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The Academic Administrators Professors Love to Hate

July 7, 2011, 3:18 pm

By Allison M. Vaillancourt

During an otherwise lovely dinner party a while back, the conversation devolved into a series of complaints about a certain academic department head (you may call them department chairs). After a fair amount of kvetching, I was ready to change the subject and asked my dinner guest, “Bottom line, what do you want from him?”

His response? “He needs to be a leader.”

“Please,” I responded, “as if you guys would ever let him lead.”

People love to bash their department chairs/heads, and I feel for the people who hold these positions (which will prompt several of you to roll your eyes, I know). Because these are often temporary, rotating stints, making hard decisions while in charge can come back as a nasty Karmic bite when it’s time to return to a regular faculty role. That makes “leading” all the more challenging. Complicating matters is the fact that few institutions do a good job of preparing faculty to assume departmental leadership. A person at my university remarked recently, “We are trained to teach and to do research and then we get into these roles and have to do everything but what we know how to do.”

While we have an educational program in place for incoming department heads, we’re looking to revamp it. To guide this process, we’re meeting soon with folks who have assumed these positions within the last few years to ask them what they know now that they wish they’d known earlier. While it will be important to hear their perspectives, I’m also interested in learning what faculty members want from the people in these roles. Because I can always count on Chronicle readers to provide their opinions, I’d appreciate your thoughts.

Have you worked with a particularly effective department head/chair? Why was he or she effective? What did this person do or not do? What advice or guidance would you offer to someone about to assume a departmental leadership role?

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  • leadersdance

    Just as it’s quite difficult to be an effective engaging teacher in in front of a classroom of disengaged students, it is difficult, if not impossible, to be an effective leader for a group of disengaged department members.  I was told once that we get the leaders we deserve – ouch!

  • 22024621

    Department Heads can have very different roles from a Chair, so it’s important to distinguish the differences.  Certainly transparency, consultation, and collaboration are important no matter what the position.  Without faculty support, the job can be hell.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000123043925 Jen Kuruc-Bille

    To be an effective department head, you need to have the ability to communicate, to observe, to evaluate, to train, to set a good example…this will then allow you to lead.  The more communication the better.  Know what is going on in your departments.  Establish a solid rapport with your students and with your faculty.  Get involved, be accountable, and take the time to know what your numbers are and where your retention stands. 

  • barbarashell

    There are many resources available on this topic, perhaps none better than the old chestnut “Chairing the Academic Department – Leadership among Peers” by Allan Tucker. In my experience when a faculty member complains about the lack of leadership from a chair, it generally translates into “s/he doesn’t follow my advice.”  Faculty want “managers” as chair to build class schedules, order equipment/supplies, set meeting agendas. If/when the chair begins to exert “leadership” in any fashion – they are likely to find a bunch of colleagial cats in need of herding. Good luck.

  • lgabele

    A very good question. For the past 16 years I have worked with hundreds of new and seasoned department chairs in a training program- Institute for Academic Leadership.  You can see the topics along with some of the presentations at:http://provost.fsu.edu/ial/workshops/.   There are two workshops and chairs are invited to attend both.   Based on conversations with perhaps 900 chairs who have participated in the workshops and conversations with many faculty in those units, the faculty and chairs want each other to have integrity, transparency, common sense and the ability to guide self-interest toward the common good.  Good luck in your efforts.  Larry Abele

  • 11182967

    Effective administration rests on the ability and willingness to make decisions and judgments.  But we are taught as students, instructors, and researchers to be open-minded, to carefully assess all available evidence before drawing conclusions, and to regard all conclusions so drawn as fundamentally tentative pending new or re-examined evidence.  Then someone appoints us as administrators and we have to make decisions, judgements, and (horror of horrors!) real choices that seriously affect our students and colleagues based on limited evidence according to timelines and by deadlines not of our own setting.  We’re not trained for this.

    But neither do we want people who are trained for this but are not familiar with and supportive of the academic enterprise to make these decisions for us simply because they have been trained to be decision makers.

    There is a real need to train persons stepping into administrative positions in leadership skills, but we must also guide persons in the skills of being led led.  Both parties need to understand and be willing to operate on the premise that the administrator is required–professionally, institutionally, and often legally–to make judgements and decisions and choices about budgets, faculty evaluations, etc.  Those leading have to seek information and advice and then be willing to make the best decisions they can.  Those being led have to be willing to provide as much information and advice as they can and then be willing–usually and with only rare and very serious exceptions–to abide by the decisions made. 

    Good leadership is a communal activity.  But it’s also hard work on both parts.  The truth is that we all know this, but we tend to shy away from both responsibilities.  But if we don’t learn to be lead as well as to lead we end up being told what to do by people like the VP for Finance who once asked me, “Who’s the boss of the faculty?”  When informed that the faculty didn’t have bosses he exclaimed, “Well, there’s the problem!”

    OK–I got away from the specific question.  But long experience in various roles has taught me that no amount of guidance will overcome the resistance of those unwilling to be led, and as long as we focus only on leadership and not on the responsibilities of those being led to be appropriately supportive (of course critical, at times, but not simply obstructive) no amount of leadership training will work.  Let’s try to figure out how to approach the issue from that perspective as well.

