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The Resource Handbook For Academic Deans Hardcover Laura L Behling

The Resource Handbook For Academic Deans Hardcover Laura L Behling The Resource Handbook For Academic Deans Hardcover Laura L Behling The Resource Handbook For Academic Deans Hardcover Laura L Behling

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Contents The American Conference of Academic Deans Preface Editor’s Introduction PART ONE: BECOMING A DEAN Chapter 1: Preparing for a Successful Career in Academic Leadership Chapter 2: A President’s Perspective on Serving as a Dean Chapter 3: The Qualities of Effective Senior Academic Leadership Chapter 4: The Role of the Academic Dean in a Community College Dean as Generalist Faculty Unions Teaching Focus The Community College Student Population Public Funding Chapter 5: A Successful Career as an Online Dean Chapter 6: Moving from Professor to Dean Attending Social and Ceremonial Occasions Interacting with Faculty Becoming Accustomed to Handlers Sharing One’s Views Learning to Find Reward in the Accomplishments of Others Establishing New Networks Chapter 7: Understanding the Social Roles of a Dean Chapter 8: Working with a Former Dean Chapter 9: Understanding Institutional Climate Leadership Style and Situation A Model for Leader Effectiveness Chapter 10: Balancing Management and Leadership Management and Leadership Styles Why People Follow Leaders 2
PART TWO: ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF BEING A DEAN Chapter 11: The Case for Servant Leadership Basic Principles of Servant Leadership Benefits of Servant Leadership Resources about Servant Leadership Chapter 12: The Art and Science of Good Decision Making Factors Leading to Poor Decisions Decision-Making Basics Chapter 13: The Art of Governance Chapter 14: Building a Shared Vision of Your Institution An Uneasy Definition Some Questions to Ask Regarding your Own Institution Chapter 15: Managing Change Successfully Using Data or External Pressures Matching Changes and Processes to A Strategic Plan Communicating Chapter 16: Understanding the Game and Your Team Chapter 17: The Dean’s Role in Mentoring Chapter 18: Academic Deans Balancing Professional and Personal Lives Reframing Balance from Subject to Object Motivation and Momentum Flow, Progress, and Presence Chapter 19: Modeling Active Engagement in Teaching and Research Chapter 20: Staying Alive in Teaching and Research Get Help Have a Back-Up Plan Don’t Overdo it Chapter 21: Self-Assessment, or How Do I Know If I Am Succeeding? Chapter 22: Discerning When to Transition to New Opportunities Chapter 23: When to Move On, Ready or Not 3
PART THREE: WHAT A DEAN DOES Chapter 24: The Administrative Dance Managing Up Managing Down Managing Across The Communication of Managing Up, Down, and Across Chapter 25: Establishing and Implementing Your Vision Vision, Mission, and Values Environmental Scanning, or the Swot Analysis Strategy and Tactics Chapter 26: Working with Regional Accreditors Know the Accreditation Standards of your Regional Accrediting Agency Serve on a Visiting Team or a Substantive Change Committee Become a Leader in your Institution’s “Climate of Assessment” Chapter 27: The Dean’s Roles and Responsibilities in General Education Curriculum Development Chapter 28: The Role of the Dean in Department and Program Review Why How The Dean’s Response Chapter 29: The Backward Design Process of Curriculum Development Curriculum Development as a Process Context: Philosophy and Metaphors Learning Outcomes: Knowledge, Skills, and Dispositions Resources: Faculty, Facilities, and Time Curriculum Maps and Matrices for Programs and Departments Chapter 30: Curricular Development in an International Setting Chapter 31: Online Curriculum Development Chapter 32: Representing Your Institution Well Chapter 33: The Entrepreneurial Dean Chapter 34: Creating Powerful Collaborations between the Academic and Development Divisions 4
Chapter 35: Productively Working with Advancement and Development PART FOUR: FOSTERING TEAMWORK ACROSS THE INSTITUTION Chapter 36: Using Conflict-Handling Modes to Solve Problems and Create New Collaborations The Conflict-Handling Modes When is the Best Time to use Each Conflict-Handling Mode? Chapter 37: What Teams Are You On Now? Chapter 38: Deans in the (Academic) Game Teams for Deans The Role of the Dean Within Academic Teams Chapter 39: Working with Other Deans Collaboration and Communication Resource Sharing Setting the Stage for Collaboration Chapter 40: The Role of the Dean in Decision Making at the University Level Chapter 41: Productive Relationships with Department Chairs and Program Directors Budget Data Personnel Challenges Chapter 42: Developing Productive Relationships with Assistant and Associate Deans Chapter 43: Effective Hiring and Evaluation of Staff Identify the Need Define the Responsibilities and Outcomes Consider the “Fit” Screen and Interview Effectively Evaluate to Nurture Performance PART FIVE: DEVELOPING FACULTY EXCELLENCE AND ACHIEVING STUDENT SUCCESS 5
