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The Chair as Leader
How can I keep informed?
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Just as standard sources exist to keep one up-to-date on one's discipline, so are there resources for keeping abreast of the issues of concern to the healthy development of a department. This section cites some of those resources, ranging from national meetings to bibliographic references (some of which are available on the web).
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Articles on the Web
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August, John R.
Returning to the Faculty Ranks (165KB; PDF)
The Department Chair 10, 4 (Spring 2000), 18. The author’s reflections at the end of his term as chair provide many excellent insights into the rewards and challenges he faced. For more information, contact Anker Publishing Company, Inc. Posted 9/3/02
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Franklin, Kathy K.
The‘Mikey’ Phenomenon: Reflections of a First Year Chair (160KB; PDF)
The Department Chair 11, 3 (winter 2001), 26. An untenured chair shares her thoughts after her first year of heading a department. For more information, contact Anker Publishing Company, Inc.
Posted 9/3/02
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Bibliographic Links
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American Sociological Association Chairlink.: A monthly newsletter for ASA Department Affiliate Chairs
http://www.asanet.org/teaching/department_affiliates.cfm
ASA staff shift through national publications on higher education, science policy, and the discipline, and screen web resources to find the most relevant and useful items, which are then put into a concise and easily accessible electronic newsletter. Chairlink helps department chairs stay current on trends, in touch with the newest resources, and responsive to pressing issues of public and professional concern within the discipline. Chairlink also provides advance notice of calls for papers, meeting, and funding notices. Posted 1/20/10
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Stylus Publishing, LLC
http://www.styluspub.com/journal/epalx.aspx
Stylus Publishing has initiated a series on best management practices for academic administrators and department chairs titled Effective Practices for Academic Leaders. The monthly briefings assist leaders by offering informed advice and practical guidance for ready application in administrative life. Posted 5/19/06
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
http://wocket.csl.uiuc.edu/~loui/leadership.html
A selected bibliography on leadership. Posted 9/3/02
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University of Missouri System
http://www.system.missouri.edu/pali/resources/sug_readings2.htm
References on department leadership. Posted 9/3/02
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Books
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Anderson, James A. Driving Change Through Diversity and Globalization.
Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing, 2008. For more information, please contact Stylus Publishing.
On rare occasions, one finds a book that reframes prior visions. Such books one does not merely read, but also returns to study. Anderson?s Driving Change is such a book. The first three chapters provide a framework for understanding diversity and globalization, which moves beyond the limits of affirmative action, ethnic studies, and overseas study tours. Following a discussion of principles, Anderson moves from theory to practice, giving illustrations of campuses that have embraced some facet of this new vision. The fact that Anderson is able to draw on working applications gives credence to his theoretical propositions. Posted 3/15/09
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Bennett, John B. and Figuli, David J. (eds.).
Enhancing Departmental Leadership: The Roles of the Chairperson (New York: ACE/Macmillan, 1990). Offering "words from the wise," this book is organized around five basic topics: 1) roles and responsibilities, 2) faculty and staff hiring and evaluation, 3) faculty development, 4) legal issues, and 5) determining departmental priorities and direction. Each section contains several chapters by experienced leaders in the field.
Posted 9/3/02
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Buller, Jeffrey L.
The Essential Department Chair: A Practical Guide to College Administration (52KB; PDF).
Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing, 2006. To view the table of contents, click on the above link. For more information, please contact Anker Publishing.
One could justly call this book a flotation device for department chairs. It has the promise of carrying chairs through almost any practical problem they may encounter. Buller knows the terrain intimately. In response to the limited time chairs have for administrative reading, Buller has written short, sharply focused chapters that provide readers with information about specific topics, including practical solutions that speak to the reality of department leadership. He also is widely read in the literature of leadership and management and provides a wider vision than one might expect to encounter in such a volume. If, as a new chair, you have shelf space for only one reference volume, you would not go wrong in choosing this one.
