to diminish the initiation or continuation of resistance.
Provide relevant information.
Supporting the need for and likely outcome of the change is a powerful tool.
Most faculty members will respond favorably to appropriately gathered and
analyzed data. Quantitative data that
can be subjected to statistical analyses is most persuasive, but other types
of softer data can also be convincing.
This information should be collected
before launch and be presented in an
easily understood format. Credibility
and time are lost if someone asks for
supporting information and it is not
readily available.
Assign the problem to a faculty
committee. For change initiatives designed to address real problems that are
widely recognized but for which the proposed solution is questioned, the chair
can assign the problem to a faculty committee. If this tactic is used, real-world
constraints should be put into place including meeting the expected outcome
(a real solution), setting a deadline for
completion, and staying within resource
parameters. A risk of sorts is that the
group may come up with an alternate
solution, but if it is workable it should get
full consideration.
Reassure all faculty of their continued value. Dealing with fear requires
great skill and creativity, sometimes
mixed with a dose of compassion, on
the part of chairs. Along with fear, other
emotions such as frustration and anger
can come into play when faculty lose positions of stature, feel left out of future
plans, or in some way feel inadequate.
When someone loses a key position the
chair might consider another equivalent
assignment, even if it is a new one made
just for that occasion. Differential workloads with adjusted criteria for merit can
help with situations where faculty will
not be contributing to a new direction
in the unit but can substitute contributions made in other areas. For those with
skill deficits the investment in training/
retooling, sometimes off campus for confidentiality reasons, is in order. At the
end of the day everyone should have a
place in the new world order and be able
to make similar total contributions to
the work of the unit. This reassures all
faculty of their continued value.
Implement stealth conversion.
A useful tool, and one that does not
appear in literature, is what might be
called “stealth conversion.” Here the
chair tests the idea for change with a
respected faculty member (an informal
leader) as part of an ad hoc conversation. As anticipated, the faculty member will voice concerns about the idea
to which the chair provides reasonable
responses. Weeks later when the concept for change is brought to the entire faculty someone will raise the same
issues and, surprisingly, the informal
leader is the one who often responds.
This gives more credence to the idea
and avoids the chair having to spend
personal capital defending it.
Employ bargaining and positional
power—as a last resort. Two other
tools available to chairs should only
be used in cases where the stakes are
high (critical change and no consensus).
These tools are bargaining (quid pro
quo: “In order to address your asser-
tion that the change will generate more
work for you I will provide you with a
TA next semester”) and the use of positional power (“I will do this because my
job description says I can.”). Regarding
the former, you do not want people to
think that there is a price for their support on every change issue; for the latter, such actions can accumulate quickly
into overall negative feelings.
Finally, there are some indirect measures chairs can take to promote the
change agenda. This involves the use
of external program review, disciplinary organizations, and external experts.
In all cases the reviewers come from
the “outside” and, for some reason, have
more credibility than inside voices.
Maintaining the Momentum
for Change
After sufficient support for change is
present to move forward there will
likely be individuals who remain unconvinced of its potential efficacy. It is
important to regularly report, in multiple ways (meeting agendas, memos,
annual reports, newsletters, press releases, presentations, and ad hoc conversations), each increment of success
in the project. This reinforces the importance of the initiative, maintains
focus, boosts the morale of those responsible for the progress, and can
eventually win converts.
▲
This article is based on a presentation at
the 29th annual Academic Chairpersons
Conference, February 9–10, 2012,
Orlando, Florida.
N. Douglas Lees is associate dean for planning
and finance at Indiana University–Purdue
University Indianapolis and author of Chairing
Academic Departments (Jossey-Bass, 2006). Email:
[email protected]
References
Kotter, J. P., & Schlesinger, L. A. (1979).
Choosing strategies for change. Harvard Business Review, 57(2), 106–114.
Lees, N. D. (2012, Spring). Chairs
leading change: Framing the agenda.
The Department Chair, 22(4), 3–4.
DOI:10.1002/dch
The Department Chair
Summer 2012
You’ve been selected to lead.
What’s the next step?
Consider:
IDEA FEEDBACK FOR DEPARTMENT CHAIRS
The only nationally available instrument to guide your professional
reflective practice
IDEA CHAIR COACHING SERVICE
Expert consulting to build your leadership skills and maximize your talent
You probably entered academia to pursue
individual intellectual pursuits. Now, as a chair, your
responsibilities are much more complex, focused on
mentoring and facilitating the work of your colleagues,
managing tight budgets, maximizing department
potential, and advancing your institution’s priorities,
with ever-shrinking resources.
The IDEA Center, a nonprofit organization, gives chairs
like you the resources to:
• Strengthen your leadership skills
• Improve your department’s culture and effectiveness
• Enhance your professional life
• Focus on individualized improvement strategies that
will benefit you the most
Contact us to learn how you can benefit from personalized feedback and consultation based on
your identified needs, at minimal cost to your institution. Visit www.theideacenter.org/chairs.
Register today to attend the
IDEA Department Chair Seminar!
Space is limited to 100.
Step away from the constant challenges of your daily environment and
focus on your own professional development. Build a lasting network of
colleagues who can support you in your role as chair and take away new
skills to become an even more effective department chair.
The IDEA Department Chair Seminar provides an in-depth examination
of key topics essential to the work of the academic chairperson. The
interactive sessions, facilitated by national practitioner-leaders, are an
opportunity to listen, discuss, and reflect on your role as chair with an
informal, collegial group.
November 8-9, 2012, St. Pete Beach, FL
Welcome Reception, November 7
TradeWinds Sandpiper Hotel and Suites Resort
Leaders
• Walt Gmelch
• Fernando Gomez
• Mary Lou Higgerson
• Peter Seldin
To register or for information:
Jenny Sump
800.255.2757
www.theideacenter.org/chairseminar
[email protected]
DOI:10.1002/dch
A national leader in student
rating services since 1975
5
6
Summer 2012
The Department Chair
Establishing a Comprehensive Chairs
Development Program
by Charles J. Haberle, Sheila Adamus Liotta, and Patricia A. Sickinger
M
any individuals who assume the
department chair role have had
little, if any, training in the myriad responsibilities expected of chairs. Institutions must provide department chairs
with professional development opportunities and growth in their administrative role, and they should consider
developing a comprehensive chairs development program, along with associated resources.
Providence College has traditionally provided structured support for
department chairs, but only within the
past few years has the college begun to
establish a more comprehensive chairs
development program. Following the
launch of a thorough review of the
chair role on our campus in 2005, Providence College has instituted a variety
of programs and resources available to
chairs, including improvements to our
New Chairs Orientation program, supplemental workshops, print and online
resources for chairs, and support for
professional development activities.
Chair Development
The department chair role requires a
very different skill set from those valued by the scholarly community. In an
effort to introduce chairs to the role,
the provost’s office had been hosting
orientation sessions for new chairs for
more than a decade. These one-day
orientations, while helpful, had the
potential to overwhelm chairs with information, were necessarily not able
to include much specific information
about any particular aspect of their
responsibilities, and did not include
an examination of the chair role in a
broader sense. Our campus’s formal examination of the chair role, launched
by a joint faculty–administrative task
force in 2005, highlighted the need for
the college to provide chairs with enhanced support and resources to perform their duties, particularly given our
vision that chairs would assume greater
leadership responsibilities for their departments. Sparked by the task force’s
recommendations, an effort to improve
chair development through increased
and enhanced training and resources
for chairs was initiated in 2008. This
included the provision of additional
print and electronic resources to assist
chairs with their responsibilities, the
procurement of funds for chair development opportunities, and a revised
New Chairs Orientation, which was
supplemented with a variety of themeoriented workshops on various topics
throughout the year.
Print and electronic resources
provided for chairs now include both
in-house and external publications. Beginning in 2008, all new chairs have
been provided with a copy of The Department Chair Primer (Chu, 2006).
Some parts of this book are discussed
during the New Chairs Orientation and
chairs are encouraged to use the book
as a resource. Several copies of The Essential Department Chair (Buller, 2006)
have been purchased and made available to chairs as well. The Department
Chair periodical is now accessible to
all chairs via electronic subscription
through the college’s library; chairs are
notified when a new issue is available,
including a list of topics covered in the
issue. Articles of particular interest
from other publications are sometimes
shared directly with chairs; for example,
an article aimed at new chairs in The
Chronicle of Higher Education was distributed at the most recent New Chairs
Orientation. An in-house Guide for Academic Department Chairs and Program
Directors is continually updated and
expanded and includes information on
the importance of the chair role, along
with sections on departmental affairs, faculty hiring and development,
student issues, managing resources,
legal issues, and more, as well as information on resources for chair development and a cyclical calendar of
activities to help chairs manage workflow over the course of the year. This
guide is available within a community
group on our learning management
system, created in 2008 to provide
chairs with a variety of resources.
This “Department Chairs/Program
Dire c tors Infor mat ion C ent ra l”
group, available to all chairs and directors, also can be used as a communications tool, making it easy to
email announcements to chairs, share
important documents, and highlight
key policies and resources. In addition, the site includes a calendar with
important dates and deadlines of relevance to chairs.
Funds for chair development have
been secured through the provost’s
office. In addition to providing some
of the resources mentioned earlier,
funds have been garnered for chairs to
attend professional development conferences, including the annual Academic Chairpersons Conference. Two
to three chairs per year have taken
advantage of this opportunity since
2008–2009. Providence College also
has supported chairs who wish to participate in online webinars focused on
chair development.
Our Ne w Chairs Orientation
program was significantly revised in
2008. While the main component of
the orientation is still held on a single
day, time on specific tasks has been
reduced to a concise nuts-and-bolts
section, with the remainder of the day
dedicated to discussion of the chair
role. Participants are asked to read
brief chapters in Chu (2006) about the
transition to the chair role, and time
is allotted for a thorough discussion
of these readings. In addition to the
session facilitators from the provost’s
DOI:10.1002/dch
The Department Chair
office and the incoming chairs, two
veteran chairs have been invited to
participate in the session each year
to provide their perspectives as experienced chairs. The inclusion of seasoned chairs has been well received by
new chairs, as they have appreciated
the opportunity to learn from those
who already serve in this capacity.
Part of the program is now dedicated
to a discussion of several case studies from Buller (2006). Each small
discussion group is facilitated by an
experienced chair or administrator,
and the groups report back to the full
group.
Along with this new orientation model, assistance is now provided on specific components of the
chair’s responsibilities through a series
of supplemental workshops. Offered
throughout the year at appropriate
times, workshops are provided on topics including course scheduling and
registration, budget development, the
chair’s role in tenure and promotion,
legal issues, and technology resources
for chairs. Although created with new
chairs in mind, many of these workshops are open to all chairs, and some
veteran chairs avail themselves of the
opportunity to attend.
Response to the revised New Chairs
Orientation has been positive. Since the
inception of the new format, seventeen
new chairs have participated in the formal program. In an exit survey following the program, all participants rated
it a 4 or a 5 on a 5-point scale (1 lowest,
5 highest). One attendee commented
that the orientation was very helpful on
many levels, highlighting the value of
information, resources, getting to know
other chairs, and having experienced
chairs available during the session. Another stated that the most important
aspect was the opportunity to build
community among new chairs.
Assessment of Chair Development
Activities
In fall 2010 the provost’s office conducted a series of focus groups to
DOI:10.1002/dch
Summer 2012
discuss chair perspectives on the implementation of the 2005 task force’s
recommendations. One of these focus
groups engaged chairs who had participated in the initial revised New
Chairs Orientation program two years
earlier. Session participants reflected
on whether they found the orientation
and available resources helpful to their
transition into the chair role. They
were asked if they had participated in
any supplemental workshops or taken
advantage of other professional development opportunities, and they had
the opportunity to make recommendations for future workshops or programs. The group also was prompted
to identify unanticipated challenges
they had faced in their assumption of
the chair role, and to identify continuing challenges for chairs.
Focus group members who had
participated in campus workshops
or attended chair conferences commented positively on these experiences
and many also lauded the provost’s office for its support. Those attending
the revamped New Chairs Orientation
spoke appreciatively about the ability to engage in open discussion with
peers and with the veteran chairs who
participated.
Additional issues raised during the
focus groups included concern about
the chairs’ relationships with school
deans and about increased responsibilities as the college implements a
new core curriculum and considers a
faculty evaluation program. Development opportunities for chairs in each
of these areas will be essential.
Chair Development Programs:
A Suggested Checklist
Institutions that wish to implement or
enhance chair development opportunities should consider the following:
• Learn from peer institutions. Institutional websites provide useful
information about chair orientation
programs as well as other chair development resources. Information about
such programs also may be gathered
7
through professional development
conferences and through various professional publications.
• Seek support from senior leadership
on the introduction or enhancement of
a chairs development program at your
institution. Funding and other support
from campus leaders will be vital to the
program’s success.
• Develop a formal orientation program for new chairs. Consider supplemental, more in-depth workshops on
topics of importance to chairs led by offices that have regular interaction with
chairs (registrar, legal counsel, etc.).
• Develop print and/or online resource
materials for chairs. A written guide or
manual can be very helpful, particularly
for new or inexperienced chairs.
• Seek feedback from your chairs about
their professional development needs.
Consider focus group conversations
with small groups of chairs, as well as
off-campus professional development
opportunities.
Department chairs can benefit
greatly from a comprehensive and purposeful development program tailored
specifically to their roles. Make it a priority to create or refresh a chair development program at your institution. ▲
This article is based on a presentation at
the 28th annual Academic Chairpersons
Conference, February 10–11, 2011,
Orlando, Florida.
Charles J. Haberle is assistant vice president for
academic affairs, Sheila Adamus Liotta is dean of
the School of Arts and Sciences, and Patricia A.
