By Ms. Mentor

Question: I just finished my first semester as chair of the "Ziggurat" department at our university, and I'm disgusted by the immaturity and irresponsibility of my faculty. Before semester's end, they needed to turn in student grades, assessment reports, yes or no votes on the strategic plan, and responses to the poll on redecorating the faculty lounge.

The grades were the only thing everyone did. For the others, I sent out polite reminders, and I was relentlessly nice—except about the assessment materials, which are required by higher-ups. I stewed and finally blew up by e-mail: "Do the assessment or we'll consider that you didn't fulfill your contractual assignment this semester." They pushed me to be threatening, and wasn't I right?

Answer: Well, yes and no.

If the only thing that matters is submission to your iron will, you probably got obedience on the assessment reports. But if you want a peaceable kingdom without endless rumblings and mutinous plots, you've planted some toxic weeds in your garden.

Threatening people with reprimands, delayed checks, or unspecified grave consequences may work once. So does public flogging. But if you have to work with people continuously, it's better to have them smiling, not seething.

Professors everywhere are tardy with paperwork. It's blamed on absentmindedness, or on Dwelling in the Realm of Higher Thoughts. Grading students, though, is an intellectual task. Ideally it is a concert, a celebration of achievement. About grading, no one asks, "Why are we wasting our time on this?" It's a duty and a student motivator, and you'll be nibbled endlessly if you don't do it right. You'll hear whining over the phone.

But any other paperwork brings out the faculty resisters: "I have a bad cold" and "My spam filter ate the memo" and even "My grandmother died. She always does that when I have a tight deadline."

Nevertheless, you, Ms. Mentor's correspondent, are the designated grown-up, and so you must take charge of the playground. Ask yourself, "What really must be done by my brilliant, talented, top-quality faculty members? And what can be finessed quickly, farmed out, or happily forgotten?" If you seem to be sharing their pain about time misspent, professors may not skitter away from you in the halls.

Ms. Mentor admits that assessment must be done. It is part of today's poisonous political climate: also known as The Accountability Regime, or Blame the Teachers. Faculty members must take time from their real work—teaching—to fill out forms about how their time is spent, about their grade distributions, their rubrics, their gimmicks. They must devise little exercises to demonstrate their students' "learning outcomes" to bureaucrats who, in most cases, know next to nothing about the subject being taught and learned.

Ms. Mentor's eyes glaze over. But she forges ahead, as you must. You must be strong. And if dignity fails, as it will, you must do what memoirist Clancy Martin's mentor told him to do: Be "part stand-up comic, part door-to-door salesman, part expert, part counselor."

You must jolly faculty members into doing those little tasks. You can offer snacks ("Everyone who does the assessment paperwork by Tuesday gets a fresh Fig Newton"). You can cajole ("C'mon, team, let's run this ball down the field so we can get on with our lives"). You can tell them that you know better than Freud, with his crude claim that artistic souls can only be motivated by "fame, money, and the love of beautiful women." Offer your faculty yachts and diamonds.

Devise a clumsy cheer that everyone will hate: "We're the best in the West! We're truly blessed! We've been assessed!"

Do tell your faculty members what goodies may actually turn up, if the mighty assessment gods smile upon your department. You'll be accredited again. You may be lauded. You may get "monumental" raises. If you lie outrageously but charmingly, faculty members will know it, but they'll also know you're on their side. If they mostly like you, as a fellow sufferer with a wan sense of humor, your job's ever so much easier. You have the same cross to bear.

As for faculty approval of your strategic plan: Ms. Mentor believes that all strategic plans should be ratified by their constituents. All offer fine sentiments: "We will strive for excellence, to have the best Ziggurat program in our region." Some are sweetly optimistic: "We seek 10 new tenure-track faculty lines in Ziggurat theory." They are expressions of hope, which should always be nourished.

She urges you to round up the usual voters. Exhort them to vote yes, tally their votes, and declare that the will of the faculty has been expressed. Hail the new plan!

If anyone reading this would like Ms. Mentor to vote for a strategic plan, e-mail her and she'll be delighted to do so.

As for the department lounge redecoration: Some things really do not have to be done by democratic balloting or polling. Clever timing can avoid the appearance of despotism. Just as midterms begin, send around a department e-mail seeking volunteers to get the lounge redecorated.

Unless you're in a design department, few people will be passionate about the lounge decor, especially at the busiest time of the term. The only volunteers will be the few, the special who really do care. Give them a deadline, tell them the budget limits, and send out a memo inviting suggestions for The Lounge Redecorating Committee, which has now been empowered to do its great work, unfettered.

But what if the lounge walls are painted puce?

"I'm sorry, but you had your chance to volunteer" is always a good, rueful defense. If the lounge becomes known as Puce Palace, everyone will bond through laughter and loathing. Ms. Mentor wouldn't be surprised if they name it after you.

Your job is to be a fall guy, but also a cheerleader and protector. You must sometimes martyr yourself, taking the arrows meant for your flock. Do not let your anger erupt in mail or print, because it cannot be unsaid.

"Off with their heads!" works only once.

President Lyndon B. Johnson's approach—"Don't spit in the soup. We've all got to eat."—gives everyone at least some morsels of pleasure to look forward to. In the new year, think of yourself not as a despot, but as a chef.

Question: For a change, our department's holiday party didn't turn to brawling and debauchery. As director, should I send a note of praise to everyone for behaving like ladies and gentlemen at last, or keep a dignified silence?

Answer: Silence.

Sage readers: Ms. Mentor welcomes a new year with hope for tidings of comfort and joy. She also, as always, welcomes rants, queries, treats, and tweets.

She strongly recommends, for instance, The Twitter Job Search Guide, an outstanding, one-of-a-kind advice book by Susan Britton Whitcomb, Chandlee Bryan, and Deb Dib. It will give you lively alternatives and choices.

Ms. Mentor regrets that she can rarely answer letters personally, and never speedily. Confidentiality is guaranteed, and identifying items in published letters are always disguised. No one will be assessing your merits and de-friending you.

(c) Emily Toth

Ms. Mentor, who never leaves her ivory tower, channels her mail via Emily Toth in the English department of Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge. She is the author of the recently published "Ms. Mentor's New and Ever More Impeccable Advice for Women and Men in Academia" (University of Pennsylvania Press). Her e-mail address is ms.mentor@chronicle.com.