Posted 7/11/06
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Chu, Don.
The Department Chair Primer: Leading and Managing Academic Departments (296KB; PDF).
Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing, 2006. To view the table of contents, click on the above link. For more information, please contact Anker Publishing.
Chu fulfills his objective of producing a primer for department chairs. Part II of the book (What Chairs Need to Know to Do Their Jobs) is a good resource for a starting chair. The 13 short chapters in that section cover the basics of chairing a department: Topics include politics, time management, budgeting, and chair-dean relations. Part I discusses institutional realities that chairs need to understand, and Part III alerts chairs to the leadership aspects of the position. New chairs inevitably will be most focused on mastering the tasks outlined in Part II. The chair whose goal is to leave a positive mark on the department also will need to spend time pondering the material in Parts I and III.
Posted 4/21/06
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Cooper, Tuesday L.
The Sista' Network: African-American Women Faculty Successfully Negotiating the Road to Tenure (100KB; PDF).
Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing, 2006. To view the table of contents, click on the above link. For more information, please contact Anker Publishing.
This qualitative study is based on interviews with nine African-American women about their pursuit of academic tenure. While the author's goal is to help increase the number of African-American women achieving tenure, the volume has important messages for institutions in general and department chairs in particular. Specifically, Chapter 5, The Game of Tenure, points at some fundamental matters that affect any new faculty member who faces the hurdles of achieving tenure. The chapter implies an urgent need for department chairs to be far more proactive in helping new faculty get started by providing a clear understanding of the written process, as well as the often unwritten standards of judgment that are applied. According to the book, chairs also can help new faculty choose how to allocate their time and whose requests to honor. Posted 5/4/06
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Gmelch, Walter H.
Coping with Faculty Stress (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1993). This monograph looks at sources of stress for faculty and methods for alleviating debilitating stress for both chairs and faculty.
Posted 9/5/02
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Gmelch, Walter H. and Miskin, Val D. Chairing an Academic Department
Atwood Publishing, Madison, WI: 2004 (second edition).
Working from surveys of hundreds of department chairs, this compact, highly readable volume examines four dimensions of chair work: faculty developer, manager, leader, and scholar. Within each domain, the authors present helpful, practical guidance. Experienced chairs will find the systematic organization of topics useful and novice chairs will find it easy to hone in on particular issues to find sound suggestions to guide their decisions.
Posted 11/10/04
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Hecht, Irene W. D., Higgerson, Mary Lou, Gmelch, Walter H., and Tucker, Allan. The Department Chair as Academic Leader
(Phoenix, AZ: Oryx Press, 1999). Designed as the successor to the late Allan Tucker’s Chairing the Academic Department, this volume looks at the leadership challenges facing department chairs as their institutions come to rely more and more heavily on them to solve the academy’s problems. For more information, contact the Greenwood Publishing Group. Posted 9/3/02
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Hickson, Mark, and Stacks, Don W. (eds.).
Effective Communication for Academic Chairs (Albany: SUNY Press, 1992). A spectrum of authors addresses the familiar responsibilities of the department chair: leading the department, faculty assessment, budgeting, and motivating faculty, but with a new approach, namely, that being an effective chair requires "the ability to create shared understandings with others." The authors stress that chairs should play an interactive role, working to bring people together to work effectively.
Posted 9/3/02
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Higgerson, Mary Lou.
Communication Skills for Department Chairs (Bolton, MA: Anker, 1996). Higgerson describes chairs' work regarding cultivating department culture and interfacing with external publics. Theory and practice are joined through case studies that offer readers the opportunity to test theory in hypothetical situations that may resemble problems they face in their own institutions. For more information, contact Anker Publishing Company, Inc.
Posted 9/3/02
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Higgerson, Mary Lou, and Rehwaldt, Susan S.
Complexities of Higher Education Administration: Case Studies and Issues (Bolton, MA: Anker, 1993). An excellent compendium of case studies that reflect the new challenges in education administration. For more information, contact Anker Publishing Company, Inc.
