I think I mentioned earlier that several of our departments are going through consolidations due to budget cuts and the need to have fewer chairpersons. My questions to you are these: How does your college select department chairs? Do you elect? Does your administration appoint? Do departments nominate candidates and then work with administration to pick the best person? Do you have some other way of doing it? Are your chairs considered faculty, administrators, or some hybrid?I ask because this has caused quite a stir at my college. Our policies dictate that faculty governance is paramount, so we always elect our chairs. With combo departments, however, the political dynamics change considerably. People will often mindlessly vote their discipline rather than considering the merits of the candidates, so smaller disciplines have trouble getting someone from their area elected. Our administration toyed with the idea of appointed chairs, which inflamed the faculty. Things are now very ugly in some departments. People who used to be good friends are no longer speaking to each other. In some cases, people turned on their own disciplinary candidate because they felt the opposition would be more lenient about enforcing faculty responsibility.
Some seem to think that appointing the chairs would have solved all these problems, but I see a whole other set that would have taken their place. Faculty would have resented an appointed chair given our traditions and policies. The appointee would have had less credibility, particularly if he or she couldn't have won an election. And with all the budget pressures and constantly changing rules coming from our system (as opposed to college) administration, the loss of the right to vote would have seemed like one more erosion of faculty rights, but one that hit much closer to home since it came from our local admins.
Also, our chairs are currently considered faculty, but there is a move to make them administrators appointed at some level and perhaps even be people from outside the current departments. That way, as our board of trustees states, "Faculty can be back doing the job we hired them to do--teaching in our classrooms." I was just curious about other colleges' experiences in these matters and how things work out politically.
At our school, department chairs are appointed, but after consultation with the department faculty. Typically we are asked to suggest people, and give reasons.
ReplyDeleteI've always felt that the way to choose chairs is to ask for volunteers. If anyone is actually dumb enough to want the job, let them have it.
ReplyDeleteAdmittedly, my experience has always been at small schools, where a chair got a small teaching release in exchange for having to do mountains of administrative legwork and try to keep fractious rabble happy at the same time.
Here, it's anything goes. Some chairs are hired through national searches: decision made by admins, in consultation with faculty. Sometimes there are local candidates and no search happens, if everyone's happy (or quiet). When chairs retire, quit, whatever, sometimes a chair from another department takes over in the interim, by administrative fiat. In mergers, the bigger department gets to keep its chair; in some cases, the smaller department gets an "Assistant Chair" position to help smooth things over (and help the unified chair make sense of the strange people who've just showed up to the meetings).
ReplyDeleteProcess? Heh.
We have rotating chairs in a medium sized Dept (40 faculty). They serve three years, can re-up for an another three. We basically know there are only a handful of people who can do the job. We kinda push around the ice-hole till one falls in, then we tell the Dean that is our choice. The Dean can veto, but never has in my memory.
ReplyDeleteMy only complaint is that most Chairs complain about the work, whine about how hard it is to make decisions. Yet, they all re-up for the 2nd term. So pay attention to what they do, not what they say.
Everybody gets their turn because it's a small department with little turnover. Last year they joked that I was next in line (as the longest-serving adjunct). Alas, I didn't get it.
ReplyDeleteWe nixed the appointed idea. Each department nominates a head who is formally recognized by the faculty board. Each department head bitches like crazy about how much work they have to do, but since we have hybrids that get a lower teaching load in order to be chair, most hang on to the job as long as possible.
ReplyDeleteI did just have a department head quit in blinding anger about things neither he or I have power to change. He then talked everyone in the department into refusing the job. The rules say that in such a case I get to pick someone.
I've currently picked the old one and am sending all the emails I normally send to the department heads to all of the department members, in the hopes that it so bugs them, that they force one of the junior ones to step forward.
I'm a hybrid dean, I teach and administer. They are trying to talk us into full-time deanship, but honestly, after a faculty meeting I really enjoy dealing with the flakes.
Dean Suzy
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ReplyDelete>How does your college select department chairs?
ReplyDeleteProf. Jekyll: A search committee is put together. The search committee vets candidates and the dean make the final call.
Dr. Hyde: An internal search is preferred as internal candidates are cheaper. "Yes-people" are given priority.
>Are your chairs considered faculty, administrators, or some hybrid?
Dr. Jekyll: A hybrid. They are faculty on 12 month instead of nine month contracts with administrative duties.
Prof. Hyde: A grotesque hybrid of faculty and yes-person. The more they want to keep their job, the more they agree with the dean.