Sickinger is assistant to the provost, all at Providence College. Email: [email protected],
[email protected], psicking@providence
.edu
References
Buller, J. L. (2006). The essential department chair: A practical guide to college
administration. San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass.
Chu, D. (2006). The department chair
primer: Leading and managing academic departments. San Francisco, CA:
Jossey-Bass.
8
Summer 2012
The Department Chair
Adrift and Focused in Academia: The Chair’s
Role
by Erick Howenstine
is seen as a credential or a ticket. You
must pay in time and money but may
choose to skip much of the hard work
of actually learning. Other students in
this row might simply speak English
as a second language, may have a long
commute or full-time job, or children,
or an elderly dependent, or a learning
disability, or an inferior high school
education. Some may be simply looking for the easiest route; I’ll call them
lazy. If, for whatever reason, they decide that even the degree is not worth
the cost, they may drop out. This is a
sizable group in some institutions.
Students in the bottom row are
qualitatively different. They are focused on learning and interested in
the content of their courses. They read.
They study. They may be preparing for
a chosen career or may be hungry for
knowledge itself. But sadly, a positive
attitude alone is not enough; some students are pressed into the top row by
circumstances.
Faculty members come in different stripes, too, when it comes to their
Figure 1. Students and Faculty: Adrift and Focused
FACULTY
FOCUSED
everyone’s
happy
STUDENTS ARE
STRESSED, FAILING
STUDENTS ARE
BORED AND
DISAPPOINTED
everyone’s
happy
STUDENTS
ADRIFT
ADRIFT
FOCUSED
M
y university recently held a workshop to discuss the Arum and
Roksa book Academically Adrift (2011),
which is based on one large study that
uses a single measure of leaning. The
authors had asked a good question: Are
students in college learning very much?
For 95%, the answer is no.
According to their sur vey responses, faculty members spent an
average of eleven hours per week in
course preparation and delivery, they
were never taught how to teach, and
when they require less of students they
get better evaluations—which may be
the only assessment their teaching ever
gets. Students spend 2.5 hours a week
studying for an average course, they do
worse—not better—if they study with
peers, and better if they work on campus (only up to ten hours), but not off
campus. Some of this I knew, some I
found surprising. And some I consider
doubtful.
My university is a public institution, an urban campus with 11,000
students—7,000 full-time equivalents.
I think in many ways we are typical
of higher education. I’m chair of two
departments, with seventeen faculty
members, and I’ve been one myself
for more than twenty years. When my
small group convened we were asked to
consider the question “Are we adrift?”
It got me thinking. My short answer to
the question: yes and no, yes and no. I
developed this model to explain.
Despite studies like Arum and
Roksa’s, which treat students as a single
group, there is a spectrum of students.
We know this because we score and
grade them constantly. In Figure 1, I’ve
cut the student body in two, but any individual may switch rows at will. In the
top row are the truly adrift; they are not
focused on learning. For some, a degree
focus on teaching. As with students, I’ll
cut them in two. Those in the left column are the perfect counterpart to unfocused students: They give excellent
grades but put in a minimum of effort
toward teaching. Their assignments
and exams are few, easy to complete
and easy to grade, and their course
content may be aging. They may rely
on videos, may cancel classes, or end
them early. There are a thousand ways
to cut corners in teaching. Some are
busy doing other good things, such as
research. Others may be tired of teaching, tired of the repetition, of grading
papers, of staying current in a changing academic field, or tired of the field
itself. Others may have life pressures:
sick dependents, children, illness, long
commutes, second jobs—just like students. And, like students, some may
be lazy.
This is not a trivial matter, even
w he n t he i r nu mb e rs are s ma l l.
Whether 20% or 5%, these faculty do
great harm. Others must do their service and committee work, they put
holes in the curriculum particularly if
they “don’t teach” prerequisite material,
they damage the reputation of the department and the university, and they
signal that the administration doesn’t
notice or doesn’t care, thereby potentially fracturing the entire faculty from
DOI:10.1002/dch
The Department Chair
the entire administration. They provide a precedent for bad behavior: “If
he can do that, I certainly can do this!”
If they are senior faculty members,
they may actively oppose the department itself, and junior colleagues, if
they feel threatened.
Those in the right column are a
different sort of instructor. They care
about their students, they adjust their
methods to help those who are struggling while still challenging those who
are out in front. They stay current in
their field and in the technologies of
teaching. Their assignments are new
and engaging and require creative
thought. They involve students in their
research, they are advisors and mentors, and they take criticism seriously.
There are a thousand things to do when
you’re on the right side of the line.
When these different types of
students and faculty meet in the
classroom, interesting things happen. In the top left square you have
the worst situation, in my opinion.
Students aren’t challenged yet they
get excellent grades. Some will seek
out these havens and camp there as
often as they can. Here you’ll find the
worst grade inflation; an A is all these
students want, and all they get, but
they are the least deserving of an A.
This faculty member is a free-rider,
liberally distributing the currency
(grades) that colleagues have worked
hard to establish, and in return they
get glowing reviews. Because in this
square everyone is happy, any force
for change must come from outside.
However, the university has one big
incentive to look the other way—
these students are filling seats, paying
tuition, probably learning something,
and they are not complaining. They
are satisfied customers, and the numbers they generate matter very much
to higher administrators, and to state
legislators too.
There are two other squares with
problems. At top right are the poor students in tough classes, baffled by the
rigor and unprepared to do the work.
DOI:10.1002/dch
Summer 2012
They slow the class down. They may
feel ashamed or stupid, but quite possibly put-upon by a demanding faculty member who is difficult to please.
They are not likely to approach the instructor for assistance (but if they do,
it is a critical moment that should be
seized—they are considering a move
to the bottom row). Their low scores
will be a blow to the ego that, at best,
may serve as a wake-up call, but will
more likely make them write a bitter
(anonymous) student evaluation as
they scurry back to the top left square,
seeking shelter. Ironically, the ruffled
students’ negative reviews may make
the focused faculty member look worse
than the adrift one.
At bottom left we find the focused
students in a class that goes nowhere.
They will not be happy, although some
may consider the course a welcome
break. If they complain, however,
they may be threatened or intimidated. There may not be a thousand
ways a faculty member can intimidate
a student if can they can do it very effectively with grades. The class is a fiefdom, after all, and you don’t upset its
overlord. In the end, these focused students don’t represent much of a threat
to the adrift faculty member because
they’ll either drop the course or they
won’t be back. Hopefully, they find
their way to the right column, but if
they leave the institution altogether
they may become its most vocal (and
articulate) critics.
What can be done? Because grades
are the currency with which the drifting faculty keep the drifting students
happy, it might seem that addressing
grade inflation would help. But to these
faculty members it’s the best students
who exhibit bad behavior, so the required low grades might simply be
given out to those who complain. It
will look good on paper.
I’ve saved the best for last: bottom
right. Here we have another happy
classroom but one in which there are
motivated students engaged with a
focused faculty member. Arum and
9
Roksa estimate that this constitutes
5%, but I am quite sure it’s actually a
much larger portion. The students in
this cell are richly rewarded with an
excellent education, valuable skills, and
credentials too. They are intellectually
stimulated. They get (and keep) good
jobs, or go on for a higher degree. They
are advocates of the institution and its
best success stories. This square is what
is so good about the academy.
How are individuals encouraged to
move between quadrants? Some motivated students (in the bottom row),
may be enticed by peers into the easy
class, or may just drift into one accidentally and seek out more. But this is
not so likely, I think. One of the many
things one learns in the bottom row is
the value of being there. More likely,
the drifting students gradually find
their way. These are young people, after
all, and it takes time to find one’s way
outside the structure of home and high
school. This shift could be encouraged
through advisement, mentoring, interaction with peers, student clubs or
group projects, or other extracurricular activities in which top and bottom
rows meet, but engaging instruction
is probably the best way to snag them.
The structural obstacles—jobs, difficult
family situations, second languages—
might be attended to as well with
counseling, academic support services,
and so on.
When it comes to movement of
faculty between columns, it’s often
weariness that drives them westward
to drift. Doing the same thing again
and again, especially if one feels unnoticed and underappreciated, does
get tiring. Students can help here by
giving substantive positive comments
in their end-of-course evaluations
when they’re deserved. Administrators might do the same. After all, it’s
the problems that present themselves;
it takes a little effort to notice the
good things too.
The more difficult task is addressing the adrift. Just noting lack of effort, in a personal conversation, might
10
Summer 2012
The Department Chair
be enough. People behave better when
they know someone is watching. If the
administrative will is in place, to the
top, then rigorous reviews, notes to the
personnel files, and detailed, signed
complaints by students can do more
good than most people realize.
One of the key roles of the department chair, I think, is to identify these
groups, although they are in gradients, not in quadrants. In fairness, this
model must also be extended to the
administration itself—where there are
focused and adrift members too (that
is, focused or not focused on teaching
and learning). On the adrift side, one
might expect that those who are not
protected by tenure would be less likely
to drift, for fear of their jobs. But in the
administration there are a thousand
ways to hide. Others will be so concerned with numbers that they forget
what the numbers actually mean. Some
vigorous administrators may divert resources to projects that promote their
own interests over those of their students. Others will be assigned or will
take on so many responsibilities that
they can’t possibly do them all well.
In some cases a union will play a
role in this model, too, by purposefully blurring the distinction between
the adrift and focused faculty for
overtly political reasons. If successful, this may result in two perverse
coalitions: the adrift and focused faculty on one side fighting against the
adrift and focused administration on
the other. This arrangement is hardly
in the interests of the focused on either side; only the adrift benefit from
the muddling. Is it naive to think we
might somehow realign?
This model has simplified the situation, of course. Real students, faculty,
and administrators are in gradients,
not quadrants, and with more than two
dimensions. If the model is useful at
all, however, chairs may be best situated to influence positive change. They
may improve advisement, arrange social events where students meet one
another, and encourage faculty to be
aware of the various ways in which
they can help guide their students in
the right direction.
When it comes to administration of
faculty, department chairs have the softest firm touch. They will be among the
first to notice them, and being themselves half faculty and half administration they are likely to understand the
pressures on both sides. Some problems, if noticed early, may be nipped in
the bud. They can more easily give the
important negative notes to the personnel file if they also make the effort to
write the positive ones. What’s more, the
chair may be able to provide a course
release, a research assistant, equipment,
travel funds, a preferred course sched-
ule, freedom to develop new courses,
strong support for promotion, research
grants, grade appeals, sabbaticals, and
formal recognition in the personnel file
to recognize merit. There are more than
a thousand ways to guide faculty and
students toward the sweet right corner,
when you are the chair.
▲
Erick Howenstine is chair of the Department of
Geography and Environmental Studies and the
Department of Economics at Northeastern Illinois
University. Email: [email protected]
References
Arum, R., & Roksa, J. (2011). Academically adrift: Limited learning on college
campuses. Chicago, IL: University of
Chicago Press.
Mentoring: A Case Study
by Robert A. Blumenthal
E
arly in Professor X’s first semester, a
few of his students came to see me
to complain about him. As department
chair, I’ve become quite accustomed to
the kinds of complaints that students
tend to have in mathematics courses,
and there was nothing unusual in what
I heard. These students were concerned
that they were not doing well and they
expressed the view that Professor X is a
terrible teacher. I gave them some general advice about making sure they take
advantage of his office hours and that
they seek assistance from our learning
center, and I offered a few other suggestions of a general nature. They said,
“But everyone is failing; he’s a lousy
teacher.” That’s a refrain I’ve heard before, wherein those students who are
doing poorly will try to indicate that
it’s not just them, it’s lots of students,
thus lessening the likelihood that they
bear individual responsibility for their
predicament.
Not long after this and shortly after
midterms, Professor X came to see me
to talk about the very high withdrawal
rate in one of his courses. I was pleased
that Professor X had taken the initiative to come to me rather than simply
ignoring the situation. This showed a
level of maturity and concern that made
me feel we would be able to work out
the problem. First, I tried to get a sense
from Professor X of how he viewed the
course. A mathematics course can be
approached from a variety of different
vantage points, particularly with regard
to the level of formal mathematical
rigor and proof that is employed in the
instructor’s treatment of the material
and that is expected from the students.
The course can be approached from a
highly theoretical point of view or from
an applications-oriented and problemsolving point of view, and there are a
continuum of possibilities in between.
There needs to be a good fit between
the academic profile of the student
body and the approach taken.
I shared my thoughts about the
varying approaches to teaching the
course and the need to find a good fit
between the approach taken and the
students one actually has in the class.
Inevitably, the issue of standards arose
DOI:10.1002/dch
The Department Chair
and I indicated that standards must be
maintained but that standards are not
absolute and universal, with the same
standards applying to all students,
at all times, in all colleges and universities. Rather, the standards must
reflect, at least to some degree, the institutional culture and overall institutional standards as measured, for
example, by the admissions standards
and by the historical grade distributions at the institution. No course
should attempt to redefine in a fundamental way the admissions standards
that govern the selection of the freshman class.
I know that this view can be controversial, but I am convinced that
new faculty need to give this serious
thought. Professor X listened attentively with good eye contact, but did
not offer any substantive comments
one way or the other. I interpreted his
respectful attention as a sign that he
would give serious consideration to
what I had said. I asked him to give
some thought to this with an eye toward making adjustments, as warranted, in his approach to the course
for the second half of the semester.
What he did say at this point is that
he was puzzled as to why the students
withdrew. He said they are for the most
part doing okay. He suspects that they
might be concerned about their eventual course grade but that these fears are
generally unfounded and that they have
no reason to fear a negative outcome. I
asked him if the students were aware of
this and if he had communicated this
to them. He said, yes, he had spoken to
many of them and told them that they
shouldn’t withdraw based on concerns
over a dismal course grade.