Posted 9/3/02
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Leaming, Deryl. R.
Academic Leadership: A Practical Guide to Chairing the Department, 2nd edition (84KB; PDF).
Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing, 2007. To view the table of contents, click on the above link. For more information, please contact Anker Publishing.
The major change in this second edition (the first edition was published in 1998) is the reorganization of content into six conceptual units: leadership, department, legal issues, faculty, students, and looking ahead. The volume is particularly useful when looking for suggestions on handling specific issues. Posted 4/3/07
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Lucas, Anne F.
Strengthening Departmental Leadership: A Team-Building Guide for Chairs in Colleges and Universities (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994). Lucas, through the lens of a trained psychologist and manager, looks at the familiar topic of chair responsibilities, including motivating faculty, supporting good teaching, encouraging scholarship, and team building. She gives concrete guidance for dealing with some of the more perplexing—and important—issues involved in leadership. Posted 9/3/02
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Lucas, Anne F.
Leading Academic Change: Essential Roles for Department Chairs (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000). Well-known scholars address three aspects of the chair’s role: leading change, the collaborative role of the chair in departmental change, and leading innovative change in curriculum and teaching. Posted 9/3/02
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Morrill, Richard. (2007). Strategic Leadership: Integrating Strategy and Leadership in Colleges and Universities.
Westport, CT: ACE/Praeger Series on Higher Education.
While this book is not an easy read, the insights Morrill offers concerning leadership in higher education are important and insightful. Beginning with a description of the inherent tension between collegiality and authority that is present in all institutions of higher education, Morrill proceeds to lay out an approach to leadership calculated to build a bridge between these inherently antithetical positions. The key is his concept of strategic leadership, which he methodically describes as an applied practice that can be learned. Although his analysis is aimed at the institutional level and therefore most prominently addresses the position of the president, the basic framework and concepts are as applicable to the department as they are to the institution as a whole. For a chair interested in the systematic and reflective practice of leadership, this is a book which will reward the effort of reading.
Posted 10/29/07
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Seagren,, Alan T., Cresswell, John W., and Wheeler, Daniel W.
The Department Chair: New Roles, Responsibilities, and Challenges. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report 1 (Washington, DC: George Washington University, 1993).
Posted 9/3/02
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Walvoord, Barbara E., Carey, Anna K., Smith, Hoke L., Soled, Suzanne W., Way, Philip K., and Zorn, Debbie.
Academic Departments: How They Work, How They Change, ASHE-ERIC, Higher Education Report 27, 8 (San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 2000). This monograph focuses on change as it affects, and is affected by, an academic department. The authors address the variations in institutional design and emphasize the importance of context to the work of chairs and the process of change.
Posted 9/3/02
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National Meetings for Department Chairs
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The following national meetings either cover material specifically focused on department chairs or include topics highly relevant to the work of department chairs.
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Kansas State University
http://www.dce.ksu.edu/academicchairpersons/
KSU sponsors an annual meeting that focuses on department chairs.
For more information, you may call Sharon Brookshire at (800) 432-8222 or (785) 532-5566, e-mail: sharon@dce.ksu.edu, or write:
Dr. William Pallett
Center for Faculty Evaluation and Development
Kansas State University
1615 Anderson Avenue
Manhattan, KS 66502-4073
Posted 9/3/02
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Newsletters and News Sources
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Academic Leader: The newsletter for academic deans and department chairs
http://www.magnapubs.com/newsletters/academicleader.html
Published monthly with short articles pertinent to deans and chairs.