Chapter 44: Setting Expectations, Intentionality, and Clarity in Faculty Hiring First Meeting of the Search Committee Narrowing the Pool and Initial Interview Campus Interview Next Steps Chapter 45: Diversifying the Campus Hiring Curriculum Chapter 46: Enhancing Faculty Relationships through Transparent and Consistent Evaluation Annual Evaluations Tenure and Promotion Evaluations Common Expectations and Best Practices Chapter 47: Contingent Faculty Leading from the Middle Effecting Change in Context Effecting Change in Context II: The Hiring and Reappointment Process Chapter 48: Working with People in Conflict A Conversational Analysis Useful Language Important Reminders No one Wants to be Difficult Chapter 49: The Responsibility of Leadership in Dealing with Difficult People The Human Context in Higher Education The Responsibility of Leadership Some Practical Ideas for Everyday Survival Chapter 50: The Bully on Campus Chapter 51: Difficult Disciplinary Decisions Strategic and Proactive Faculty Development Dismissal for Poor Performance or for Cause Chapter 52: Legal Issues in Faculty Evaluation Procedures and Criteria for Evaluation Discrimination How to Address Discrimination Claims 6
Academic Freedom Chapter 53: Addressing Concerns about Harassment, Grievances, and Discrimination Harassment New Focus on Title IX Chapter 54: Fostering Excellent Teaching Chapter 55: Creating and Maintaining a Supportive Environment for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity Connecting and Coordinating Empowering and Supporting Recognizing and Celebrating Chapter 56: Engaging Faculty in Service and Community Work What is Service, and why is it Important? “These are the Decisions we Want to Make” Mavericks: “Riding the Wave” to Faculty Service Would Faculty Volunteer for Service if it Were not Required? Chapter 57: “The War of the Worlds” Provide Leadership Suggest a Model Close the Loop Acknowledge Success Chapter 58: Effectively Working with Student Media Professionalism Prior Review Transparency and Access Curriculum Engagement Chapter 59: Managing Student Relationships Chapter 60: Establishing an Effective Academic Advising Program Who is your Student Population? Who is Doing the Advising? Training of Faculty Advisers Philosophy or Mission Physical Space Services Proximity to Other Offices Evaluation and Recognition for Effective Academic Advising 7
Chapter 61: Faculty Mentoring and Evaluation Chapter 62: Learning How to Work “In Between” Chapter 63: Supervising Faculty The Contributors ACAD: The American Conference of Academic Deans Index 8
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Cover design: Michael Cook Cover image: © Vectorig/iStockphoto Copyright © 2014 by the American Conference of Academic Deans Published by Jossey-Bass A Wiley Brand One Montgomery Street, Suite 1200, San Francisco, CA 94104–4594 —www.josseybass.com/highereducation No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646- 8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748- 6011, fax 201-748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. Readers should be aware that Internet websites offered as citations and/or sources for further information may have changed or disappeared between the time this was written and when it is read. Jossey-Bass books and products are available through most bookstores. To contact Jossey-Bass directly call our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-956-7739, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3986, or fax 317- 572-4002. Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and is on file at the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-1-118-72042-4 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-72051-6 (ebk.); ISBN 978-1-118-72040-0 (ebk.) 10
The Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series 11
THE AMERICAN CONFERENCE OF ACADEMIC DEANS The mission of the American Conference of Academic Deans (ACAD) is to provide academic leaders who share a commitment to student learning and to the ideals of liberal education with networking and professional development opportunities and to support them in their work as educational leaders. ACAD is committed to the ideals of a liberal education and supports academic leaders in their work. ACAD supports academic administrators as they strive to promote and support the ideals of a liberal education. ACAD is a membership-driven organization that provides academic leaders with the resources they need to excel in their field. http://www.acad-edu.org/ 12
PREFACE A few years ago, literally on the eve of becoming the chair of ACAD’s board of directors, I had coffee and a chat with Joseph Subbiondo. Joe is currently the president of the California Institute of Integral Studies, but in the 1980s, he served a term as the ACAD board chair. In our conversation, he shared a thought that resonated powerfully. All of us who serve as academic administrators first completed advanced degrees and climbed up the professorial ranks. After spending years mastering the work of teaching and researching in our first disciplines, we were called to work for which we were mostly unprepared. We became academic administrators, and then, Joe explained, we had to master a second discipline. The parallel really is striking. The process of earning a doctoral degree involves tremendous focus and, even today, does not commonly include purposeful preparation for college teaching. Rewards are the fruits of narrowing our field of view and excluding distractions. Even as part of a team, the doctoral student must demonstrate the ability to make and defend original contributions, and the doctoral degree becomes, in a sense, a license to do autonomous research. When we begin faculty work—teaching, doing research, contributing to campus governance, and serving the profession—we quickly learn that doctoral study really only prepares us for part of the job, and we must learn from our colleagues and from trial and error how to do the other parts. After several years, we might come to feel that we have achieved some degree of mastery of the first discipline. When making the transition from