I told him that it’s very important
to make sure that each student has an
accurate and continually updated picture of his or her grade. I asked him
how the test grades have been. He reported that the average on the first test
was in the low 50s and the second test
was more or less the same. He immediately indicated, however, that he would
DOI:10.1002/dch
Summer 2012
be curving the course grades at the end
of the semester.
At this point it was clear to me what
was happening. Professor X planned
to curve the course grades at the end
of the semester, thereby achieving a
reasonable grade distribution. He has
assured his nervous students that they
are doing fine and that they should not
withdraw out of fear of a low course
grade. But what Professor X has not
taken into account is the way things
look to the students and their parents.
All they see are the 50s and, as far as
they are concerned, that means failing.
I now see that this was the context in
which to view the claim “but everyone
is failing” made by the students who
had come to see me. Professor X’s verbal assurances to the students that he
would be curving the course grades
at the end of the semester don’t provide any comfort because the students
have no way to project what their final
course grade might be based on the
test results to date. As far as they are
concerned, they are failing and the best
course of action is to drop the course.
With this realization, I was able
to give Professor X some advice that
would directly address the situation.
I told him that it’s too late to do anything about the students who have already withdrawn, but that he needs to
make sure that the remaining students
have a clear idea of their standing in
the class. This means much more than
simply telling them that you will curve
the course grades at the end of the semester. Each student needs to know
exactly where he or she stands now in
terms of the course grade to date, and
each student needs to know how his or
her standing changes as a result of each
subsequent test. This can be accomplished very easily by simply curving
the tests as you go along rather than
waiting until the end of the semester
to curve the course grades. You should
indicate not only the raw score, but
also the curved score, when you return
the tests, and you should also indicate
the letter grade that corresponds to the
11
curved score. This will remove any potential for the type of uncertainty and
anxiety the students have been experiencing until now.
Again, Professor X listened attentively and with good eye contact, but
did not offer any substantive comments. Not content to leave any ambiguity with regard to this piece of
advice, I reiterated that I felt it was crucial that he implement this change at
once. I said that there’s a real problem
here and it’s very important that you
curve the tests as you go along.
Near the end of the semester, I received an angry letter from the parent
of one of Professor X’s students. The
parent supported his negative assessment of Professor X’s teaching abilities
by citing the fact that the class average
on one of the tests given late in the semester was in the low 40s.
I asked Professor X to meet with
me in regard to the parent’s concerns.
I told Professor X that I was puzzled.
Weren’t you curving the tests as you
went along as we had previously discussed? He said that he had given
very serious thought to my suggestion, but he just didn’t feel it was
good pedagogical practice because he
felt that his approach was more likely
to keep the students well motivated
and working hard until the end of
the course. I now realized that, without informing me in advance, he had
made a conscious decision to ignore
my advice.
The process of mentoring a faculty
member is a two-way street that requires both parties to work together
toward their common goal of helping
the faculty member succeed. The responsibility for a successful outcome
rests as much on the faculty member as
it does on the efforts and good will of
the mentor.
For chairs who find themselves
needing to mentor faculty in the area
of teaching, here are some strategies
you might find helpful so as to ensure
a successful mentoring experience for
your faculty and yourself:
12
Summer 2012
The Department Chair
• Setting the right tone is crucial. This
can be accomplished in large part by
putting out signals that you and the
faculty member are on the same side.
This is not an adversarial situation but,
rather, one in which the two of you will
work together toward a mutually desired goal. Both parties are equally invested in a successful outcome.
• Based on conversations with students and the instructor, try to define
as clearly as possible the nature of
the problem. The mentoring process
should have a clear and targeted focus.
Other issues may surface in the course
of the interaction, but try to keep the
experience from becoming one in
which the instructor becomes demoralized by what seem to be a plethora
of problems. Assistance with problem
areas, encouragement that progress
is being made, and praise for areas
of strength are key ingredients in the
mentoring process.
• Think about an appropriate structure for your meetings with the faculty
member. For certain types of issues, it
might be better to plan on short but frequent meetings rather than just one or
two lengthy sessions. If you have suggestions to make, be sure that the faculty member has a clear understanding
of what you are suggesting, and indicate that you would like him or her to
report back to you on the status of the
implementation of those suggestions at
the next regular meeting, or sooner if
deemed necessary.
For those who may wish to use this
case study as an exercise in a chair development program, here are some guiding
questions that may prove helpful:
• When hiring new faculty, have you
given adequate consideration to the
teaching experience of the candidates
and the extent to which that experience,
along with the candidate’s overall career
and professional goals, will fit well with
the departmental and institutional mission and culture?
• Student concerns brought to a chair
can often provide a crucial first sign
that something is amiss. Are you ac-
cessible to students? Are they expressing concerns that seem random and/
or particular to their individual situations, or are there one or two common
themes that might suggest you need to
follow up with the instructor?
• Have you established any mechanisms in the department, such as a peer
mentoring program or peer observation program, that enable faculty to develop and refine their teaching skills?
• Does the department have clear
and consistent guidelines with regard
to faculty expectations? Are the rela-
tive weights of teaching, scholarship,
and service clearly delineated so that all
faculty are aware of the relative importance of these roles when it comes to
annual evaluations as well as tenure and
promotion decisions?
▲
This article is based on a presentation at
the 29th annual Academic Chairpersons
Conference, February 9–10, 2012,
Orlando, Florida.
Robert A. Blumenthal is chair of the Department
of Mathematics at Georgia College. Email:
[email protected]
Assessing Assessment
by Thomas E. Young
I
n the last couple of decades, all of us
in academe have been pushed into
AA—that is, Accountability and Assessment—and many feel that what used to
be a comfortable club has now become
a decidedly uncomfortable business.
Complaints of “too much assessing and
not enough doing”—getting at both the
time-consuming nature of some assessment processes and the lack of results
that come out of assessment—are whispered throughout the ivy-covered halls.
It seems incumbent on chairs and deans
to address any unnecessary drain on faculty energy and morale.
The target of assessment may range
from the very specific (Dr. So-and-So’s
performance in course A for semester
B) to the very general (the institution’s
performance of its overall mission over
a multiyear period). The assessment
may be designed to do many sorts
of things, such as provide data for
formative purposes or evaluations for
summative purposes, and may come
in many varieties and forms, with
the narrative and the numerical table
or the graph being popular modes
of presentation. For example, early
“value-added” assessments of student
outcomes asked basically three things
about students: what they knew, what
they could do, and how they felt about
their knowing and doing.
Regardless of the nature of the
assessment, the chair should always
ask, “Is this trip necessar y?” The
authority for the intrusion on what
most faculty view as their real jobs
of teaching and perhaps conducting
research is important. State agencies,
accrediting agencies, system offices, and
directors of institutional effectiveness
all seem to clamor for “data” and seek
“accountability.” While a chair must
try to protect faculty from unnecessary
and wasteful assessment efforts, it’s also
vital to engage faculty fully in efforts
that can truly benefit the department or
division. For instance, if the numbers
can support that new program, it may
be a good idea to help gather them.
Assuming that the assessment
did not originate with the unit (and
conceiving and executing departmental
self-assessment programs and projects
is certainly a possibility), the chair
should ask the campus agent overseeing
the assessment the following kinds of
questions:

What is t he b as ic pur p os e of
the assessment? Is it to confirm (for
example, to demonstrate that the
program is meeting its previously stated
DOI:10.1002/dch
The Department Chair
objectives), or is it to convince (to show
that scarce funds should be allocated to
the department’s innovative project, for
instance)?

Is it efficient? If not, how can it be
made less inefficient? The chair should
always seek to determine the least
data with the least intrusion (the least
expenditure of departmental time
and effort) that is necessary to get the
required or desired results. Advocating
for a long-term schedule or a predictable
cycle of assessments might produce
useful results. For example, seeking less
frequent but more extensive student
evaluations of individual faculty—
instead of all classes every semester
with minimal student response rates,
trying for full student participation
in all courses every other semester or
in one course chosen at random each
semester—might make students, faculty,
and tabulators all happier.

Is it or will it be effective? The
t imef rame and t he inst itut iona l
commitment to the assessment are
critical. Will the assessment involve
sufficient depth and duration with
Summer 2012
follow-up actions and a review of
those actions to make the enterprise
worthwhile, or will it be just another
assessment du jour, which will pass
quickly to the shelf? Is the assessment
outcomes driven, with dollars following
data, or is it merely an exercise? Does it
fit within a comprehensive plan, or is it
isolated, fragmentary, and temporary?
The chair should allocate unit efforts
accordingly.
Because the chair may have little
say in conducting a given assessment
and stand little chance against an
invading agency waving the banner
of accountability, he or she would
be well advised to get on the best
possible terms with the institutional
effectiveness office. The chair should
certainly do so before calling for an
institution-wide review of assessment
programs, for example. But asking
“Who assesses the assessors?” and
getting an assessment of the assessment
can’t hurt.
▲
Thomas E. Young is interim associate dean at
Georgia Gwinnett College. Email: [email protected]
A Chair: The Linchpin of the University
by Robert E. Cipriano and Richard L. Riccardi
T
hese are trying times in higher education. Many of the 5,754 colleges
and universities in the United States are
drastically cutting resources, increasing
workloads, and demanding a full and
complete accounting of how faculty
members spend their time. In addition,
tenure is being attacked both within
and external to higher education. All of
this is occurring as salaries are unable
to keep up with inflation. The public
used to view professors working in the
academy as intelligent, hardworking,
and caring people. Today, the public’s
interpretation of an academician has
changed to one of a person being paid
full-time for a part-time effort, thus ripping off the system. Consequently, moDOI:10.1002/dch
rale may be at an all-time low in higher
education. The department chair is responsible for presenting a compelling
rationale to the public, administrators,
parents, and faculty members when articulating the viability of the academic
department.
Since 2007 we have been surveying department chairs throughout the
country in an attempt to determine
who they are, what they typically do,
what they are expected to do, and, ultimately, what drives them to want to
be in their current position. In 2007
we surveyed one university system
on the past, present, and future aspirations of chairs (Cipriano & Riccardi, 2008). In 2008, 2009, and 2010
13
we broadened the responses to chairs
across the country (Cipriano & Riccardi, 2010). This article will report
on the 2011 survey, and a future article will chart the five years of this
ongoing research.
A total of 317 surveys were distributed, and 105 were returned; a 30.8%
response rate. The questionnaire was
designed to elicit responses about demographics (gender, highest degree
held, academic rank, etc.), personal information (degree of satisfaction in the
chair role, plans after term ends, etc.),
perceptions of the skills and competencies needed to function effectively as
chair, the tasks that are deemed pleasant or unpleasant, and the importance
that collegiality should play in personnel decisions. The survey responses for
2011 follow.
Demographics
1. Gender: 52.4% were female; 47.6%
were male.
2. Highest degree held: 10.5% held
a master’s degree, 1.0% held a sixthyear degree, 75.2% held a doctoral
degree, and 13.3% held a postdoctoral degree.
3. Academic rank: 5.7% were assistant
professors, 38.1% were associate professors, and 51.4% were full professors.
4. Age when first became chair: 47.
5. Current age: 53.
6. Tenure status: 77.1% were tenured;
20.0% were not tenured.
7. Consider self as a member of the
faculty or the administration: 76.2%
considered themselves a member of the
faculty; 21.0% considered themselves a
member of the administration.
8. Came to the position: 38.1% were
appointed, 16.7% were elected, and
47.6% indicated a combination of appointed and elected.
9. Total years as chair: 5.
10. Number of full-time faculty in
department: 5.7% had 1–3 members,
11.4% had 4–5 members, 21.0% had
6–8 members, 8.6% had 9–10 members, 23.8% had 11–15 members, and
28.6% had 16 members or more.
14
Summer 2012
The Department Chair
11. Formal training/education in becoming a chair: 96.2% had no formal
coursework or training; 2.9% had formal coursework or training in becoming a chair.
12. Formal management training:
12.4% indicated they had formal management training; 87.6% stated they
had no formal management training.
13. Term limits: 21.0% had term limits; 77.1% had no term limits for their
chair position.
14. Plans after ser ving as chair :
21.0% did not know, 23.8% will go back
on faculty, 41.0% will go into administration, 11.4% will retire, and 1.0% did
not respond.
15. Overall satisfaction as chair:
64.5% were very satisfied, 25.7% were
satisfied, 5.7% were not satisfied, and
3.8% did not respond.
16. Reasons why remain as chair: make
a difference, 85.7%; shape department’s
direction, 80.0%; career advancement,
44.8%; no one else in the department will
do it, 39.0%; more money, 29.5%; ability
to hire faculty, 18.1%; reduce teaching
load, 16.2%; prestige, 13.3%; control of
budget, 10.5%; summer pay, 5.7%.