Posted 9/3/02
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Change: The magazine of higher learning
http://www.heldref.org/change/
This bimonthly journal is devoted to exploring major issues in higher education pertinent to teaching and the work of faculty. Posted 9/3/02
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Inside Higher Ed
http://insidehighered.com
Inside Higher Ed is a daily news web site for people who work in higher education. The site is highly relevant to department chairs, featuring news and commentary on a wide range of timely and important topics in higher education. News items and opinion pieces often include links to related material of interest as well as the opportunity to read and participate in blog-style comment exchanges. Inside Higher Ed also posts thousands of academic job listings and notices of professional meetings relevant to faculty and their departments. Access to all content of the site - news, commentary, blogs, and job postings - is free to all readers. A modest fee is required to post jobs to the site. You can read Inside Higher Ed and sign up for a daily headline e-mail at the URL listed above. Posted 1/12/09
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The Chronicle of Higher Education
http://www.chronicle.com
Published weekly throughout the year, this is the major newspaper for U.S. higher education.
Posted 9/3/02
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The Department Chair
http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-DCH.html
This quarterly newsletter is prepared specifically for department chairs.
Posted 9/3/02
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Published Articles
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"Chairing the Foreign Language and Literature Department, Part 2." The Association of Departments of Foreign Languages devoted its spring 2001 Bulletin to chairing departments of foreign languages and literature.
Posted 9/3/02
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Community Colleges in a Perfect Storm
Change (November/December 2004). Washington, DC: Heldref Publications.
This issue of Change focuses on current issues and challenges facing community colleges. The article “Who Will Lead Our Community Colleges”(pp. 30û34) is particularly germane to the leadership issues addressed on this web site.
Posted 4/1/05
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Brown, F. William. "Inspiration, More Than Rewards, Improves Faculty Effectiveness"
Based on an article published in the Journal of Leadership Studies by the same author and excerpted in Academic Leader Volume 18, Number 9, September, 2002. Brown suggests that faculty are often best motivated through inspiration. Thus, in selecting chairs he advises looking for those capable of developing their ability as transformational leaders. Posted 10/14/02
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Haring, Marilyn. "A Non-Hierarchical Approach to Developing New Faculty"
The author describes "networking mentoring" for new faculty as an alternative (or supplement) to "grooming mentoring." See Academic Leader, Volume 18, Number 9, September 2002, pp. 2-3. Posted 10/14/02
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Henning, Slyvie Debevec.
"Repetition with Variations over Time: Reflections on Ten Years as a Department Chair." Association of Departments of Foreign Languages Bulletin 31, 3 (spring 2000), 8—15. Written by an author who served as chair in two different institutions and struggled with the same challenges in both locations, including "threats to the department, technology, resources, personnel and constituency relations." Posted 9/3/02
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Perkins, Jean A.
"Some Things Never Change." Association of Departments of Foreign Languages Bulletin 31, 3 (Spring 2000), 5—7. Perkins focuses on the key commonalities in the work of a department chair: ensuring good teaching, personnel reviews, mediating internal conflict, and maintaining external relations. Posted 9/3/02
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Pietralunga, Mark.
Association of Departments of Foreign Languages Bulletin 31, 3 (spring 2000), 16—20. Pietralunga addresses the issue of how a department can "respond to àenrollment-driven formulas." Posted 9/3/02
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Rodd, Laurel Rasplica.
Association of Departments of Foreign Languages Bulletin 32, 3 (spring 2001), 5—9. The author adopts the methods of Edward Deming (who inspired the Japanese to apply specific principles to their economic recovery) to the work of chairing a department. Rodd highlights seven key principles: focus on long-term goals; understand that change and improvement are a constant process; drive out fear; work ceaselessly on quality improvement; institute training; become a leader who helps others be productive and successful; and break down artificial barriers, both individual and organizational. Posted 9/3/02
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Trommler, Frank.
Association of Departments of Foreign Languages Bulletin 32, 1 (fall 2000), 7—11. Trommler sees a series of duties that are crucial to the work of chairing a department. These include working on your own skills and professionalism; maintaining good communications within the department, with the dean, and with other administrators; communicating with students; cultivating strong relations with the community; and developing active links to professional organizations. Posted 9/3/02
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