faculty work to academic administration, we discover that there is little in faculty work that prepares us for administrative work. The community of colleagues on our campus that supported our mastery of the first discipline isn’t there to support mastery of the second discipline. The mission of ACAD is to provide academic leaders who share a commitment to student learning and the ideals of liberal education with networking and professional development opportunities and to support them in their work as educational leaders. Joe Subbiondo put that mission in perspective for me: ACAD exists to help deans, provosts, and other senior academic leaders master their second discipline. ACAD was founded in 1945. At that time, the college president leaders of the American Association of Colleges, the forerunner of today’s American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), recognized the need for an organization to support academic deans in their work. ACAD and AAC&U have remained closely linked and jointly sponsor an annual meeting. For the past two years, ACAD has offered a highly successful Dean’s Institute, an all-day workshop on the day before the annual meeting. ACAD also provides workshops at some of AAC&U’s Network for Academic Renewal meetings. In addition to its connection to AAC&U, ACAD enjoys a productive relationship with the Phi Beta Kappa Society, jointly sponsoring a biennial conference in odd-numbered falls. The first joint ACAD-PBK conference was on the topic of leadership for the liberal arts, and the subsequent conferences have explored liberal arts themes relating to global liberal education, science and the liberal education, and the humanities. Online, ACAD provides its members a very active discussion list on which deans and provosts discuss issues and get advice from their colleagues. In fact, one of the most significant benefits of ACAD membership is the fellowship of other academic leaders. ACAD remains a “conference” of individuals, as opposed to an association of institutions, reflecting its long-standing commitment to networking and professional development. One of ACAD’s most important resources is The Resource Handbook for Academic Deans, and we are very pleased to introduce this third edition. In this significantly expanded and updated version of the Handbook, academic leaders speak to academic leaders, covering more than fifty topics organized in reference style. I have every confidence that experienced and new leaders alike will find this Handbook a valuable source of information and, I hope at least occasionally, inspiration. Previous editions of the Handbook were published and distributed by ACAD, but we are happy to celebrate a new partnership with Jossey-Bass in publishing this edition. I am very grateful to my board colleagues for helping to nurture the partnership, especially Linda Cabe Halpern (James Madison University), my predecessor as chair, and Marc Roy (Goucher College), the current chair. Our gratitude is also extended to Sheryl Fullerton, executive editor at Jossey-Bass for her commitment to building a relationship with ACAD. Laura Rzepka, ACAD’s executive director, makes everything happen at ACAD, and her dedication to ACAD’s mission is immensely appreciated. Finally, many thanks to Laura Behling (Knox College) for selflessly assuming the editorship of the Handbook and wrangling dozens of contributors. Carl O. Moses Susquehanna University 13
Past chair, ACAD board of directors 14
EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION The roles and responsibilities of college and university senior academic leaders—deans and provosts, and their associate and assistant deans and provosts—are many and diverse. From faculty hiring and evaluation to curriculum development and review, from working with presidents and other colleagues across campuses, to responding to external constituencies, including those who are involved in fundraising—the work of the college and campus academic leaders is not easy, and is becoming even more complex. This third edition of The Resource Handbook for Academic Deans intends to provide valuable perspective and support on the challenges and opportunities senior academic leaders encounter, both deans of colleges within larger universities and deans or provosts who serve as an institution’s chief academic officer (including those associate and assistant deans and provosts who work closely with such leaders). ACAD, partially through this Resource Handbook, provides support for a variety of senior academic leaders because the position of “dean” requires different roles and responsibilities depending on the type of institution. Such a diversity of experiences provides a diversity of perspectives, some of which may be more relevant to your particular position, but all of which provide valuable insight. As the major publication of the American Conference of Academic Deans (ACAD), the national association providing connection among academic leaders at senior leadership levels, this Resource Handbook, written by academic leaders and ACAD members from across the country, delivers that diverse perspective. Topics and approaches to each topic have been suggested and written by these leaders who are drawing on their own experiences—senior academic leaders who have provided leadership for general education programs, who have understood the cycles of their own careers, and who have engaged in strategic planning, to name just a few of the more than fifty topics covered in the Resource Handbook. You’ll find a multitude of topics, many of which point to the new work that