Pleasant and Unpleasant Tasks
A review of the literature regarding
chair responsibilities revealed there are
twenty-seven tasks that chairs regularly perform. More than 50% of the
respondents indicated the following
are pleasant tasks that they perform:
1. Interpersonal communication
tasks: 90.5%
2. Encouraging professional development of department faculty: 87.6%
3. Representing the department at
professional meetings: 87.6%
4. Interacting with the administration on behalf of the department: 79.0%
5. Recruiting new full-time faculty:
76.2%
6. Developing and initiating longrange departmental programs, plans,
and goals: 78.1%
7. Planning and reviewing curriculum, academic programs, and courses:
74.3%
8. Encouraging faculty research and
publications: 72.4%
9. Retaining untenured faculty :
71.4%
10. Attending meetings for chairs and
administrators: 70.5%
11. Assigning courses, research, and
departmental duties to faculty: 69.5%
12. Department organizational tasks:
67.6%
13. Participating in committee work
within the college: 58.1%
14. Recruiting part-time adjuncts:
54.3%
15. Evaluating non-faculty personnel
(secretary, assistant, etc.): 50.5%
16. Monitoring department budget:
50.5%
Greater than 50% of the respondents indicated the following are unpleasant tasks that they perform:
1. Terminating part-time adjuncts:
75.2%
2. Terminating full-time faculty:
67.6%
3. Terminating non-teaching personnel: 67.6%
4. Maintaining morale and reducing
conflict among faculty: 56.2%
5. Requesting additional resources
from administration: 55.2%
It was interesting to note that there
were only two tasks that more than
40% of chairs indicated they did not
do:
1. Raising external funds: 58.1%
2. Obtaining and managing grants,
gifts, and contracts: 43.8%
Skills and Competencies Needed
by Chairs
An examination of the literature indicated there are sixteen competencies
that chairs should possess. Ninety-five
percent or higher of the respondents
rated the following competencies and
skills as necessary to function effectively as a chair:
1. Ability to communicate effectively:
100.0%
2. Trustworthiness: 100.0%
3. Problem-solving ability: 100.0%
4. Organizational ability: 100.0%
5. Character/integrity: 99.0%
6. Decision making: 99.0%
7. Leadership skills: 99.0%
8. Professional competency: 99.0%
9. Planning skills: 98.1%
10. Evaluating faculty: 96.2%
In an effort to further refine the
skills deemed necessary by the respondents, we asked them to rank in order
of importance the five most crucial
competencies needed. We weighted the
scores according to the responses: a
rank of 1 was awarded 5 points, a rank
DOI:10.1002/dch
The Department Chair
of 2 was awarded 4 points, and so on.
The five highest ranked skills and competencies, as reported by the respondents, were:
1. Ability to communicate effectively:
225 points
2. Leadership skills: 147 points
3. Character/integrity: 134 points
4. Interpersonal skills: 99 points
5. Organizational ability: 94 points
We were also interested in the
unique challenges faced by chairs. Following are the five highest ranked challenges, using the same weighted scale
just described:
1. Dealing with noncollegial, uncivil
faculty: 203 points
2. Lack of adequate resources: 156
points
3. Excessive workload: 151 points
4. Dealing with bureaucracy: 142
points
5. Working with unmotivated faculty: 101 points
The final survey question asked:
“Should collegiality be the fourth criterion for tenure decisions?” The results
are clear: 73.3% indicated that “yes,”
collegiality should be the fourth criterion for tenure decisions; 11.4% stated
that “no,” collegiality should not be the
fourth criterion for tenure decisions;
13.3% were “not sure” if collegiality
should be the fourth criterion for tenure decisions.
Discussion
Author Tim Gould once commented,
“I’ve been promoted to middle management. I never thought I’d sink
so low.” Department chairs are the
quintessential managers in the middle, required to balance the needs of
their departments (ever increasing in
size and scope) while satisfying the
desires of deans and provosts (ever
decreasing in resource allocation).
In a strange twist on the children’s
game of Keep Away (aka Monkey in
the Middle), department chairs are
constantly trying to balance multiple constituencies with competing
agendas, each wanting their time
DOI:10.1002/dch
Summer 2012
15
hesive source of support and stability.” Definition: linchpin. Synonym:
department chair.
▲
with a ball that could easily symbolize funding, support, or just simply
morale. Perhaps a more applicable
game would be Dodgeball, as chairs
continually are dodging the “throws”
of noncollegial faculty, unsupportive
deans, and a public perception that
faculty are just a group of overpaid
elitists living in the “ivory towers” of
academia, never having to deal with
“the real world.” The ultimate irony
is that, in a role where nine out of
ten have received no formal training
or education in how to be a department chair, these individuals remain
happy to “play the game,” not only
satisfied in their position but universally hoping to make a difference. In
an environment of uncertainty and
unpredictability, they are, to quote
thefreedictionary.com, “a central co-
Robert E. Cipriano is professor emeritus in the
Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies
and author of Facilitating a Collegial Department
(Jossey-Bass, 2011), and Richard L. Riccardi is
director of the Office of Management Information
and Research, both at Southern Connecticut State
University. Email: [email protected],
[email protected]
References
Cipriano, B., & Riccardi, R. (2008,
Spring). Self-perceived expectations of
chairs. The Department Chair, 18(4),
3–5.
Cipriano, R. E., & Riccardi, R. (2010,
Summer). A three-year study of chairs:
Changing the world, one department
at a time. The Department Chair, 21(1),
23–26.
Navigating the Interim Role and Avoiding
the Traps and Pitfalls
by Marie Huff and Judy Neubrander
W
ho among us really aspires to be
an interim administrator? Even
the interim label itself, defined as temporary or provisional, evokes images
of uncertainty and instability that are
especially unwelcome in the current
shifting academic environment. While
some academics reluctantly agree to
serve as interim administrators out of
a sense of duty or because there are no
other qualified candidates, others do so
because they are interested in testing
out the position. Through a series of
serendipitous events at our own university, including the unexpected resignations of both the provost and the
chancellor, we were appointed interim
dean and associate dean, respectively.
In addition, the university decided to
postpone filling lower level administrative positions until a permanent
chancellor and provost were appointed,
even as additional administrative positions continued to open up. It was the
perfect interim storm, resulting in our
university having a large number of interim administrators and department
chairs, including an interim provost,
an interim associate provost, and four
interim deans.
After experiencing these interim
roles and conducting qualitative interviews with seven other current or
previous interim administrators, we
began to grasp the short- and longterm effects of having interim administrators on the institution, the
faculty and staff, and the individuals
who were serving as interims. This
small qualitative study included interviews with the current and previous interim provosts, three interim
deans, and two interim chairs. The
questions asked during the interviews
included the following:
• What are/were the circumstances
that resulted in the interim appointment?
16
Summer 2012
The Department Chair
• Are you (or were you) interested in
applying for the permanent position?
• Do you view your role as more transitional (e.g., placeholder) or transformational (e.g., taking the department/
unit to a new level)?
• What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of having interims?
• What advice do you have for others
who are considering an interim administrative role?
Our interviews yielded more statements related to disadvantages than
advantages, and from our perspective,
the negative impact of moving people
around and filling numerous positions
with temporary administrators cannot be overstated. Faculty and staff desire stability in their leadership team
and they want to believe that they have
committed administrators who are
invested in making well-thought-out
decisions for the long-term benefit of
the university. Having a large number
of temporary administrators does not
foster one’s perceptions of stable and
reliable leadership and can also negatively affect employee morale.
Our study generated several questions and concerns. For example, how
does a university decide whether hiring
an interim is the best option? Depending on how the person was selected, the
appointed interim can help to bring sta-
bility to a unit or he or she can cause
additional angst for the staff and faculty.
Before filling an administrative position
with an interim, clear guidelines should
be established with regard to how his
or her previous responsibilities will be
met, along with an agreement outlining the minimum and maximum time
the individual will serve as interim. For
example, should one be expected to remain in the interim administrative job
for several years at a lower salary than
the permanent position would demand?
What about the individual’s own scholarship, teaching, and professional goals?
Should those be put on hold? What will
transpire when the interim job is over
and what happens to the individual,
perhaps another interim, who was managing his or her previous job? When
interims return to their previous positions, will they be reassigned to their
original office and previous duties? Will
they be accepted by their colleagues
whom they were previously supervising? Although these types of personnel
decisions are often made very quickly, it
is in the best interests of the individual
and the institution to carefully consider
these questions before appointing anyone to the interim administrative role.
There is the potential added complication if the person serving as interim
administrator expresses an interest in
applying for the permanent position.
Should interims be required to declare
their interest in the job prior to accepting the interim role? How will their desire to be viewed as plausible candidates
affect their ability to make tough decisions? If the university conducts an
external search, what is the potential
impact on external candidates when an
internal candidate is serving in the position? What is the probability that the
person in the interim role will leave the
university if he or she is not selected for
the permanent role?
There are, of course, advantages as
well as disadvantages to working as an
interim administrator. For example,
serving as an interim administrator
provides one a unique opportunity to
test out the position before applying for
the permanent job. Several of our participants reported having ambivalent
feelings about applying for the permanent position but they were willing to
fulfill the role on a temporary basis.
Many of them seemed to take comfort
in the idea that they could “always go
back” to their original jobs. Another
advantage for the interim is that this
experience gives one a broader university perspective and understanding of
the politics of conducting university
business. Appointing interims can also
benefit the institution because it affords others the opportunity to observe
the individual as he or she performs
Time Students Spent Using the Internet, 2009–2010
Hours per week
Share of students, 2010
Share of students, 2009
0–5
10.10%
9.00%
6–10
22.60%
21.70%
11–15
17.30%
18.40%
16–20
15.40%
16.00%
21–25
9.00%
10.00%
26–30
8.50%
8.60%
31–35
3.60%
3.40%
36–40
4.40%
4.00%
Over 40
9.10%
8.80%
Source: Educause Center for Applied Research
DOI:10.1002/dch
The Department Chair
administrative job responsibilities. In
addition, it gives the institution more
time to perform a thorough job search
while providing the university with
some salary savings.
We learned several important lessons through our inter views and
through our own interim experiences.
Some important words of advice for
those individuals who are considering
taking on an interim role follow.
• Before accepting an interim position you should try to negotiate the
length of time you will be in the role,
your salary, job expectations, and what
will happen when the job is over.
• Be prepared to make several unpopular decisions and get used to criticism. As an interim it is possible that
you will receive more (or less) criticism
because others view you as a temporary
placeholder and are content to “wait
you out.”
• When making important decisions
strive to uphold the institutional goals
and mission as well as to meet the needs
of the unit or department.
• Listen and observe. Unite your
leadership team and learn from their
expertise.
• Keep in mind that interim does not
mean permanent and be ready to graciously move on if and when your services are no longer needed.
• Last, do the job as if you are not an
interim and try to leave it better than
you found it. Not only will your decisions affect the incoming administrator,
they will also have a lasting impact on
the faculty, staff, and students enrolled
at the university for years to come.
After interviewing our colleagues
we found a few interesting themes.
Many of the participants were pleasantly surprised that they enjoyed these
administrative roles more than they
thought they would and they reported
feeling more confident over time that
they could do the job and do it well.
Those individuals who were hired in
the permanent positions were pleased
they were given the opportunity to test
out the job before committing to the
DOI:10.1002/dch
Summer 2012
role permanently, while those individuals who returned to their original positions seemed to have mixed feelings.
“Going back” to a position with fewer
or different responsibilities may bring
some relief; it can also mean less pay,
less power, and less prestige. There is a
transitional period as one readjusts to
new/old roles and redefines one’s relationships with colleagues. While there
are some professional and personal
benefits to serving in interim administrative roles, there is also a price to be
17
paid. Anyone who chooses to enter this
realm should go into it with their eyes
wide open.
▲
This article is based on a presentation at
the 29th annual Academic Chairpersons
Conference, February 9–10, 2012,
Orlando, Florida.
Marie Huff is associate dean in the College of
Health and Human Sciences, and Judy Neubrander
is director of the School of Nursing, both at Western Carolina University. Email: [email protected],
[email protected]
Supporting Adjunct Faculty
by Jeffrey L. Buller
A
djunct faculty have become an
integral part of American higher
education. According to the American
Association of University Professors
(2011), the proportion of faculty members at colleges and universities in the
United States has risen from 24.0% in
1975 to 41.1% in 2009; simultaneously,
full-time tenured and tenure-track
faculty have decreased from 45.1% to
24.4%. With the rise of for-profit institutions (some of which are staffed
almost entirely by part-time faculty),
the continued economic challenges
for higher education in many states,
and the increase of public funding to
community colleges (where the ratio of
part-time to full-time faculty members
is traditionally higher than at four-year
institutions), these trends are likely to
continue. No one will deny that adjunct faculty bring many advantages
to higher education. Because they usually do not receive benefits, they help
colleges and universities keep their
already staggering costs down, and
they often bring fresh insights to the
curriculum. As Mark Rosenberg, former chancellor of the State University
System of Florida and current president of Florida International University, noted, “Part-timers can provide
real-world experience to students and
fill gaps in nursing, math, accounting
and other disciplines with a shortage of
qualified faculty” (Finder, 2007). Moreover, certain accrediting agencies, such
as the National Association of Schools
of Public Affairs and Administration
(2008), require the use of practitioners
among the instructional staff, and these
practitioners are commonly hired into
part-time positions.
Nevertheless, in a study of the data
developed by the Faculty Survey of
Student Engagement, Paul Umbach
(2007) of the University of Iowa concluded, “Part-time faculty interact with
students less frequently, use active and
collaborative techniques less often,
spend less time preparing for class, and
have lower academic expectations than
their tenured and tenure-track peers”
(p. 110). These results only confirm
what many administrators and faculty
members have long believed. As early
as 1993, Judith Gappa and David Leslie
proposed a long list of recommendations for improving the effectiveness
of adjunct faculty members, such as
increasing the role of the department
chair as a mentor and evaluator of parttime faculty, offering professional development opportunities to adjuncts,
creating standards of progression
through the institution’s salary scale,
and engaging these faculty members
in the coordination of courses. These
18
Summer 2012
The Department Chair
sensible recommendations, if they had
been followed more widely, could have
gone a long way toward decreasing the
gap in effectiveness that’s often found
between full-time and part-time faculty. But many chairs note that parttime faculty members, who may hold
a full-time job in private industry or
be filling several adjunct appointments
simultaneously, aren’t available when
faculty development workshops are
typically held, don’t have the luxury
of traveling to multiday conferences in
the discipline, and increasingly have
less access to faculty development
funds as budgets are slashed and opportunities are reduced. What, then,
can chairs do to help support their adjunct faculty?
