Chairing Academic Departments: Traditional and Emerging Expectations.
By N. Douglas Lees
Anker Publishing, 2006
(352 pp., $40.00 plus $6.00s/h)
Chairing Academic Departments: Traditional and Emerging Expectations begins with a truism about administration that many would have to confess is descriptive of their own journey. “Like many academics, I took my first position with the intention of working hard to clear the essential hurdle-tenure-to a productive life dominated by teaching and research. Administration was the furthest thing from my mind, and writing about it was not even a consideration” (p.ix).
Lees points out that it is all too easy for a professor to be tagged for their unique leadership skills and before long find themselves years down the way still there in an administrative service because of others perceptions of your strengths. The good news is that being recognized as an educator with talents and knowledge to guide others in the department or college is a coveted achievement by many. The other side of the good news is to find yourself doing more supervisory and administrative tasks while still being held to the expectation of academic teaching and researcher.
Traditional roles of the Chair
Chairing Academic Departments presents the historical background of what it once meant to serve or take your turn as a faculty member and to chair the department as well. What does it means today in the twenty-first century to fulfill that role and responsibility? The traditional responsibilities of this appointment are fairly straight forward. The author describes the duties as functions; management, dynamic, and baggage. These three functions refer to routine duties such as, scheduling classes, students, and faculty each term. Making sure that program and curriculum are properly developed, reviewed, and updated, while also aligning the expertise of faculty with the curriculum and research needs of the institution. Running a department is related to concept of managing a business; there are quality issues to maintain not only in the content of what is offered in the classroom, but by supervising and evaluating faculty instruction. The Chair is also a problem solver with respect to students, faculty, and administrative concerns, keeping the peace and smoothing out difficulties. While simultaneously making sure to develop and maintain a balanced budget which will insure the faculty will have the finances for their teaching needs while not make waves with the administration.
Current changes of the role of Department Chair
With the advent of several external changes in legislation and governmental bodies, the roles of the entire educational systems have been impacted. No Child Left Behind and IDEA in particular have strongly modified the way business is done in K-12 school settings and all community and higher educational institutions. Consequently, the Chair of a department inherits new responsibilities by virtue of the position and times. Accountability in every area becomes more pronounced and structured. Assessment of students, faculty, courses, institutions have imposed additional layers of monitoring and compliance. Some of those mandates require institutions to develop plans which demonstrate their accountability and to pay closer attention to some of the following; assessment, faculty workload, external program reviews, faculty evaluation and post tenure review, civic engagement, compliance issues, student recruitment and retention.
Each of these areas have been on the concern and quality list of educational institutions all along, but the mandate and monitoring of compliances from outside entities brings an additional layer of administrative need. The business of managing the additional areas have simply been crowded upon an already full plate for the sitting Chair. While the administrative roles and responsibilities increase, there is a developing concern about how to meet them and maintain quality of programs and quality of life for that individual.
A glimpse to the future
Lees concludes Chairing Academic Departments: Traditional and Emerging Expectations with a hint of how to be successful in this area of the twenty-first century. It is important to see the evolution of what the position and responsibilities of the Chair were and are now. It is significant to know that anyone in this administrative role needs to have the personal temperament for embracing change and to have the skills to lead and make the necessary and frequent change agendas. Institutional leaders are seeking Chairs who will step up to this challenge and lead with passion and integrity.
Leadership today and in the future requires individuals who are savvy communicators, who work collaboratively with others, who have excellent people skills. Educational settings must become more clever with utilization of people and their resources to embrace these challenges and to excel in the future.
The author brings the reader to this conclusion, the current and future position of chairing an academic department is “..pivotal, not only in carrying out the decisions of others, but for guiding decision-making to ensure that there is basic support for change and for identifying pathways in the transformation that preserve what we value from educational and scholarly perspectives while adapting to the new world order” (p. x).
This book seems to beg the questions; How do you do that? What skills will I need? Why would I even want to do this? For those who have a desire to become a department chair or who are currently endeavoring in that role, this writing validates the position as it really is and provides realistic guidance and hope that in true leadership you are a catalyst for change, for improvement, for making society a better place within your hemisphere of influence. I really applaud that message. Thank you Dr. Lees.
Reviewed by Dr. Joe Ann Hinrichs
Professor of Educational Leadership
Program Director of Doctoral Leadership Programs
Walden University, email: jhinrich@waldenu.edu