  • rlowman

    A few years ago I edited a special issue of The Psychologist-Manager Journal (Volume 2, Number 1) on The Academic Department Head’s position. The issue contained articles by a number of psychologists (many eminent ones)  who had led academic departments. The journal is now published by Taylor & Francis and the Table of Contents for that issue can be accessed at http://www.taylorandfrancis.com/books/details/9780805894806/ Rodney L. Lowman.

  • bfrank1

    When corporations put people in charge of large work-forces and budgets, they send new managers for training and mentorship, otherwise the risks are too high. But in Academia, if you have a PhD, you should be able to figure it out on your own, right? Institutional intertia will prevent meltdowns, and everyone just muddles along. Now THERE is a place where academic reform could do some good….

  • crixus

    Until recently, I taught at a university in Florida where I had an outstanding department Chair.  For me, the qualities that made him so effective was a combination of many different things.  He was unbiased and fair.  He led by example – he was active and effective in teaching, research and service.  He had high expectations of those who worked under him but was a positive force in helping us to achieve our goals by identifying clearly how he thought we might improve and provided us with the support to make those improvements.  He was respected (and respected) by students, faculty (throughout the university), staff, and in the community at large. Largely because of his support and leadership, our department became recognized (arguably) as the most effective division both within and outside the unversity.  The academic and professional achievements of our majors is a testament to that.  Unfortunately, as good a leader as he was, a new provost hired a few years back was equally as ineffective, petty, divisive, disrespectful, and calaous.  The entire university climate changed signficantly for the worse after his arrival.  Many of our very best faculty have since left. Many more would leave if it were not for the dismal real estate situation and job opportunities – so they are stuck.  Finally, our outstanding chair recently left to assume a Dean position at another university.  Leadership does matter – a lot!

  • jpmurphy

    I am about to start my 18th year as a department head. I think about what faculty want and need. They need inspiration, support, information and feedback about how to stay out of trouble, teach successfully, survive, understand, and thrive in the department, get tenure and so on. They want resources, consideration in teaching and committee assignments, and to belong to a successful or respected unit.

    I spend much of my time interpreting the dean and provost to faculty–and try to avoid bashing or blaming them for their own leadership or lack of it (we all seem to pass the buck upwards when there is bad news to share). Last year, frustrated with the lack of direction or confusion from on high, I announced to faculty that our role should be to focus on becoming the best unit we could be by working on those things that we could control (and effectively ignoring all the rest). This seemed to help.

    I try to provide our faculty what I most dislike not getting from my dean and provost: inclusion in discussion of strategic directions and anything affecting us as unit, faculty, students, and staff. I try to steer faculty clear of administrative trivia. The line between important stuff and trivia seems to move about a bit, depending on the individuals involved and current events.

  • panchodesastre

    I have been a department chair for four years at a large community college. When faculty (who have a union), administrators, and students have a bad day, they will try to make yours bad too, and it is difficult to figure out who might be right in confrontations. The College’s bottom line is different from my bottom line. For me, the students are the most important element of my job. They might sometimes be wrong or unreasonable in their expectations, and that is when I educate them. However, my decisions are more often than not based on what is best for our students in general.

  • cwm4c

    As with any leadership position, authority and accountability for the decisions must come with it.  If not, then you will have a manager and nothing more.  The Univerity’s choice will dictate what they get.

  • cdwickstrom

    In my experience in and out of the academy, I find that being oriented to the culture of the organization in which one is employed is critical to both effective leadership and effective FOLLOWERSHIP.  In none of my four academic institutional experiences was any effort made to orient me to the organization at even the most basic level.  It was a “here’s your desk, go to work” experience in each.  Orientation to the roles and relationships within the organization as a whole, and the administration in particular would go a long way in helping to make the position of department “head”/”chair” more effective and more understood. it would go a long way in explaining just what the D H/C can and CAN’T do, as well.  It also helps to understand that, as I told my trainees in supervisory development courses outside the academy, being a first-line supervisor is the toughest job in any organization, especially when you suddenly have to begin to exercise management roles over former peers. 

  • 11261897

    The greatest asset a department chair can have: an astute and understanding dean!

  • 12080243

    A department chair, Director in our case, who applies his “feelings” in the evaluation of faculty is problematic to say the least. For example, our College of Business developed a ranking system for journals. (This was motivated by a past Director who insisted on gifting 5 out of a possible 5 score for research for a one page “Montana Foot N Tick” article to his colleagues/friends. He and his friends couldn’t hit anything else. Our dean at the time was tired of fighting with this Director. He needed more objective evaluation criteria. So, he assigned the prominent researchers in the College to develop a journal ranking system which was fully vetted inside and outside the university. Lots of due process.) Our current Director refuses to use the ranking system, which by the way provides flexibility and judgement. He insisted on applying criteria like “accounting” has to be in the title of the article and journal and the substance of the research has to be something like “how I love depreciation.” His favorite for totally ignoring the ranking system is “you’re smokin’ dope on this.” You don’t believe a “leader” can be that dumb? I have him applying these ideas to the evaluation of research on tape. And here’s the zinger: he insisted on recording our conversations. (Visit http://www.usmnews.net for details.) So, what’s my complaint? Not just the bias that pervades the evaluation process I’ve described but the corruption of leadership and destruction of a wonderful job of teaching, research, and service.