Move More Training Programs
Online
Many of the lessons we’ve learned
about how best to serve a diverse student population also apply to the needs
of adjuncts. For instance, as fewer and
fewer students fit the model of the “traditional college student”—those who
enter higher education immediately
after high school, are aged 18–22, are
not yet married, and attend college
full-time—institutions have found it
necessary to address needs that either
didn’t exist or weren’t as prominent a
generation or two earlier. Asynchronous distance learning courses allow
students to complete their work on a
schedule that suits them best, sometimes at a slower pace to fit the other
demands on their time. If chairs were
to create online versions of orientation and other faculty development
programs, adjuncts could participate
in them whenever their schedules allowed. The School of Professional
Studies at the City University of New
York offers an online faculty development program that includes such topics as online course design, reviewing
and improving a course, and similar
issues of concern to part-time faculty
(www.qcc.cuny.edu/socialsciences/
ppecorino/CUNY-OLBA-BS-Fac-Dev-
Program.html). The Office of Faculty
and Organizational Development at
Michigan State University provides online access to instructional resources in
twenty-one different categories, such as
assessment, dealing with issues of diversity and multiculturalism, instructional design, and academic integrity.
Unlike many such sites, the Michigan
State program doesn’t restrict itself to
information about teaching but also
includes sections on scholarship and
research, leadership development,
and community building (http://fod.
msu.edu/scholarship-and-research).
The Center for Teaching and Learning
at Florida Atlantic University maintains a website with a wide variety of
resources on how to promote active
learning, incorporate service-learning
into the curriculum, and design outcomes-based syllabi. There is even a
special section for teaching assistants
that provides access to the faculty
handbooks of other institutions (www.
fau.edu/ctl/index.php).
These institution-wide approaches
are important, but there are several
topics related to teaching, research, and
service that are highly discipline specific. For these topics, online training
programs developed at the department
level can be invaluable. Such programs
can deal more extensively with individual teaching strategies, such as case
studies or inquiry-based approaches,
than can programs designed for the
entire school. They can also offer advice on how adjuncts can write proposals that are more likely to be accepted
by particular journals in the field or
highly competitive conferences. They
can convey the essence of faculty meetings for those who are unable to attend
in person and notify adjuncts of funding opportunities that are available to
them.
Create Faculty Handbooks Adapted
to the Needs of Part-Time Faculty
Most institutions offer adjunct faculty
members access to handbooks of policies and procedures, usually by direct-
ing them to the websites where this
material is available to everyone. But
it’s easy to forget that vast sections of
these handbooks don’t apply to those
who teach part-time and that the information adjuncts most require may be
buried deep in paragraphs filled with
otherwise irrelevant details. For example, most faculty handbooks spend a
great deal of time addressing issues of
tenure, promotion, the institution’s benefits package, committee service, and
other matters that may or may not be
applicable to adjuncts. It’s no wonder
that so few adjuncts seem well versed
in institutional policies. They frequently
work at two or three different schools,
each with its own handbook that likely
contains only a few pages out of many
hundreds that are relevant to what adjunct faculty do. Adapting these materials so that they’re more user-friendly
for part-timers makes them much more
likely to be read and to have an effect
on the quality of these faculty members’ teaching and service. At Baruch
College, the adjunct faculty handbook
addresses important logistical matters
that concern those who work parttime, such as how to get an email account and how to use the technology
available in most classrooms, but it also
includes a section called “Letters from
the Frontline” that seeks “to create a
more comprehensive understanding of
what it’s like as an adjunct at Baruch
College” (www.baruch.cuny.edu/faculty
handbook/adjunct/letters.htm). Old
Dominion University provides an adjunct faculty handbook that contains
checklists for part-timers that makes it
easier to understand procedures (www.
odu.edu/ao/affairs/adjunct_handbook.
pdf). Christopher Newport University
has condensed the most relevant parts
of its faculty handbook into a threepage summary for adjuncts, informing
them how to report their absence when
they’re ill, where to obtain parking decals, and which benefits they’re entitled
to (www.cnu.edu/public/pdf/adjunct
/section1.pdf). Similar resources prepared at the department level could
DOI:10.1002/dch
The Department Chair
clarify the expectations that the discipline has for performance in the
classroom, studio, or laboratory; offer
guidelines for holding office hours; and
outline procedures for informing the
department of accomplishments by adjunct faculty that might otherwise go
unnoticed.
Use Mentors to Aid in the
Development of Adjuncts
Perhaps the most important support
that department chairs can provide
to adjuncts is to assign them a faculty
mentor who will conduct formative
evaluations of their teaching and keep
them apprised of important developments occurring while the part-time
faculty member is off campus. Certainly, all faculty can benefit from mentors, particularly when they’re new to
the institution and haven’t yet become
acquainted with the institutional culture. But we should remember that adjuncts remain “new” to the institution
far longer than do most full-time faculty members. They’re not immersed
in the daily life of an institution and,
because their jobs may involve more
than one school simultaneously, it can
take them longer to master local policies and expectations. A mentor who
has been charged with ensuring that the
adjunct faculty member receives the information he or she needs, performs at
the level the department deems appropriate, and feels more included in the
day-to-day operations of the discipline
is likely to increase the faculty member’s
effectiveness while improving morale
and decreasing the turnover of adjuncts.
Conclusion
Because colleges and universities are
increasingly reliant on adjuncts, it’s incumbent on them to provide the sort
of development and resources that
will enable these part-time instructors
to reach the level of quality expected
from all who work at the institution.
Department chairs can play a vital role
in ensuring that their adjuncts receive
the training they need in order for
DOI:10.1002/dch
Summer 2012
their disciplines to grow even as budgets are reduced and external resources
become more limited.
▲
Jeffrey L. Buller is dean of the Harriet L. Wilkes
Honors College at Florida Atlantic University; his
latest book is Best Practices in Faculty Evaluation
(Jossey-Bass, 2012). Email: [email protected]
References
American Association of University Professors. (2011). The annual
report on the economic status of the
profession, 2010–11 [Figure 1]. Retrieved from w w w.aaup.org/NR/
rdonlyres/78594C4C-2E73-4714-8DB89608726C7CD6/0/2009trends.pdf
Finder, A. (2007, November 20).
Decline of the tenure track raises
c on c e r ns . T he Ne w York Times .
R e t r i e v e d f r o m w w w. n y t i m e s
19
.com/2007/11/20/education/20adjunct.
html?pagewanted=all
Gappa, J. M., & Leslie, D. W. (1993). The
invisible faculty: Improving the status
of part-timers in higher education. San
Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
National Association of Schools of
Public Affairs and Administration.
(2008). General information and standards for professional masters degree
programs. Retrieved from www.naspaa.
org/accreditation/document/OFFICIAL_DOCUMENTS_2008_standards_only.pdf
Umbach, P. D. (2007). How effective are
they? Exploring the impact of contingent faculty on undergraduate education. Review of Higher Education, 30(2),
91–123.
Preparing Young Faculty Advisors
of Graduate Research Assistants
by Sundar A. Christopher and Kristi Caudill
F
or those of us in the sciences, many
of our students participate in the
graduate research assistantship program. This program works well for students and professors as students earn
valuable experience in both research
and academia while professors benefit from having help with research,
freeing them up for writing, teaching,
and other research. However, faculty
must remember that their primary
job as professors and advisors is to
prepare these students for graduation
and life beyond. This can be difficult
for a faculty member new to advising.
It is important for department chairs
to mentor younger faculty on the best
practices for advising graduate students
and for reaping the best results for both
the student and the professor.
Many students—even our best graduate research assistants (GRAs)—do not
know which skills they need to prepare
for life after graduation. For advisors,
preparing these students for their ca-
reers while in graduate school is of paramount importance, but it is frustrating
when the student cannot seem to meet
even the simplest expectations. The advisor must first realize that many of these
students are unable to meet expectations
because they are unaware of what those
expectations are. There are the basics
that come easily to most GRAs: do well
in your classes, pass your exams, and
show up on time. There are also the less
obvious expectations—at least, they are
less obvious to the student. For example,
the advisor must communicate to the
GRA the importance of time and project management and observing office
hours. Students may not yet consider
that the advisor relies on office hours
to reach the student or that time management is vital to a project’s success.
The burden is on the advisor to communicate these expectations clearly to the
GRA, and it is the chair’s duty to ensure
that the advisor has the necessary tools
to convey this information.
20
Summer 2012
The Department Chair
Another frustration facing the
young advisor is that students may be
unaware that they should not just initiate meetings but also arrive on time
and bring relevant, accurate data to
discuss and present. It does not benefit
the GRA or the professor to find out
at the end of the semester that there
was a miscommunication or misunderstanding in regard to the research
project—or that the data collected are
inaccurate. The chair must ensure that
the advisor knows to make the student
aware of the importance of meetings
and to put the burden of scheduling
on him or her. This helps the student
develop time management techniques
and establish ownership of the project.
In relation to ownership, many
GRAs are hesitant to take this necessary
step, and quite frankly, many advisors
are hesitant to turn the research project over. As chair, you must help your
young faculty overcome this obstacle.
Giving ownership to the GRA leads to
more confident students and more productive faculty. Encourage your faculty
to promote ownership and initiative
among students. For example, GRAs
should write papers on their research
results and give talks within the department. Faculty advisors must support
students in these potentially intimidating endeavors. These experiences help
instill effective communication skills
and allow students to mature and
achieve a comfort level in their research.
A quality advis or provides a
foundation for a quality education.
Unfortunately, students rarely take
advisement into consideration when
choosing a graduate school. There
are a myriad of reasons one particular school appeals to a student over
another, but who the advisor will be
rarely tips the scale. However, this is
one of the most important aspects
of graduate school, especially for the
research assistant. Your faculty and
their research assistants will be spending the next three to five years together and not all of that will be easy.
Stresses and crises—actual and per-
ceived—will occasionally threaten to
undermine the relationship between
advisor and student. It is important
for GRAs to learn to “manage” their
advisor. If students learn the advisor’s
work habits and stress factors, they
can relate to the advisor more effectively. This works both ways as well.
Part of helping students to succeed is
being aware of when and how each individual student works best and what
causes undue stress for that student.
However, young faculty advisors may
feel overwhelmed at the idea of learning the individualisms of each of their
advisees. Demonstrate to the faculty
that advising becomes less demanding
when there is a strong working relationship with the students.
The advisor and the GRA must realize that they are in different phases
of their careers, and differences in expectations will reflect this. When I ask
the students in my professional development class what they expect from
their advisor, I am always amused by
the enormity of their expectations.
Without fail, each class wants full and
complete access to their advisors. This
is, of course, unrealistic, but the students do not realize that yet. They want
to be guided and nurtured. They want
to be able to come to the advisor with
problems that they cannot quite seem
to work out. They want a mentor even
though not every advisor is equipped to
be a mentor. This expectation mismatch
is what provides for some unhealthy
tension between the student and the advisor. Every GRA needs a mentor, but
some advisors are not the mentoring
type or do not want such responsibilities. Encourage advisors who do not
want this added duty to continue advising the student but also encourage them
to help the student find mentorship
from someone else in the department in
addition to the advisor. Mentoring and
advising are not one and the same.
A strong relationship between an
advisor and a graduate research assistant is key to the success of the GRA.
However, young faculty may become
overwhelmed by the responsibility. The
department chair must support young
advisors and encourage them in this
daunting task. Leading by example is
the most effective assistance chairs can
provide their faculty.
▲
Sundar A. Christopher is a professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences and Kristi Caudill is a graduate student, both at the University
of Alabama in Huntsville. Email: sundar@nsstc
.uah.edu, [email protected]
Promoting the Visibility of Small
Departments
by Katherine Side
D
epartment chairs are involved in
building solid curricular foundations, fostering undergraduate and
graduate student cohorts, engaging students and faculty in discussions that
animate the discipline, and building
scholarly communities. However, they
are less likely to be engaged in the work
of department promotion, no matter
how large or small their departments.
In fact, they may regard this work as
antithetical to teaching and scholarship, undervalued, or being in some-
one else’s job description. However, few
people, including marketing and communications experts, understand the
department, or are as well equipped to
promote it, as the chair.
Having never been appointed as
chair in a department with more than
three faculty hiring lines, I can attest to
the necessity of conscious promotion,
but I suggest that understanding departmental and institutional cultures and
goals is key. I identify preliminary steps
for the promotion of small departments
DOI:10.1002/dch
The Department Chair
and follow this up with ten practical
strategies to enhance the visibility of
small departments. I also suggest that
department chairs must give more
thought to how success in this area is
measured. Specifically, how do we know
when we are doing this work well?
Three preliminary steps that can guide
this work include knowing your environment, determining expectations,
and inventorying available resources.
Although it may be tempting to
presume historical conditions prevail,
the appointment of new senior administrators, changing financial conditions, and external pressures can shift
perceptions about small departments
and their viability. Chairs can draw on
networks of colleagues to gauge and
assess institutional receptivity toward
small departments. Expectations for
small departments can shape the direction for promotion. For example,
small departments that are expected
to collaborate might promote themselves to other departments and faculties to foster that collaboration.
