As
announced in April, ACE Leadership is transforming its suite of development programs into a series of regional summits as well as utilizing a peer-to-peer online platform and virtual library of content. With this revamp comes the end of the current Leadership Academy for Department Chairs, so higher education experts met with department chairs last week to close out the program as it is currently designed.
However, department chairs are a key part of the pipeline to campus leadership—and will remain integral participants in the new ACE Leadership initiative, including via the online platform and regional summit programming.
At this final iteration of the existing academy, experts led interactive sessions ranging from how to manage conflict to budgeting. They included: Richard J. Helldobler, president of William Patterson University; Sherri Lind Hughes, assistant vice president of ACE Leadership; Scott Newman, vice president of academic affairs at Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology; Diedre L. Badejo, professor, Klein Family School of Communications Design, University of Baltimore; and Carl S. Moore, assistant chief academic officer, University of the District of Columbia.
Fishbowl sessions during both days allowed attendees to ask the experts any question they had.
Among the valuable advice given during these sessions, there was clear consensus on these points: As chair, make your expectations explicit, define your terms, and create a supportive, communicative climate of openness. There also was agreement that department chairs should know the institution’s terms of tenure and other legalities back and front.
Or, as Helldobler put simply, “Make someone want your job when you’re done.”
Please email
aceleadership@acenet.edu with any questions.