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[distantstar]

Do academics without much admin experience get appointed as deans? Do academics who are advanced asst. profs, get appointed as deans? What do you make of a dean position with teaching obligations in a department -- would one equally split administrative and academic responsibilities? Thanks for answering these questions --

[aandsdean]

Need a great deal more specific contextual information to know even rough answers to these questions.  Sorry.

[distantstar]

I'd like to speak to a recruiter who contacted me about a job at a SLAC that is split between Dean and an academic appointment. Someone forwarded them my name, but I imagine that the position would be for a senior appointment (Dean and Full Professor) in both areas. Though I am not at that level, it doesn't hurt to have a preliminary conversation. Can you advise me on what kinds of questions to ask that would lead to a better understanding of what they might be looking for? Also, can you provide a sense of what kind of questions to expect? Thanks for your input.

[distantstar]

I forgot to add that the position does fall very squarely within my area of interest and expertise, and that I could contribute a great deal to their programs.

[aandsdean]

OK, got it.  Better.

It's likely that they are looking for more experience than you have, but that's something you can explore with the recruiter.  I'd be completely honest.  In my experience, recruiters are very very interested in building their Rolodexes of potential candidates, and not just potential candidates for right now, but for the future as well.  You can anticipate a small but real amount of mentoring and advice from a good search consultant.

If I were you, I'd honestly represent my experience and my concerns about it, but also demonstrate that I had the interests and skills that could possibly make me successful in the job.  It also depends on the level of authority the deanship in question has, which I suspect may be limited given that it's also got a teaching appointment attached to it.  To give you some perspective, we have five deans and under 90 faculty, and they have evaluative authority and a certain amount of budget authority, chair all the faculty searches in their schools, etc.  But as VPAA, the buck on all of these matters stops with me, and I'm in charge of the big-picture stuff.  If you have a situation like that, you'd have a far better chance than if it's a bigger job.

For further perspective, the first time I interviewed for SLAC provost/VPAA jobs, I had a couple of interviews at very good, mid-level SLACS.  At the time, I was chair of a 30+ person department with three disciplines.  In both interviews, I was told (kindly and helpfully) that I needed more experience, particularly outside my own discipline and its closely-related areas, and that I should try to be a dean of A&S (thence my moniker) for a while (3-6 years) prior to going for a SLAC VPAA job.  I did the aandsdean thing for three years at a place I didn't like very much (didn't know that going in) and then found my current job, which I truly enjoy.

Your biggest obstacle, I think, is that you probably don't know what you don't know, since you haven't had the chance to learn it.  I am absolutely sure I'm much better at my job now than I would have been without my experience as a school dean.  In turn, having been chair of a pretty big and powerful department well prepared me for being dean.  Administration isn't as simple as it looks, and it's gotten hugely more complex in recent years due to federal mandates, assessment, increasingly rigorous requirements from accreditors, and so on, so don't be insulted or surprised if you discover that you're years of experience yet from being truly ready for a job that doesn't look so hard now from the outside.

All of which said, it doesn't cost you anything at all except a few minutes of your time to talk to the headhunter.

Good luck!

[distantstar]

Thanks --very helpful response. They also asked for a resume rather than a C.V. Do you think either will do?

[aandsdean]

Thanks --very helpful response. They also asked for a resume rather than a C.V. Do you think either will do?

Yes.  I wouldn't spend a bunch of time contracting your cv into a resume for this single purpose.