First Person

Searching for a Deanship

Article tools

Printer friendly	E-mail article	Subscribe	Order reprints
	Discuss any Chronicle article in our forums
Latest Headlines First Person The Rejection Letter I Wish I Could Send If we had to make up a story for why you might be interested in our position, then interviewing you was too risky. Peer Review Hirings and Firings The new law school at the University of California at Irvine gets some high-profile hires ... and other appointment news. Ms. Mentor Does This Make Me Look Old? Advice on how best to dress, and act, when you look as young as your students. Career News Gone, and Being Forgotten Why are some of the greatest thinkers being expelled from their disciplines? Resource Salaries: Faculty | Administrative Presidential pay: Private | Public Financial resources: Salary and cost-of-living calculators Career resources: Academic | Nonacademic Library: Previous articles by topic | by date | by column Career Talk, Ms. Mentor, and more... Landing your first job On the tenure track Mid-career and on Administrative careers Nonacademic careers for Ph.D.'s Talk about your career Blogs

By Joshua R. Foyle

Like many faculty members who are at a midpoint in their careers, I've begun to search for a different academic position. I'm currently a faculty member in a professional college at a private university in the Midwest. In addition to my faculty appointment, I serve my college as associate dean. At this point, many of you who are faculty members are perhaps expecting me to fire off a lengthy screed against the "dark side" of administrative work.

Sorry. Unlike other faculty members, some of whom have been dragged kicking and screaming into an administrative appointment, I enjoy what I do. My position allows me to serve the faculty in our college in a number of different ways, and I derive an incredible amount of satisfaction from helping them to be successful. I have some gifts and talents for the work and seem to be able to bridge the divide between the college and the central administration. At this point in my professional life, I think it's time for me to put my skills to use in a more senior administrative position. Unfortunately, it's highly unlikely that I will be tapped for any top administrative posts on my own campus, for three reasons.

First, I work at a midsize university with an organizational structure that is remarkably lean. On campuses like mine, administrative positions are not plentiful, and they rarely come open. Senior-level administrators here traditionally serve for many years (there are no term appointments), which means that a person who desires to move into an administrative post must either have the patience of Job or be willing to be cryogenically preserved a la Ted Williams. People like me who aspire to a deanship must be willing to move if they want to pursue a career in university administration.

Second, part of the unspoken culture at my institution is that an internal candidate is less desirable than an external candidate. When internal candidates open themselves to the scrutiny of an administrative search here, we tend to focus on their professional blemishes rather than on the useful patina that they have developed during their time on campus. Institutional memories here, as at other universities, are long and often unforgiving. Minor slights of the past are quickly resurrected once an internal candidate makes the shortlist. When choosing a person to fill the open position, we invariably choose the "savior" from the outside rather than the "devil" that we know despite the apparent equity in their skill sets. While this isn't an absolute, past experience tells me that in order to move up, I have to move on.

Finally, skills acquired as an administrator in one division of the university are not, in the minds of most faculty members, transferable to another division. In the business world, managerial and leadership skills are prized and are considered to be translatable across businesses. In academe, we are bound by our disciplinary credentials. Using myself as an example, I have seven years of direct supervisory experience as a department chairman, three additional years as an associate dean, and have been selected through national competitions for two premier administrative and leadership-development programs. However, I would never be considered for a deanship in one of the other colleges on our campus because I don't have the "appropriate" terminal degree. Without the appropriate terminal degree, an applicant will not make it out of the "big pile," regardless of her or his practical and applicable experience. As a result, I can either wait for the dean of my own college to retire (unlikely in the next 10 years), or I can look elsewhere.

This won't be my first year on the market. During the past 15 months, I've been a finalist in four dean searches. Of those four searches, I withdrew from one and was a "runner-up" in the other three. So I have some experience in successfully crafting a portfolio that can be used to increase my chances of making the transition from faculty member to full-time administrator. I also know what it's like to be interviewed over the phone, at the airport, and as a finalist on campus. I don't claim to be a seasoned veteran, but I have learned a few things about the process that I hope will be to my benefit should I make the finalist list in the searches I will be applying to this year.

How do I start the process? Just like everyone else who is looking for an academic position. I check out The Chronicle and other appropriate venues for the job advertisements for which I feel I am best qualified. At the beginning stages of the search process, I think it's important to be honest about my skills and qualifications. Although I am very proud of my professional accomplishments, I am not likely to make it far in a search for a senior position at a major doctoral university. This isn't to say that I don't include some "stretch" positions on my list. I just don't over-stretch. Applying for an administrative job is as time-consuming, if not more so, as seeking a new faculty job, so I don't waste my time applying for positions that I have no hope of landing.

Once I have identified the possibilities that fit my qualifications, then I involve my wife in the process. We've been married for more than 20 years, and we have two daughters, one teenager and one of elementary-school age. I know that any career move on my part will affect them as well. These discussions are always frank and open. We discuss the location of the institution, the likelihood of equivalent professional opportunities for my wife, the educational and social environment for our children, and whether we could live in that particular environment for a minimum of five years. This stage of the process requires a significant amount of due diligence on my part. I provide our discussions with as much information as I can gather about each institution and its location. From these discussions, we make some decisions about the places to which I will apply.

Applying for an administrative position is a mixture of art and science. In most cases, it's different than applying for a faculty position. There are many issues that require some thought on the applicant's part: How should you choose references? Should your application for an administrative job come from a nomination or be unsolicited? Over the course of the academic year, I'll be writing about some of these issues as I chronicle my job search. As I said, this isn't my first year on the market. I'm just hoping it will be my last for a while.