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[kurosaki_ichigo]

I'm looking at the threat/opportunity of being the next department chair. I am confident I can do the job well, though am not convinced I want to. There seem to be so many changes taking place regarding the role of department chair and so I am seeking input.

The position seems less and less like being an advocate for one's colleagues and more and more managerial and adminstrative and requires evaluating faculty performance vis a vis merit pay. Then there's the whole assessment trend in higher ed which seems to snowball with complex rubrics of measuring curricular effectiveness. In short, the position seems like a managerial nightmare with not-so-obvious benefit to the facultyperson sitting in the chair.

So what are the emerging compensation models for chairs? I'm at a SLAC, btw. I'd like to enter the dean's office with some data regarding fair compensation. I sure don't intend to accept the position for the reduced teaching load and few dollars (as wages) compensation I hear is the past norm at my school. I'm not intending to ask for the sun and moon, but want just compensation. Can anyone give me some insight as to what is happening vis a vis chair workload and compensation? I'd really appreciate the help.

[prof_d]

It does not sound like you would be good for the position, given the tone of the posting.  But, those are the vagaries of postings, and I could be wrong.

The reason you do a chair position is to develop the department--you get to build programs, help senior faculty win more grants, and develop the newer faculty. It is about people. You get more access to building the college and whole university (or whole SLAC) as one of the administrative leaders.  If that does not sound fundamentally interesting to you, don't take the job.

Usually, you take your current pay and turn it into an 11- or 12-month amount. Often a university has an additional administrative supplement. One course reduction per term/semester is typical, though I'm not sure about SLACs. You might want to negotiate an administrative sabbatical of a semester with pay following the end of your chairship, so that you can begin to restore your scholarship to pre-chair levels.

Being an administrator is much more demanding than being a faculty member primarily because you have lots more things on the plate to manage. It will cut into your personal publication rate.

Assessment is not the enemy [IMHO: we are our own worst enemies on this one due to either refusing to learn about the effectiveness of our programs or cooking up so many measure that it becomes useless]. You will probably have to learn more about it as chair, so that you can bring your faculty into this in a meaningful way. 

[dr_strangelove]

I've been chair of a smallish department (fewer than 10 people). prof_d's estimates for compensation sound about right to me; although it varies from department to department, my compensation was about two months of additional salary plus one course per term load reduction. I don't think that was totally unreasonable, but I agree with prof_d that your personal research productivity suffers while being chair (at least mine did).

Some of the administrative stuff comes with the job (faculty evaluations), but it is possible to delegate some things. I was actually less invovled with assessment as chair because it was done by a committee that I wasn't on (but had been chair of before I became department chair). Sometimes leading means doing all the work yourself, but sometimes it just means herding the cats mobilizing the faculty toward a common goal.

The big time sink in my experience was putting out fires. When you're chair, these come at you from all directions: students, faculty, deans, provosts, staff, etc. This was one of the things that surprised me about the job.

[sirkdn]

The reason I became a Chair (and now a Dean) is because I enjoy working with a wide range of people - helping them do their job better and allowing them have an easier time of it.  I also enjoy the intellectual challenge of program development to serve our various constituencies.  The increase in salary (agreeing with others that Chair salaries are about 2 months added) was NEVER my purpose.  I would also mention that by being a Chair/Dean you lose a certain degree of the flexibility you have as a faculty member - you have to adjust yourself to other people's schedules (Students, Faculty, Deans, Provosts, Presidents).  Getting back to the initial question, the job is a mix of fire-fighting, paper-pushing, advocacy, and leadership (and the percentages in each of these areas fluctuate over time - making the job interesting, IMHO).

[kurosaki_ichigo]

Thanks for the comments thus far. The reasons specified for being Chair (or Dean) are in alignment with what I see as possible rewards for the role. Money is not much of a motivation. Who in academia goes into it for the money, instructional or administrative? I can imagine much more lucrative occupations than those provided in the academy.

I joined the academy because I love to learn and share that learning. I see an administrative position in terms of learning new kinds of ideas, seeing the university and department in a different light, and helping constituents see common goals that bring success and reward to many. I understand the loss in flexibility and much of the job being putting out fires caused by disgruntled faculty, angry students, and irrate superiors. And then there's the administrivia and signing of documents.