    Chauncey M. DePree, Jr., DBA
    Professor
    School of Accountancy
    College of Business
    University of Southern Mississippi
    m.depree@usm.edu

  • 12080243

    An outstanding read is “The Dean’s Disease: How the Darker Side of Power Manifests Itself in the Office of the Dean” by Arthur G. Bedeian, Academy of Management Learning and Education, 2002, Vol. 1, No. 2, 164-173. This is wonderful outline of potential pitfalls of academic administrators at all levels. Must reading for potential and current administrators.

  • crankycat

    The most effective department heads are those who listen well, communicate well, and are able to build a shared vision and mission with those they lead. It helps also to have enough resources to do the job, and to be able to be decisive when necessary.

  • dxg197

    Being a department chair is one of the hardest jobs at the institution.  Leading a group of faculty is the closest thing to herding cats and if you don’t have a supportive dean, you can find yourself fighting a 2 front war on every issue.  The faculty need to help and support the chair, offering advice but not forcing any positions on him or her.  If the chair has the support of the faculty, the dean is more likely to listen and it is more likely that they can form a trusting relationship and work together effectively.  The key is to hire a chair that everyone respects and trusts.

  • davi2665

    Although university sports certainly needs careful scrutiny and oversight, the LAST organization on the planet that should be providing this is the US congress.  These are the folks who have spent us into bankruptcy, squabbled and fought for their own privilege and self-directed pork, failed to address our very serious national problems with anything other than sound bites and pablum, and do not have the courage to make the tough choices we need.  They are all about self-reward, self-promotion, and their own re-election.  A group of 100 people picked at random from phone books around the country could do a more honest, patriotic, and helpful job of overseeing major problems than the current crop of losers. 

  • barryr01

    Doesn’t Congress have enough to do without monitoring these issues? I’d say if schools can’t or won’t self-manage, then let the chips fall where they may. Just leave the congressional ‘crats out of this.

  • riddle

    Truly, a lovely article. It has been scientifically proved that a visual has more effect than an audio effect. So the best way to attract visitors to your site is make it visually more nice.

  • raymond_j_ritchie

    The horrifc experiences of RMIT (Royal Melbourne Inst of Technology) and Uni of NSW are just two of a long line of branch campus disasters involving Australian universities.  The injury is usually self inflicted. The lessons are never learnt, in particular their cost in money, time and labour by the parent institution.  The motivation for setting them up is TO MAKE MONEY but that is largely a mirage and self dilusional.  Admins making careers for themselves is really what drives most of these schemes.
    Branch campuses are often set up based on completely wrong information about the host country.  Often this is wilful: those who actually have first-hand experience in the host country are deliberately ignored.  After all, PC demands you must only hear things you want to hear. For example, most faculties of agriculture have a wealth of experience in SE-Asia, usually on the ground.  They are likely to provide PC-free information –  if they were ever asked..

  • paulkurucz

    Having personally witnessed and been involved in branch campus development oversees, I see a few more complexities:

    1.  Faculty employment issues in the home campus.  When there are employment challenges in the home campus – too many faculty in one area and not enough students, for example – branch campuses can, at least temporarily, be a way to release the pressure of this issue.  A couple of surplus faculty can be “released” to the branch campus on leave for a year or two.  A nice easy way to manage a thorny over-staffing situation.

    2.  Near-retirement perks.  Long-time faculty, academic leaders, and management who are bored with their jobs after decades of service sometimes see a branch campus as a stepping stone to retirement. A couple of years starting or leading a branch campus overseas, or teaching there, is a nice little treat at the end of a career.  Especially since it can come with tax free income, travel, and lifestyle benefits. Sadly, these folks are more often than not looking for entertainment value and distraction. When real branch campus work is involved, such as adjusting institutional operations to a new culture, a zillion hours spent building local relationships, etc., these folks are not usually up to the task as they came into their role in the branch campus for the wrong reasons.

    3. Short-term thinking.  New branch campuses imply growth, which is always seen as a positive thing in an institution.  And growth is good for hiding home campus structural weaknesses.  When change is undeniably needed (cost cutting, reducing/cutting programs, etc.) but hard to implement (long-term work friendships, union agreements, etc.), a branch campus’ growth and “profits” are seen as both a distraction and relief valve. Sometimes it is simply a case of “look at the exciting things going on in at our campus in Bora Bora, everyone!” and hoping the current change issues will simply go away in time. Other times it is truly grasping at straws before change has to happen at home.

    In all cases, wrong thinking.  Only long-term investments in branch campuses work out. And while there can be overlapping benefits to the home campus, branch campuses must be created from the perspective of visionary thinking combined with long-term relationship building in the host country, if they have a hope of succeeding in the long term.

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