Small departments that are expected
to stand on their own might prioritize the establishment of a recognizable
identity. And, small departments that
are expected to grow might develop
strategies oriented toward wider communities, including professional associations and state-level bodies. This
work can be facilitated by locating
resources and building relationships
with those who manage them. Obvious
resources include university communications staff, recruiters, and skilled
professionals such as website designers
and photographers. Less obvious resources include a student with skills in
graphic design, website development,
and social networking tools; a faculty
member with a flair for clever titles
and eye-catching posters; and alumni
prepared to organize a specific event.
Ten Strategies to Promote Small
Departments
Chairs who understand their environment and its resources—while simulDOI:10.1002/dch
Summer 2012
taneously working to develop new
resources—and who can call on others
for assistance will be well equipped to
implement promotional strategies for
their small departments.
1. Enhance departmental communication. Identify audiences and their
communication needs. Chairs communicate with many different audiences
and often with all of them at once. Your
department’s website may be geared
toward prospective students, but it is
also accessed by research officers, marketing staff, and senior administrators
who represent the university, its faculties, and its departments. An updated
website is a useful resource; however,
parents of prospective freshmen might
also expect to receive quality print
materials. In addition, a department
newsletter might best address the
needs of donors and alumni whose
contributions can be acknowledged in
print. All of these audiences and their
needs, as well as high school recruiters,
academic advisors, and campus fundraisers, should be included in your department’s communications strategy.
2. Keep up with technology. Determine the usefulness of technological advances and engage only with
those that offer clear benefits. Avoid
technology for technology’s sake. All
technological tools require some degree of skill, time, and patience and,
for that reason, chairs must determine
whether they are worthwhile. My department’s biannual newsletter has recently moved from an electronic pdf
format to a smartphone- and tabletfriendly format that increases accessibility. This change has been worth
the effort, but we’ve resisted blogs and
Twitter accounts because their benefits
are still unclear to us.
3. Use effective signage. Use signs
as a promotional tool. Universities
often restrict signage because they
want uniformity and recognition; however, it is possible to request that signs
be updated, clarified, and placed strategically. Also, departments usually have
some jurisdiction over signs in their
21
own spaces, such as on bulletin boards.
In my department, every office door
has a sign with the department’s name
on it, including the storage room and
the photocopier room.
4. Showcase student achievements.
Help students to become departmental
ambassadors. Promote students who are
academically accomplished and engaged
in the world around them. We’ve added
a column to our department newsletter
that highlights off-campus student activities. We also recognize student achievements with an annual awards reception.
Although student award winners may
have already attended receptions elsewhere, we also acknowledge their
achievements in the department with
their parents, the dean, and the communications staff present, and we ask each
award winner to speak for a few minutes
about their achievements.
5. Showcase faculty achievements.
Promote the achievements of your faculty. Send letters of congratulations for
award nominations and receipt, publications, and exemplary service contributions. Be sincere and timely in written
communication. Include achievements
on the department’s website. Speak positively about faculty accomplishments
with others. To the extent that it is possible, include all faculty members in
this praise. Showcasing the accomplishments of a few “stars” will make others
feel unrecognized and foster resentment. In small departments, the kinds
of familiarity this strategy requires can
be easily met by an astute chair.
6. Participate in governance structures. Match the skills of your faculty
with different types of governance. For
example, a faculty member who excels
at process could be directed toward
committees requiring close attention to
structure and detail. A faculty member
with good social skills could be oriented
toward committees where cooperation
is paramount. This ensures that service
is a satisfactory experience for faculty
and that their contributions reflect positively on the department. Because faculty
members in small departments usually
22
The Department Chair
Summer 2012
DOI:10.1002/dch
The Department Chair
take on disproportionate service relative
to their colleagues in larger departments,
this step should also be accompanied by
strategies to achieve balance.
7. Create inviting spaces. Create
inviting spaces where people want to
gather, whether this is a seminar room,
a reception area, or a hallway. Pay close
attention to what goes on in these
spaces and whether the activities reflect
positively on the department. Examine
the space closely: Is it clean? Is it welcoming? Do people want to stay here?
Perhaps it’s time to rearrange or replace
the furniture, freshen up the artwork, or
discard outdated resources. Consider its
uses: Which kinds of activities happen
here? Which kinds of activities should
happen here? Spaces should be well
suited to department activities and instill pride in faculty and students.
8. Work with others. Begin working with others where there are fewest
barriers and where successes are likely.
Clichés about interdisciplinarity overlook the resilience of discipline-based
affiliation and identity. My department
works closely with graduate students—
our own and those in other departments. Departmental events are open
to all, including grant-writing workshops, professional development seminars, speakers’ series, and a research
colloquium. This way, graduate students in our department expand their
professional and social networks and
learn how to be good academic hosts.
Graduate students in other departments benefit from their participation.
Faculty members also assume a greater
role in shaping the institutional culture
for graduate education and cultivating
scholarly relationships.
9. Take small steps. Integrate promotional activities into your daily responsibilities. Because promotional work
has no foreseeable end point, devise a
plan. Map out small steps. Set realistic
goals and timelines. Where possible,
break large tasks into smaller parts and
delegate or enlist others to assist you.
10. Be creative. Devise creative
strategies that suit your department and
DOI:10.1002/dch
Summer 2012
institution. Because of my university’s location on an island in the Atlantic Ocean,
visitors must choose to travel here. We’ve
built a department culture that welcomes
visitors and recognizes the importance of
their experiences and impressions. Gracious hosting, including planning excursions and meetings with other faculty
members, helps to promote the department and the university.
Conclusion
Departments that are not visible are
easily overlooked. Visibility matters: Undergraduate students tend to
gravitate toward departments that are
visible and appear viable; graduate students use department visibility to determine which university they attend
and with whom they build their future
relationships; and visibility is essential
for faculty recruitment and retention.
23
Because of the importance of visibility, chairs need to think more conscientiously about how we carry out the work
of promotion and how it is assessed. Is
it successful when it is included in our
regularly scheduled activities? Is it successful when others notice this work,
or when they notice the department? Is
it successful when small departments,
irrespective of size, are regarded as desirable scholarly communities? The
strategies presented here can be an asset
to enhancing the vital role that small
departments have played, and continue
to play, in university education.
▲
This article is based on a presentation at
the 29th annual Academic Chairpersons
Conference, February 9–10, 2012,
Orlando, Florida.
Katherine Side is head of the Department of Women’s Studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada. Email: [email protected]
Program Prioritization: Staying on Course
Through the Storm
by AJ Grube, Perry Schoon, and Dan Grube
T
he effects of the economy are
reaching higher education in numerous ways, including increased scrutiny from state legislatures, decreased
funding from state governments, budget reversions, and greater demand
for financial aid dollars. As universities attempt to do more with less, they
must prioritize their efforts and allocate resources to functions that are
most strongly linked to institutional
missions. Thus, the process of program
prioritization is being implemented on
many campuses and within many university systems.
As program prioritization requires
an institution to intimately study the
purpose, efficiency, and effectiveness of
its programs (academic, support, and
nonacademic), department heads are
faced with expectations from faculty and
administrators that often are not in sync.
Administrators tend to look primarily
at a program’s efficiency (student credit
hours generated, cost per student per
credit hour of the program, FTE generated) while faculty tend to focus on the
more subjective factor of a program’s
essentiality. Yet the entire campus must
support the process. In fact, in a bestcase scenario, regular program review
and prioritization are part of the campus
culture and are used to ensure compliance with the institution’s mission.
One college in a regional comprehensive university that has begun to
streamline costs by prioritizing both
academic and nonacademic programs
established several guiding principles
prior to the start of the program prioritization process:
• Transparency must be maintained
throughout the process.
• The study criteria would be collaboratively developed and well publicized
in advance of the study.
24
Summer 2012
The Department Chair
• Consistency must be a top consideration. The same criteria should be applied to each program.
• The study would measure the demand for programs (demand driven).
• The study would be heavily based on
both quantitative and qualitative data.
The process was outlined and communicated to the college by the dean.
In addition, the dean established the
Program Prioritization Advisory Task
Force, composed of one faculty member
from each department in the college,
appointed by the department head.
Although there are many ways to
approach the prioritization of programs, the process adopted by this
college was derived from Dickeson’s
book Prioritizing Academic Programs
and Services: Reallocating Resources to
Achieve Strategic Balance (2010). There
were eight steps in the college’s process.
Step 1: Preparation
Department heads were asked to list
and define all existing programs, including academic majors, concentrations, and minors.
Step 2: Identification of Specific
Measures Within Each Criterion
The criteria used by the college were:
• History, development, and expectations of the program. Department heads
were asked to provide a narrative to address this criterion.
• External demand for the program.
Recommended sources of data were
to be included for consistency across
programs. Trend data for the past five
academic years were examined for
indicators showing the need for and
attractiveness of the program (e.g., national demand statistics). Department
heads were asked to include data on
other colleges and universities in the
state and region offering the program.
• Internal demand for the program.
The impact and interdependency of a
program on other programs at the university was examined.
• Quality of program inputs and processes. Elements examined for this criterion included:
• Faculty and staff (number of tenure, tenure-track, and part-time faculty;
number of faculty by rank; number of
staff; student assessment instrument averages; etc.)
• Percentage of instruction offered
by program faculty, broken down by
tenure, tenure-track, part-time, fixed
term (by FTE)
• Admissions criteria
• Awards
• Program-related grants by faculty
• Percentage of instruction offered
by modality (face to face, online, offsite)
• Program evaluation survey data
• Curriculum: appropriate breadth,
depth, and level of the discipline
• Quality of program outcomes. Elements examined included:
• Student scores on state and national tests
• Evidence of congruence between
intended and actual learning outcomes
• Examples of exemplary performance produced by the program
• Size, scope, and productivity of the
program. This criterion is evaluated by
examining quantitative data such as:
• Number of students served
• Faculty teaching load (FTE) per
semester
• Research produced
• Resources currently committed to
the program
• Number of degrees awarded
• Revenue and other resources generated by the program.
• Research grants
• Fundraising efforts
• External relationships that provide benefits
• Revenue generated by summer
classes
• Costs associated with the program.
Both direct costs (materials, equipment, travel, accreditation, instruction)
and indirect costs should be examined.
Indirect costs include the identification
of demonstrable efficiencies associated
with the program relative to other programs and the identification of continuing investments needed to improve
the program’s quality.
• Impact, justification, and overall essentiality of the program. This is most like a
summative measure of why the program
should be continued or strengthened.
• Opportunity analysis of the program.
Department heads were asked to solicit
ideas from program members on ways
to seize opportunities for improvement
not yet considered by the college.
Step 3: Assignment of Weights
for Each Criterion
Once these criteria were in place,
departments were asked to assign
a weight to each criterion and the
weights were averaged. The college’s
leadership group then agreed on the
weights indicated in Table 1.
Step 4: Design of an Overall
Program Rating System
The essentiality/resource allocation matrix shown in Table 2 was adopted and
used by the college’s leadership group.
Step 5: Gathering Information
Departments collected and compiled
information from sources such as the
Office of Institutional Research and Planning and various sources of national data.
Step 6: Analysis
Information for all college programs
was reviewed simultaneously by the
Program Prioritization Advisory Task
Force, the college leadership group, and
the dean. Results were published on
the internal Web (using the approved
essentiality/resource allocation matrix).
The dean published recommendations
for other efficiencies and presented
them to the college leadership group
and the Program Prioritization Advisory Task Force. Further, the dean held
college-wide meetings on the recommendations to receive feedback.
Step 7: Determination of Final
Prioritization
The dean determined final prioritization based on published ratings, college-wide meetings, and input received
during the process.
DOI:10.1002/dch
The Department Chair
25
Summer 2012
Table 1. Weights for Each Criterion
Department Proposed Weighted Values
Criterion
Dept. 1
A.
History, development, and expectations
of the program
B.
Dept. 2
Dept. 3
Dept. 4
Dept. 5
AVG
5
College Final
5
5
6
2
4.6
5
External demand for the program
20
9
10
18
14.25
14.25
15
C. Internal demand for the program
10
12
9
10
10.25
10.25
10
D. Quality of program inputs and processes
15
5
18
22
15
15
15
E.
Quality of program outcomes
25
28
22
23
24.5
24.5
23
F. Size, scope, and productivity of the program (typically hard numbers)
15
27
21
15
19
19.4
17
G. Revenue and other resources generated
by the program
5
5
5
5
5
5
15
H. Costs and other expenses associated with
the program
5
9
9
5
7
7
100
100
100
100
100
100
Total
100
I. Impact, justification, and overall essentiality of the program. This is a narrative summative measure of why the program should be
continued or strengthened.
J.
Opportunity analysis of the program (Criterion 1 looks at the past, this one looks to the future). This is a narrative response where
program members and others are asked for their ideas on how to seize opportunities for improvement not yet considered by the college.
Essentiality
Table 2. Essentiality/Resource Allocation Matrix
Very High
High
Moderate
Low
Very Low
Eliminate
Consolidate
Decrease
Maintain
Increase
Resource Allocation
Step 8: Integration and Synthesis
The dean and the college leadership
group integrated the results of the process with the college’s strategic plan.
Results were then submitted to the provost for consideration and approval.
Conclusion
The process outlined here took approximately one year to complete, with the
majority of the time spent on the creation of the process (criteria, weights,
and rating instrument). It resulted in
the reorganization of the college, although with considerable resistance
from a vocal minority of faculty members. When the process was complete,
college members were surveyed, reDOI:10.1002/dch
vealing an overwhelmingly positive response. Further, the college’s process
was singled out as a model for other
colleges at the university to consider.
Key elements to the success of
the college’s program prioritization
included fostering and maintaining the participation and support of
faculty, consistent and frequent communication with faculty and staff,
and the presentation of a clear plan
for implementing process results.
