Blame It on Me

In today’s Heads Up column, Gene C. Fant Jr., a former department chair turned dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at Union University (Tenn.), explains how his academic universe has changed since he became a dean.

He describes his former role of department chair as “one of facilitator”:

When faculty members needed something, it was my job to find the money to meet that need. I solicited gifts from alumni and friends of the department. I watched for grant opportunities. I shuffled the budget to free up the nickels and dimes that could turn into a few bucks that might make the difference between a “yes” and a “no.” …

I was unable to find the money in every case, of course. But as chairman, I had one trump card that could always get me out of trouble: “Sorry,” I could tell my faculty members, “the dean says ‘No.’”

But since becoming a dean, he’s developed a radically different perspective on things:

More than ever, I am painfully aware of the finitude of the budget. I am reminded constantly of the competition that exists between equally valid requests for personnel, for travel money, for additional scholarships, and so forth.

And he can no longer use the “good cop, bad cop” excuse and blame those higher up on the chain for their “penurious ways.”

Instead he finds himself having to say no to so many requests that he can’t seem to get a “surreal” and “reworked” academic version of that famous ditty from Oklahoma! out of his head:

“I’m just a dean who only says ‘No!’”