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Realities of the Decanal Suite

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By Gene C. Fant Jr.

Back in the stone age (before the advent of Facebook, MySpace, and RateMyProfessors), students had a low-tech way of scouting out professors: their office doors.

When I was a freshman, a junior took me aside and confided the secret to selecting professors. "Look for cartoons or lots of bumper stickers on their doors," he said. "That's a sign of a good sense of humor. Look for newspaper clippings that might indicate a Marxist slant: They are anti-authority and don't assert grades as a tool of oppression. Or find ones with photos of their children: They are tender-hearted and give easy grades. Avoid like the plague any doors that are blank. These are crypto-fascists who bludgeon students."

I remembered that advice when I became a faculty member. I posted a wide range of clippings, cartoons, and family photos, trying to connect with students and appear both professional and interesting.

Even today, I still find myself looking at colleagues' doors when I'm walking around the campus. I have often proposed, half-jokingly, that we ask job candidates for their philosophy on door decorations.

As a department chairman, my door was open all the time--for complaints, help, advice, and mentorship. Often there was a line. Over the years I have seen hundreds of students stand reading my door while waiting to see me. Many of our conversations began with remarks about something they had seen there.

When I was named acting dean last year, I was instructed to relocate to the decanal suite. I dutifully began packing up my files and spent a weekend making the transition. One of my last chores was denuding my office door. I pulled out an Exacto blade and carefully harvested my prized materials.

But as I approached my new office, I realized the door would have to be decoration free. Not even my name was displayed. Instead, there was a stern bronze plaque: "Dean, College of Arts & Sciences."

I am no longer a faculty member: I am an administrator.

Faculty members can have personality; they can be individuals. They can maintain their names and still be "professors." They can open their carefully festooned doors and have wide-ranging conversations about politics or culture or sports.

But I am no longer just "Gene." Or even "Dr. Fant." I am "The Dean." I am "The Door," the crypto-fascist who bludgeons students and, now, faculty members alike. I am not an individual. I am, rather, the current host of the "body decanal," that immortal, immovable spirit that passes through the occupants of the office and imbues them with plenary authority.

OK, so I exaggerate.

But one of the most difficult epiphanies I've had as a new dean is how much time I spend behind my closed, joyless office door. There is a level of detachment that derives from the kind of spatial separation in which I now find myself.

My institution has a tremendous track record of having academic administrators who are both kind and personable, and I would like to think that I can walk those paths myself, but in the back of my head, I know that "Gene the Affable Dean" is probably as likely as a children's book character called "Pete the Friendly Pit Bull."

Over my career, I've seen an endless line of popular faculty members move into the ranks of administration and undergo personality changes. The dark, dismal closed doors of their offices become weary symbols of the drudgery that so often accompanies the administrivia of their new lives.

When I moved into my new office, I tried to maintain the open-door policy I had as a longtime department chairman. The reality, though, was that visitors faced a gauntlet of barriers just to reach my door: a less-central location, an outer door, a fabulous administrative assistant whose sworn duty is to protect my time, and an inner door that rarely stays open. Even the telephone on my desk does not ring in my office first; my assistant screens my calls.

As much as I longed to maintain an open door, it's just not possible at my level of administration. There are many days that I am in meetings or deeply entrenched in projects for 10 or more hours, not including the evening events and take-home work that haunt me. A closed door is what allows me to get some small modicum of work done.

Mind you, I'm not complaining about my job. I asked for it, I enjoy it on every level, and I am truly happy to have it. I am discovering, though, how easy it is for an administrator to become a recluse and to disconnect from the larger world of the university.

Not only do I have less time for scholarship, but it is going to be much more difficult to have the serendipitous conversations that often spawn the best writing. The scholarly article of which I'm most proud came about as the result of a short hallway conversation that would be unlikely now.

The same goes for my teaching; pedagogical innovation may be cited in annual reports, but it's not likely to arise from reading those reports.

I miss hallway chats and pop-in visits. At many points in my day, I miss my friends and struggle to fight the detachment that is incipient to my position.

During my year as an acting dean, I reserved my lunch hours as "my time," when I would sneak to a restaurant or a park and read quietly by myself. By the end of the year, I was worn out and had begun to feel the painful detachment that I had so feared.

This year, as the actual dean, I have made my lunch hour my foremost line of defense -- not against people but against isolation. While I have many lunch meetings with fellow administrators, I have resolved to make time to have lunch with a variety of friends, students, and others who not only keep me honest, they keep me humble.

Those appointments are the highlights of my week now, and I leave them feeling energized. Additionally, I'm trying to schedule more of my meetings in faculty offices when my schedule allows.

I may not be able to keep my door open any longer, but that doesn't mean that I have to close down the relational parts of my academic life. I hope I can keep from veering off into the twin ditches of detachment and alienation. I hope I can defy the widespread stereotype about academic administrators and maintain some sense of individuality. It will not be due to my office door but to the actions that happen behind it and those that are rooted in my lunchtime conversations.

Gene C. Fant, Jr., is dean of the College of Arts & Science at Union University, in Jackson, Tenn. For an archive of his previous columns, click here.