now takes an academic leader’s attention, such as developing online courses and curriculum. You’ll find entries that speak to the unique work of deans at different kinds of institutions, two- and four-year colleges, as well as universities, public and private. And you’ll find that many of the topics are the ones to which senior academic leaders always must be attentive—faculty development, curriculum development, evaluation, teamwork, and, not surprisingly to those who have done or aspire to the work of a senior academic leader, the challenges of personnel and personalities on campuses. Each entry has been written by an academic leader and reflects her or his own views and perspectives, based on personal experience. You’ll find that brief scenarios begin each entry, allowing you to imagine the type of experience that you may encounter (or to find comfort in the similarities of the work we all do); entries then explore the issues raised in each scenario so as to provide you with ways particular concerns may be addressed. Each entry closes with several points of advice, including questions to ask when dealing with particular issues, perspectives to take, points to remember, or clear suggestions to help you in your work. More than forty-five contributors from around the country and from a range of types of institutions contributed to the volume, underscoring the importance of collaboration, conversation, and collegiality. As many deans and other academic leaders will confess, this can often be lonely work, with few, if any, people to talk with on campus about the issues detailed in this volume. ACAD’s Resource Handbook for Academic Deans understands that, and thus, offers readers a collection of perspectives on issues common to all of us. Thanks to the contributors for their willingness to share their wisdom and experiences, and to Lisa Ijiri, Mariangela Maguire, Pete Skoner, and two anonymous reviewers for their careful and thoughtful critiques of the Handbook. Just as ACAD remains true to its mission as a conference of academic leaders and colleagues, so too does ACAD’s Resource Handbook provide a tangible resource for senior academic leaders to be thoughtfully effective for the good of their colleges and universities. October 2013 Laura L. Behling Knox College 15
PART ONE BECOMING A DEAN 16
Chapter One Preparing for a Successful Career in Academic Leadership Understanding Your Role Marc M. Roy Goucher College July 1, 2012. Charles Sessions approached his office and inwardly smiled. There was his name on the door: Dean Sessions. He could not help but feel some pride as he opened the door, set down his briefcase, and sat in the executive chair behind a beautiful desk, complete with a new computer, tablet, and smartphone. The moment did not last long. Dean Sessions felt a sinking feeling rapidly replacing the pride of a few moments ago when he noticed the piles of folders left by his predecessor. As his assistant knocked on the door and said, “The president would like to see you in five minutes, and you have an appointment with the dean of students at 9:30,” Dean Sessions had just one thought. “What have I gotten myself into?” The feeling of being overwhelmed as a new dean is quite common. Because most deans start as faculty, very few deans have had formal leadership training. Instead, deans have risen through the ranks, all the while engaging in campus service and leadership, such as chairing committees, or directing departments, programs, or special centers on their campuses. Because they have knowledge of the institution, and the respect of the faculty, often these faculty leaders are tapped to serve as assistant or associate deans, giving them some chance to learn by watching their deans. However, there is not a “dean’s school” for aspiring deans, and many deans learn their roles and responsibilities as they begin their jobs. The learning curve can be especially steep if the dean has moved to a new institution. The roles of deans vary considerably from one institution to another, but there are similarities. In small colleges, the dean is usually the chief academic officer and may also have the title of vice president for academic affairs or provost. In larger universities, the dean is the head of a college and, along with the deans of other colleges, reports to the provost. Regardless of their scope of responsibilities and their type of institution, people who serve as senior academic leaders at the dean, provost, or associate or assistant levels, will encounter similar scenarios, challenges, and opportunities. Metaphorically, deans work between a rock and a hard place, and the best way to move in that tight space is to realize that good relationships are essential for success. On the one hand, deans are champions for the academic division, especially for the faculty. On the other hand, they are administrative officers and must keep the best interests of the college in mind. These positions inevitably come into conflict. For example, the faculty may want larger departmental budgets, and there may be good reasons for increases. However, the college or university may not have the financial resources necessary to increase the budgets of some or all departments. What should be the highest priority? Should all departments be treated the same? Can the dean try to get additional funds? Any decision is likely to be met with criticism from one corner or another. Therefore, decisions about all matters need to be presented clearly so that faculty members can understand the rationale, even if they do not agree with the outcome. Even then, there is no escaping the position between the rock and the hard place. Deans are first and foremost academic leaders working with faculty members to shape the curriculum and provide educational opportunities that are consistent with the college’s mission and values. The dean needs to articulate an overarching vision while refraining from simply imposing this vision on the faculty. Along with the college or university mission and strategic plan, the vision should guide decisions about curricular changes, hiring of faculty and staff, and budgeting. There is a natural tension between serving as an academic leader and participating in shared governance. The faculty are responsible for most curricular decisions, and the dean 17