In terms of compensation, I'm fine with the 11/12 month contract which seems standard from what posters are saying. Our school seems non-standard in that there is a course load reduction during the academic year with no change in salary and a separate, wage-based (no impact on pension calculations) stipend for the summer (which to me seems laughable given that it is a flat $3k). I suppose, as I see what I think as I write, what I'm really wondering in this thread is how unusual is what my school does and how standard is the change in contract from nine to 11 or 12 months.

Because if merit pay is largely determined by scholarship and teaching and the former is compromised, then I'd likely earn less at the end of each year just for being chair. There are no martyrs anymore, so......insight, anyone?

arigato

[sirkdn]

IMHO a $3K stipend is not enough - unless the teaching load goes WAY down.

[dr_strangelove]

I suppose, as I see what I think as I write, what I'm really wondering in this thread is how unusual is what my school does and how standard is the change in contract from nine to 11 or 12 months.

Because if merit pay is largely determined by scholarship and teaching and the former is compromised, then I'd likely earn less at the end of each year just for being chair. There are no martyrs anymore, so......insight, anyone?

At my school, chairs don't have a different length contract, they get an academic-year stipend plus one month of summer support.

Regarding merit increases, this is something you might talk to your current chair and/or dean about. At my school service is factored in, so I didn't suffer in this regard due to drop in research output because my service rating was always high. But even if this isn't the case, I would think that most deans are smart enough to realize that punishing chairs by giving them sub-standard merit increases because they are busy being chair rather than doing research (assuming they are doing a good job as chair) is not a very good management strategy. I guess what I'm saying is that whatever the merit increase formula is like for regular faculty at your school, it might be slightly different for chairs.

[csguy]

The position seems less and less like being an advocate for one's colleagues and more and more managerial and adminstrative and requires evaluating faculty performance vis a vis merit pay. Then there's the whole assessment trend in higher ed which seems to snowball with complex rubrics of measuring curricular effectiveness. In short, the position seems like a managerial nightmare with not-so-obvious benefit to the facultyperson sitting in the chair.

You got that right. The job's been getting steadily worse since I took the helm. More and more administrative nonsense is being dumped on us (you'd think there weren't any administrative offices -- don't know what they do). Add to that a Dean into every pedagogical fad around and I'm seriously not having much fun.

You need some fairly serious release time if you're going to do a good job.

[neniaf]

Our pay scale ($3000 stipend) and course reduction are similar to yours, although there is the suggestion that we will be moving toward an 11-month contract for chairs.  It is true that many chairs find it difficult to produce sufficient research during their tenures to ensure optimal merit pay, and if you think that the reward for your efforts should me monetary, you would do better either to take a pass or to limit your "turn" as chair to one term, then going back to your usual production.  I agree with sirkdn that for those of us who enjoy administration, the reward comes from creating conditions which allow our colleagues and students to excel, and we just can't focus on the money.  There is a huge variance in chair stipends or salaries.  When I was chair a friend had a very similar job, and was making 10x my stipend for it.  I also recently met a chair who thought it was immoral to take any additional stipend or course release for the job at all, if it was to be considered service.  By the way, one other thing you need to think about is the fact that if you want to be a good chair, you will need to offer any additional money-making opportunities which come to your department to your faculty first, before you take them for yourself, so overload $$$ may be limited for you as well.  That goes for things like summer school, study abroad opportunties, consulting, etc.  You obviously don't need to turn away people who come to you for your specific expertise, but when the phone rings and someone says, "Our partner school in  China is looking for a psychologist to teach a one-week course over Spring Break and will pay $10K for it," you can't just take it for yourself without being seen as unbelievably selfish by every member of your department.

[fortune12]

Become chair, help your colleagues, and develop a department that's serving students really well. I hope you'll learn about outcomes assessment and support it. So many in higher ed are oddly not interested in genuine accountability. My friends and colleagues in my social sciences department enjoy their passionate protests against businesses or government organizations that appear to have shoddy operations, especially with respect to customers. They then turn completely 18th century when any movement is afoot to get them to actually take account of learning in their classes.

[larryc]

At my 4/4 state regional campus the chair of our department gets 50% course load reduction, a bigger office, and a stipend of less than $2000 for managing our 17 person department. The real "payoff" is that the chair gets first crack at teaching summer courses regardless of seniority.  If he takes on two courses a summer that means around $7000. 

I had no idea how hard my chair works until I got the office across from him last year.  My God, there is always a line of students and faculty outside his office, always a new committee that our idiot VP puts him on, always an adjunct urgently needed to cover some core class that has 40 students in it and that meets tomorrow.  It is totally not worth it.