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Chairing the Academic Department Workshops

2009 Course Descriptions

Following each course description, we have listed the month in which the course will be offered. This links you to the full schedule for that workshop. Five sessions are offered at each workshop.

• Budgeting in the New Millennium
• Conflict Management
• Developing a Faculty
• Effective Fundraising for Chairs
• Evaluating College Teaching
• Introducing Campus Risk Management
• Leadership and Teamwork
• Legal Issues for Chairs
• Systems Thinking
• Using Data to Guide Departmental Planning and Decision-Making
• Working with the Dean

Budgeting in the New Millennium with Natalie (Nikki) Krawitz
As a department chair, you have responsibility for garnering human, financial, and physical resources to support your department's vision and mission. This session will focus on understanding the fiscal context within which you operate and using that knowledge to develop and implement a fiscal strategy. This topic will be offered in February.

Conflict Management with Walter Gmelch or Mary Lou Higgerson
Even experienced chairs lament the problems and discomfort associated with managing conflict. This session helps participants recognize the nature and causes of conflict; identify interpersonal conflict skills; explore response options; and experiment with the art of strategic resolution. This topic will be offered in , February, June and November.

Developing a Faculty with Jeffrey L. Buller
Department chairs understand the importance of a comprehensive approach to faculty development. But how do you move beyond faculty development to developing a faculty? How do you implement strategies that will make the members of your department more cohesive, working together as a team for the good of your discipline? This course will explore strategies that you can use to promote collegiality and team building in any type of departmental environment. This topic will be offered in February.

Effective Fundraising for Chairs with Dean A. Van Galen
Charitable gifts have the ability to provide the margin of excellence for higher education institutions and their academic departments. Indeed, chairs often play a special role in cultivating, soliciting and ensuring good stewardship of these gifts. In this session, some important principles, issues and misconceptions related to fundraising will be discussed. The focus will then turn to the process of gift solicitation and participants will engage in an interactive session that will help develop their fundraising skills. This topic will be offered in November.

Evaluating College Teaching with Peter Seldin
Virtually every college and university evaluates teaching performance. Some do it effectively, while others do not. This interactive session focuses on student ratings of instruction and the teaching portfolio. It examines important new lessons about what works and what doesn't, key strategies, tough decisions, and the latest research results. This topic will be offered in February, June, and November.

Introducing Campus Risk Management with Ann Franke, Esq.
What could possibly go wrong? A successful leaders looks ahead to events that can derail a department's mission. A widespread cheating scandal might rock a program. An earthquake might rock the entire region. A good department chair or dean is alert to, but not alarmist about risks to academic people, programs, and property. This interactive session covers the most common and most serious campus risks. Using a basic risk management framework, participants will learn to anticipate the "hidden risks" in their own programs. Whether your concern is menacing students or safety in off-campus programs, this session will equip you with practical tools to manage the broad range of campus risk. This topic will be offered in June.

Leadership and Teamwork with Walter H. Gmelch
This session will address the "call to leadership" and assist department chairs to reflect on their motives, roles, and stresses as they journey down the road of academic administration. Specifically, the session will examine the trade-offs and pay-offs in department leadership. A simulation exercise provides participants the opportunity to examine both the phenomenon of leadership and the art of encouraging team work. This topic will be offered in November.

Legal Issues for Chairs with Fernando Gomez
If good fences make good neighbors, then your institution's lawyer can help keep your fences in good order. This session focuses on the legal questions that most concern chairs: How do I remain immune from lawsuits? Where is the line between a professor's free speech rights and unprotected griping? What is due process? How can I legally terminate an employee? When are recommendations confidential and when are they not? This session uses interactive and participatory methods to look at current court cases and legal trends. This topic will be offered in November.

Systems Thinking with Janet Wessel Krejci
This session will introduce the participants to the concept of "Systems Thinking" as it can apply to higher education. Academic leaders often find themselves spending an enormous amount of time dealing with crisis or chronic problems that may feel unrelated to academic progress. Paradoxically these problems often interfere with moving departments forward. Systems thinking principles and concepts will be presented to help academic leaders achieve higher leverage in order to be more effective and more efficient. Cases will be presented with applicable strategies that will assist academic leaders to achieve higher success and satisfaction. This topic will be offered in February.

Using Data to Guide Departmental Planning and Decision-Making with Mark L. Putnam
Chairs who can effectively use key data sources are at a tremendous advantage in developing departmental plans, making the case for departmental resource needs, facilitating program reviews, and satisfying accreditation standards. This session is designed to familiarize participants with strategies for obtaining both institutional and comparative data, turning data into information that can guide planning and decision-making, and presenting information in the most effective manner. Course materials will include an annotated list of web-based resources and related publications. This topic will be offered in June.

Working with the Dean with Mary Lou Higgerson
The working relationship between academic chairperson and dean is sometimes described as the "essential partnership" because the success of each depends upon how the two carry out their different, but interdependent role responsibilities. Chairpersons have considerable control in establishing their credibility with the dean and in shaping the way in which the dean works with them. This session will focus on practical leadership communication strategies that enable chairpersons to cultivate a productive working relationship with the dean. Participants will have ample opportunity to practice the leadership communication strategies being presented. This topic will be offered in June.

Please direct questions about this page to:
brinda_albert@ace.nche.edu
This page last updated on 12/17/2008