Legal and human resources implications influenced decisions related to
immediate efficiencies. However, savings made were impactful in the very
next academic year. The response to
the resulting reorganization spurred
campus-wide discussion on policy related to unit reorganization.
▲
This article is based on a presentation at
the 29th annual Academic Chairpersons
Conference, February 9–10, 2012,
Orlando, Florida.
AJ Grube is head of the Department of Business Administration and Law and Sport Management, Perry
Schoon is dean of the College of Education and Allied Professions, and Dan Grube is associate dean
of the College of Education and Allied Professions,
all at Western Carolina University. Email: agrube@
wcu.edu, [email protected], [email protected]
References
Dickeson, R. C. (2010). Prioritizing academic
programs and services: Reallocating resources
to achieve strategic balance (Rev. & updated).
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
26
Summer 2012
The Department Chair
Lawsuits and Rulings
Human Resources
College’s Legitimate Reasons
for Different Treatment Win Day
in Court
Case: Patrick v. Bishop State Community College et al., No. 1-0188WS-M (S.D. Ala. 06/02/11)
Ruling: The U.S. District Court,
Southern District of Alabama, dismissed Deborah Patrick’s racial discrimination claim against Bishop State
Community College.
Significance: An employer may
defeat a discrimination claim on
summary judgment by introducing
evidence showing that it had legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for
the alleged adverse action against an
employee.
Summary: Patrick, who is white,
was a nontenured instructor in the
Emergency Medical Services program
at Bishop State Community College.
Her initial employment term, on a fulltime basis, ended in May 2008 when
her contract was not renewed. She was
rehired in fall 2008 as a part-time adjunct instructor to teach the same two
courses she had taught when she was a
full-time instructor.
She sued the college, alleging that
it unlawfully discriminated against
her on the basis of race by failing to
return her to a full-time position.
The college countered that its ongoing financial crisis was the reason for
rehiring Patrick on a part-time basis.
But Patrick asserted that a black
woman was hired as a full-time instructor in the Funeral Services Education program in fall 2009. The FSE
and the EMS programs were part of
the college’s Health Related Programs
division.
The college contended that the
black instructor was not similarly
situated to Patrick because she was
hired a year after Patrick and they
worked in different academic programs under different directors. It
also claimed that hiring for the FSE
program was based on pressures
from an accrediting body and that
the new instructor’s contract was not
renewed after the first year.
The college pointed to the fact that
it had hired an additional part-time
instructor—instead of making Patrick
full-time—when it became clear that
twenty hours a week were not sufficient to perform the duties related to
a two-course load. It introduced evidence demonstrating that two parttime instructors were less expensive
than one full-time instructor.
Although the court admitted the
black instructor as a comparator for
Patrick, it granted the college’s motion. In dismissing Patrick’s claim,
the judge noted that the college
provided evidence showing that the
FSE program was at risk of losing
accreditation unless a new full-time
instructor was hired. The financial
evidence comparing the cost of one
full-time instructor versus two parttime employees also tended to support the conclusion that the decision
was not motivated by unlawful discrimination.
▲
Tenure Denial
Professor’s Quest for Tenure Ends
with Supreme Court’s Dismissal
C a s e : W h i t i n g v. Un i v e r sity of Southern Mississippi et al.,
No. 2009-CA-01807-SCT (Miss.
03/25/11)
Ruling: The Supreme Court of
Mississippi affirmed the dismissal of
Melissa Whiting’s breach of contract
and due process claims against the
University of Southern Mississippi.
Significance: Nontenured faculty
members do not have a legitimate expectation of employment, therefore
they are not entitled to due process
considerations in the tenure application and promotion process. Written
tenure policies do not, of themselves,
create or confer an expectation of continued employment.
Summary: Whiting was a tenure-track assistant professor at the
University of Southern Mississippi.
She received five annual evaluations
reflecting the highest marks in the
categories of teaching, research, and
service, all criteria used in evaluating
suitability for tenure and promotion.
In the sixth year of her employment,
Whiting asked for consideration for
tenure and promotion. A faculty
committee voted for promotion but
recommended deferral of Whiting’s
tenure request. Whiting chose to
proceed with her tenure application.
The College Advisory Committee
voted to deny tenure and promotion
after a finding that “it appeared that
the annual evaluations of the chairs
in the past were more optimistic than
the credentials justified during many
of the years.” Whiting was informed
of this decision but chose to continue
with the promotion and tenure process. Accordingly, her application
was reviewed by the University Advisory Council. The council voted to
award tenure but did not reach a conclusion as to promotion. The university’s provost recommended tenure
and promotion.
The recommendation was sent to
the university’s president, who decided
not to recommend her to the board
of trustees for tenure or promotion.
Whiting appealed to the board and
filed suit in federal court. The board
denied the appeal because Whiting
had already filed the suit.
DOI:10.1002/dch
The Department Chair
27
Summer 2012
Whiting asserted claims for denial of due process as guaranteed
under the federal Constitution and
Mississippi law. The federal claims
were dismissed and the case was remanded to state court, where her
claims were dismiss ed. Whiting
appealed until her claims eventually reached the Supreme Court of
Mississippi. The court summarized
Whiting’s claims as stating breach of
contract and a breach of the faculty
handbook guarantees of procedural
and substantive due process for tenure review. Whiting requested an
order that she be granted a fair hearing on her tenure application.
The court affirmed the dismissal,
ruling that no contract was formed
between Whiting and the university
with respect to an offer of tenure.
The court also ruled that Whiting
had no protected property interest under state law that entitled her
to due process considerations. The
court also held that because Whiting
did not wait for the board’s decision
on her appeal before filing her lawsuit, she had failed to exhaust administrative remedies as required by
the Mississippi Tort Claims Act. As a
result, her claims could not be adjudicated.
▲
Percentage of Full-Time Faculty Members by Sex, Rank, and Racial and Ethnic Group,
Fall 2009
Total,
race
known
American
Indian
Asian
Black
Hispanic
White
Nonresident
foreign
Race
unknown
Professor
All
175,658
0.30%
7.60%
3.50%
2.70%
85.10%
0.80%
1,923
Men
126,526
0.30%
8.40%
3.00%
2.50%
84.80%
0.90%
1,405
49,132
0.40%
5.30%
4.70%
3.00%
86.00%
0.50%
518
146,594
0.40%
8.60%
5.60%
3.70%
80.00%
1.70%
2,387
Men
86,468
0.40%
9.60%
4.80%
3.60%
79.50%
2.10%
1,497
Women
60,126
0.50%
7.10%
6.60%
3.80%
80.70%
1.30%
890
Women
Associate professor
All
Assistant professor
All
167,022
0.40%
11.20%
6.60%
4.10%
70.60%
7.10%
4,617
Men
86,188
0.40%
12.40%
5.30%
4.00%
69.20%
8.80%
2,477
Women
80,834
0.50%
10.00%
7.90%
4.20%
72.10%
5.30%
2,140
Instructor
All
101,125
1.00%
5.50%
7.70%
6.50%
77.50%
1.80%
3,396
Men
45,179
1.10%
5.70%
6.40%
6.80%
77.80%
2.30%
1,583
Women
55,946
0.90%
5.40%
8.80%
6.30%
77.20%
1.40%
1,813
All
32,450
0.40%
7.10%
5.60%
4.90%
76.70%
5.30%
882
Men
15,258
0.40%
7.10%
5.40%
4.30%
76.70%
6.10%
466
Women
17,192
0.40%
7.20%
5.80%
5.40%
76.70%
4.50%
416
All
90,070
0.50%
8.00%
5.40%
3.40%
70.30%
12.50%
2,853
Men
47,229
0.40%
8.30%
3.90%
3.00%
68.20%
16.20%
1,545
Women
42,841
0.50%
7.60%
7.10%
3.80%
72.60%
8.40%
1,308
All
712,919
0.50%
8.40%
5.60%
3.90%
77.30%
4.30%
16,058
Men
406,848
0.40%
9.20%
4.40%
3.70%
77.40%
5.00%
8,973
Women
306,071
0.60%
7.30%
7.10%
4.30%
77.30%
3.40%
7,085
Lecturer
Other
Total
Source: Chronicle analysis of U.S. Department of Education data
DOI:10.1002/dch
28
Summer 2012
The Department Chair
Reviews
Managing Technology
in Higher Education: Strategies
for Transforming Teaching
and Learning
by A. W. (Tony) Bates and
Albert Sangrà
Jossey-Bass, 2011
288 pp., $45.00 (plus $5.00 s/h)
The pressures facing higher education
are all too familiar, starting with financial constraints that are afflicting all
segments of higher education. We see
the demographic shifts in our classrooms as women are outnumbering
men, and we face increasing numbers
of older students and students of color.
As we look at our colleagues, we are
aware that tenure may still exist, but either we or some of our peers are working as adjuncts, term employees, or
contingent faculty. While we may tune
out as best we can the calls for productivity, accountability, and assessment,
we know those demands are there.
Uncomfortable as these pressures
may be, we have continued our work
as “normally” as possible, managing by
adjusting and adapting. We have not
been asked to shift our very premises
of what we see as the work of higher
education. However, the last pressure
point—technology—will not permit
us for very long to adapt and adjust.
Technology is demanding nothing
short of revolution.
Initially, this statement may appear
outrageous. We have been adapting to
the technology revolution for about
thirty years. As the IBM and DEC
behemoths were replaced by desktop
computers, faculty gradually adapted
and adopted the “computer revolution.”
There was the small core of early
adapters, followed by a significant
number of adventurous experimenters.
On the sidelines were
the refusniks. The
ubiquitous explosion
of email has eliminated
this group, and, like it
or not, institutions are making use of
technology for communications and
management to a degree that it cripples
those who would prefer to use the
telephone or a hallway chat to get their
work done.
What we are just now coming to
terms with is the implicit revolution in
pedagogy, content delivery, and curricular organization that has always been
implicit, but unacknowledged, in the
technology revolution. With their volume Technology in Higher Education:
Strategies for Transforming Teaching
and Learning, Bates and Sangrà have
provided a road map for creating our
unavoidable educational revolution.
As instructors, we have worked with
technology for at least two decades, even
if we were not among the early adopters who first embraced these new possibilities. However, what we are perhaps
loathe to acknowledge is that we have
used technology as simply another delivery system for what we already have
done with ditto machines and then with
the fancier incarnation of the Xerox
machine. Today, we have put our syllabi on the Web. We may accept student
papers in electronic form. What we are
just beginning to do is to think about
assembling and organizing and teaching
our content according to the possibilities
offered by new technology. In the future,
it will not do simply to deliver the “same
old” in a technological adaptation.
An interesting aspect of this volume is its comprehensiveness. The
technology revolution affects not only
classrooms, instructors, and pedagogical methods, but also the organization
and management of our institutions.
At one level, department chairs may be
put off by the latter topics. While at the
instructional level it may not be necessary to be conversant in detail with
the organizational and management
aspects of the technology revolution,
a minimal understanding is useful, for
this transformation involves the totality
of the institution.
Perhaps one of the significant changes
in terms of professorial life is that the
classroom is no longer a private castle
(if such a thing really ever existed). The
processes of teaching will increasingly
involve collaboration between varied specialists, in addition to classroom instructors. Furthermore, technology demands
more intricate institutional organization
and it requires specific funding.
Although teaching faculty may not
need to have intimate understanding
of organizational and managerial issues, they will progress more smoothly
with their work if they understand the
institutional ramifications of what they
may choose to do at the classroom and
curricular levels when they utilize technological delivery systems.
The usefulness of this volume lies in
part in its holistic approach. Although
different segments of the institutional
population will spend more of its time
on certain chapters, the value of this
book lies in its integration of the varied
aspects of the technology revolution
and the transformation it is producing
in higher education.
Where are department chairs most
likely to find value for their work?
The first chapter, “The Challenge of
Change,” gives a valuable contextual
framework to understand what we are
facing. A key change is in the nature
of our students. As higher education
absorbs a growing number of adult
learners, who are also managing families and/or earning their daily bread,
DOI:10.1002/dch
The Department Chair
their ability to adapt to our timehonored academic scheduling standards is slim to nonexistent. In fact, it
has been noted that the kinds of time
challenges faced by this population are
severely hampering completion rates.
The explosion in number of students is also out of sync with our teaching methods geared to smaller classes
and face-to-face instructor-student contact. The diversity of students has also
grown in terms of educational backgrounds and global points of origin.
Just as our economy is evolving from
an industrial to a knowledge-based system, what students need to know is also
in process of evolution. Bates and Sangrà’s list is interesting both for items that
are continuous and those that are new.
Among the old skills they assert are
still needed are good communication
skills in reading, writing, and speaking;
key thinking skills, including problem
solving, critical, logical, and numerical
thinking; and what they call “knowledge navigation.” Among the new skills
that we have not emphasized in the past
are “the ability to learn independently,
social skills (ethics, positive attitudes,
responsibility), teamwork, and the ability to adapt to changing circumstances”
(p. 10).
Bates and Sangrà suggest that
we need basic curriculum reform in
content, accompanied by “changes
in teaching methods” (p. 21). This is
the focus of Chapter Two. Here they
cite and briefly describe several new
developments in teaching married to
technology, and they remind us that
technology has erased the constraints
of time and place. We need to adapt
our teaching to that reality. Yes, we
have used the Web as a resource and
many are already familiar with “learning management systems” such as
Blackboard. But how far along are we
with “synchronous technologies” such
as Skype? Are we using technology to
facilitate collaborative learning? Recall
that one of the new skills the authors
cite is teamwork. Have we looked at
possible applications of game technolDOI:10.1002/dch
Summer 2012
ogy and “virtual worlds” for conveying
our content? Are we using mobile devices such as ebooks? There are moves
toward throwing open educational resources, which, as Bates and Sangrà
note, raises a variety of fraught questions including “course design, intellectual property rights of faculty, the
role of instructors, and assessment”
(p. 40).
Chairs will also be faced with a
series of interesting issues in terms of
educational philosophy. The authors
cite the following major challenges:
“a move from an objectivist view of
knowledge to a socially constructed
view; a move toward developing skills
associated with managing a rapidly expanding knowledge base, rather than
focusing on learning prescribed facts,
principles, and concepts; a move toward more learner-centered teaching;
and a view that the Internet and related
technologies radically change the nature of knowledge” (p. 43).
In addition to discussions of the
managerial ramifications of the technology revolution in higher education,
the authors also present several ongoing experiments at a variety of institutions. Their admonitions are derived
from example, and the examples serve
to illustrate their prescriptions as well
as to demonstrate some of the challenges and adjustments that institutions make as they venture into this
new world of pedagogical content and
methodology. What is refreshing is
that the examples make clear that there
is no prescriptive design. Experimentation is currently the name of the game,
though it is probable that in the near
future we will begin to read prescriptions for “best practices.”
For now, this volume is an excellent platform for faculty, chairs, and
administrators to pursue a dialogue on
the reframing of what they do as educators and how they may manage the
redesign that is required.
▲
Reviewed by Irene W. D. Hecht, retired director of
the American Council on Education’s Department
29
Leadership Programs, and president of Higher
Education Associates. Email: [email protected]
Using Quality Benchmarks
for Assessing and Developing
Undergraduate Programs
by Dana S. Dunn, Maureen A.
McCarthy, Suzanne C. Baker, and
Jane S. Halonen
Jossey-Bass, 2010
384 pp., $45.00 (plus $5.00 s/h)
Academic program review is in need of fresh
thinking, scholarship,
and models. This book
is, at its essence, about
academic program review, and it helps to fill
this void. The “quality
benchmarks” mentioned in the book’s
title are a set of carefully considered,
innovative rubrics that faculty can use
in their reviews of academic programs.
While the authors note that the rubrics
are designed with undergraduate programs in mind, specifically those in
the liberal arts and sciences, much of
this book would apply to graduate academic programs and professional programs as well.
The heart of the book is Part One,
which introduces a wealth of new ideas
to academic program review. Its eight
chapters explain the authors’ dimensions
of undergraduate program quality:
• Program climate
• Assessment, accountability, and accreditation issues
• Student learning outcomes
• Student development
• Curriculum
• Faculty characteristics
• Program resources
• Administrative support
Each chapter features a table listing the characteristics for that dimension that the authors consider “best
practices or ideal program features”
(p. 3). For example, in Chapter Two
30
Summer 2012
The Department Chair
(The View from the Top: Checking the
Climate and the Leadership of a Program), Table 2.1 lists eight characteristics for examining program climate:
• Pride reflected in the environment
• Campus reputation
• Collegiality
• Respect for individual and cultural
differences
• Equitable problem solving
• Program leadership
• Relationship with university community
• Program involvement in local community
For each characteristic, each table
describes what constitutes Undeveloped, Developing, Effective, and Distinguished levels of contribution to
undergraduate learning. For “Collegiality,” for example, the levels are:
• Undeveloped: Maintains or tolerates contentious atmosphere as shown
by inappropriate allegiances, generational conflicts, and litigation; climate
feels threatening
• Developing: Maintains overall functional climate but one that is challenged
when conflicts develop; climate feels
fragile
• Effective: Promotes professional
climate that models tolerance of and
respect for diverse viewpoints; climate
feels comfortable
• Distinguished: Exploits conflicts as
potential change agents; department
faculty demonstrate mutual respect for
students and colleagues regardless of
seniority; climate feels stimulating
This example shows how powerful
this book can be in making program
review a relevant, useful process. Collegiality is vital to program success—
how can a program advance and be
of the best possible quality if its faculty aren’t working together?—but how
many academic program reviews today
address collegiality?
Each chapter in Part One accompanies its table with a thorough description of and rationale for each
characteristic in the table and concludes
with “Guiding Questions” to encourage discussion of the chapter’s ideas.
I found Chapters Five, Six, and Seven
particularly insightful. Chapter Five
(Evaluating Curricula) is a clear, concise
articulation of principles of good practice for designing effective curricula.
Even faculty not presently engaging in
a program review will find this a helpful
stand-alone chapter as they review their
curricula or plan new programs. Chapter Six (Student Development: Solving
the Great Puzzle) focuses on program
activities beyond the classroom such
as academic advisement and support,
student organizations, and programlevel activities and events. These are important areas that too often get short
shrift in traditional academic program
reviews. Chapter Seven (Constructively
Evaluating Faculty Characteristics) focuses nicely on what faculty do rather
than what they bring by way of credentials. Some criteria, such as availability
to students and effective use of pedagogies, are vital to undergraduate program
effectiveness yet are often overlooked in
academic program reviews.
In Part Two, Benchmarking in Practice, the authors, all psychology professors and thus most knowledgeable about
the social sciences, wisely add chapters
on program review in the arts, humanities, natural sciences, and interdisciplinary programs, then move to practical
implementation suggestions. Chapter
Twelve (Conducting a Self-Study) begins with a great discussion of the value
of academic program review and offers
practical tips on preparing and writing
the self-study component of the review.
Chapter Thirteen (Serving Our Students
and Our Institutions) offers important
caveats about benchmarking, including
“The Lake Wobegon Illusion,” the temptation for all faculty to regard themselves
as well above average.
With today’s focus on using systematic evidence to inform planning and
decision making, Appendix B (Sources
of Data) is absolutely essential. It provides good, feasible sources of data and
other evidence to inform reviews of
each criterion of quality discussed in
the book. Without this vital appendix,
too many faculty would be tempted to
conduct a program review simply based
on hunch, anecdote, or gut instinct.
While this book introduces many
important new ideas into our thinking about academic program review,
I would use it to design an academic
program review process only in the
context of two fundamental principles
of academic program review.
Range of Tuition and Fees at Four-Year Institutions, 2010–2011
Public and private
nonprofit institutions
Private nonprofit
institutions
Public institutions
Under $6,000
21.00%
4.80%
28.10%
$6,000 to $11,999
39.20%
4.20%
54.40%
$12,000 to $17,999
9.90%
8.70%
10.40%
$18,000 to $23,999
7.80%
17.40%
3.60%
$24,000 to $29,999
9.00%
22.90%
2.90%
$30,000 to $35,999
5.50%
17.20%
0.40%
$36,000 to $41,999
7.20%
23.40%
0.20%
$42,000 and over
0.40%
1.50%
0.00%
Source: The College Board
DOI:10.1002/dch
The Department Chair
Summer 2012
First, the pivotal question addressed by an effective program review is how effectively the program
is achieving its key goals, a question
that can be answered only by examining the program’s outcomes: Are
the program and its students achieving their goals? Are students indeed
learning what the faculty are teaching
and assessing? Is the regional community tangibly benefiting from the
program’s outreach? Does the program contribute meaningfully to the
achievement of the institution’s mission and key priorities? Each criterion in this book can be examined
meaningfully only in the context of
the program’s underlying goals and
outcomes. The effectiveness of academic advisement depends, for example, on whether the program aims
to help students explore potential interests and careers or to help students
who have already identified a career path complete a predetermined
course of study.
Second, an effective program review
considers four criteria beyond quality:
• The impact of a rapidly changing environment, with shifts in the needs of
students, employers, and society, coupled with research on curriculum design and effective pedagogies.
• Demand: If no one wants to enroll
in the program, and no one wants to
hire or enroll graduates of the program,
there’s not much point in offering it, no
matter what its quality.
• Cost: A high-quality program may
be too costly to be sustainable at an institution that is struggling financially.
• Cost effectiveness: In today’s fiscal
climate, we are obliged to ensure that we
provide education efficiently as well as
effectively.
These caveats do not diminish the
significant contributions of this book
to the design and practice of academic
program review. I’m glad that this important book is on my bookshelf, and
it will prove useful to faculty and administrators looking for help with their
academic program review processes.▲
Reviewed by Linda Suskie, higher education assessment and accreditation consultant. Email:
[email protected]
ORDER FORM
Photocopy as needed
Yes, please enter my order for _____ individual subscriptions to The Department Chair at the annual (4 issues)
rate of USD $99 per subscription (US/Can/Mex); outside
North America USD $123. Payable to John Wiley & Sons,
Inc., One Montgomery St., Suite 1200, San Francisco, CA
94104-4594. To receive information on quantity discounts,
contact Customer Service at [email protected].
Payment enclosed $_____________
Bill me (Purchase order #____________________________)
Quantity Discounts
Copies
Each
Disc.
1–4
$99.00
0%
5–19
$79.20
20%
20–34
$74.25
25%
35–49
$69.30
30%
50–100
$64.35
35%
> 100
$59.40
40%
Purchase order enclosed (Fed. #135593032)
Bulk subscriptions with multiple ship-to addresses must have one central billing address.
Name____________________________________________________Title ___________________________________________
Department_____________________________________________________ Years in position________________________
Institution_______________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
City, State, Zip __________________________________________________________________________________________
Phone________________________ Email_____________________________________________________________________
Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Imprint
One Montgomery St., Suite 1200
San Francisco, CA 94104–4594
DOI:10.1002/dch
(SM12)
Tel 888-378-2537
Fax 888-481-2665
[email protected]
31
The Department Chair
Managing Editor: Carolyn Allard
Editorial Director: Robert Rosenberg
Advisory Board
Raoul A. Arreola, U of Tennessee–Memphis
Jeffrey L. Buller, Florida Atlantic U
Don Chu, CSU, San Marcos
Robert E. Cipriano, Southern Connecticut State U
R. Kent Crookston, Brigham Young U
Michael J. Galgano, James Madison U
Walter H. Gmelch, U of San Francisco
Susan Hatfield, Winona State U
Tim Hatfield, Winona State U
Irene Hecht, American Council on Education
David Hellmich, Bluegrass Community & Technical
College
Mary Lou Higgerson, Baldwin-Wallace College
N. Douglas Lees, Indiana University–Purdue
­University Indianapolis
Christine M. Licata, Rochester Institute of
­Technology/NTID
Kina Mallard, Carson-Newman College
Alan T. Seagren, U of Nebraska
Peter Seldin, Pace U
Jon F. Wergin, Antioch U
Daniel Wheeler, U of Nebraska
Thomas E. Young, Georgia Gwinnett C
­ ollege
Editorial correspondence should be emailed to the
managing editor at [email protected].
The Department Chair: A Resource for Academic
Administrators (Print ISSN 1049-3255, Online ISSN
1936-4393) is published q
­ uarterly by Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., a Wiley Company, at 111 River
Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774. Individual subscription rate (in USD): $99 per year US/Can/Mex, $123
rest of world; institutional subscription rate: $899 US,
$939 Can/Mex, $973 rest of world. Single copy rate:
$29 (US). To order call toll-free 888-378-2537, fax tollfree 888-481-2665, email [email protected], or write
Jossey-Bass, One Montgomery Street, Suite 1200,
San Francisco, CA 94104–4594. Discounts available
for quantity subscriptions—contact Customer Service
at [email protected]. Periodicals postage paid at
Hoboken, NJ, and at additional mailing offices.
Postmaster: Send address changes to The
Department Chair, Jossey-Bass, One Montgomery
Street, Suite 1200, San Francisco, CA 94104–4594.
Outside the United States, call 415-433-1740 or
fax 415-951-8553.
Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc., A
­ Wiley
Company. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section
107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act,
without either the prior written permission of the
Publisher or authorization through payment of the
appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance
Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923,
978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8600. Requests to the
­Publisher for reprint permission should be addressed
to the Permissions Department, c/o John Wiley & Sons,
Inc., 111 River St., Hoboken, NJ 07030; 201-748-6011,
fax 201-748-6326, www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
The Department Chair
Periodicals
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
111 River Street
Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774
The Department
Chair Primer, 2/e
Working with
Problem Faculty
What Chairs Need to Know and
Do to Make a Difference
Don Chu
$30.00 • paper • 144 pp • 2012
A Six-Step Guide for
Department Chair
R. Kent Crookston
$40.00 • cloth • 192 pp • 2012
Best Practices in
Faculty Evaluation
A Practical Guide for Academic
Leaders
Jeffrey L. Buller
$40.00 • cloth • 192 pp • 2012
Servant Leadership
for Higher Education
Principles and Practices
Daniel W. Wheeler
$40.00 • cloth • 208 pp • 2012
Time Management
for Department
Chairs
JEFFREY L. BULLER
The Essential
Department
Chair
•
A Comprehensive Desk Reference
SECOND EDITION
•
The Essential
Department Chair,
2/e
A Comprehensive Desk
Reference
Christian K. Hansen
$30.00 • paper • 160 pp • 2011
Reframing
Academic
Leadership
Reframing Academic
Leadership
Lee G. Bolman & Joan Gallos
$40.00 • cloth • 288 pp • 2011
LEE G. BOLMAN
JOAN V. GALLOS
Jeffrey L. Buller
$45.00 • cloth • 495 pp • 2012
Facilitating a
Collegial Department
in Higher Education
Strategies for Success
Robert E. Cipriano
$40.00 • cloth • 224 pp • 2011
ACADEMIC
LEADERSHIP
DAY BY DAY
F
SMALL STEPS THAT LEAD
TO GREAT SUCCESS
Jeffrey L. Buller
Academic Leadership
Day by Day
Small Steps That Lead to Great
Success
Jeffrey L. Buller
$25.00 • cloth • 336 pp • 2011
DOI:10.1002/dch