must lead, often from behind. To walk between this rock and a hard place, a dean must be an excellent communicator. The quality and timing of one’s oral and written communication skills can lead to success or sink a dean’s career. Seemingly small mistakes, such as typographical errors, can be interpreted as sloppiness or a lack of caring. Faculty members want to read high-quality academic prose, but vice presidents and staff members often prefer clear, brief messages. The faculty and staff want as much transparency as possible. Although some issues are necessarily confidential, openness helps to build trust and effective working relationships. How things are said is often as important as what is said. Unfortunately, electronic communication is limited in its ability to convey the feelings and intentions behind our words. This frequently leads to misunderstandings. Many successful deans invite faculty and staff members to speak on the phone or in person rather than engage in lengthy e-mail exchanges. A quick way to choose a medium is to ask yourself: “Will it take more than a brief paragraph to explain the situation?” If the answer is yes, pick up the phone or call a meeting. Another useful guide comes from a question posed by a president: “Do you want your words to appear on the front page of the local newspaper?” In the age of nearly instant electronic communication, what we say, whether in writing or orally, can be shared around campus and across the country in moments, so choose your medium of communication as carefully as you choose your words. Deans look forward to the opportunities to wrestle with big ideas and provide visionary leadership, and this is an important role. New deans can be surprised to learn that much of a dean’s daily work is management. At times, managing situations, people, and budgets interferes with the time necessary for “big picture” thinking and leadership. However, careful management and appropriate attention to detail are also important in being a successful dean. One must clearly articulate expectations and hold faculty and staff members accountable for their responsibilities. At the same time, the dean needs to empower individuals to carry out their duties. Department chairs in particular often feel as though they have very little power and influence, making their jobs quite difficult. Deans can help those individuals understand the influence that they do have. When the dean supports decisions made by chairs (and assistant or associate deans), this empowers those individuals and helps them to be effective leaders. Being an effective manager and leader requires that deans be careful listeners, seeking out multiple points of view. Repeating back to another individual allows the dean to confirm that she has listened carefully: “What I hear you saying is that . . .” Some individuals will come to speak to the dean wanting little more than to be heard. They are not necessarily asking for the dean to solve a problem. After listening to a person air concerns, it can be helpful to ask what he would like to see done to resolve the problem and then guide the individual to find his own good solution. Another role of an academic dean is problem solving when others are not able to do so or when it is not appropriate for them to solve the particular problem. This too can involve moving between a rock and a hard place. If the dean imposes a solution without careful listening and consultation, there will inevitably be pushback because the solution was handed down from “the administration.” Engaging faculty and staff members in problem solving allows the dean to suggest possible solutions and work with the individuals to find a solution that is acceptable to all parties. However, there are times when policy issues come into play and the dean must make decisions and impose solutions. Using careful communication to convey the decisions can mitigate any pushback that might arise. Budget management is a critical part of a dean’s responsibilities. The chief financial officer can be the dean’s best friend or worst enemy. Building a good relationship with the CFO is important to success in managing budgets. Details are important. When seeking additions to the budget (or defending against cuts), clear, brief arguments are often the best way to make your case. Many college officers, unlike faculty, do not want to wade through lengthy arguments and justifications. The dean is also responsible for ensuring that departments and offices manage their budgets appropriately. A history of good management and balanced budgets is quite helpful when the dean is seeking increases in the budget. In contrast, frequent overspending will work against requests for additions to the budget. Another important role of the dean is to hire (or oversee hiring of) the best individuals possible. One must build a strong team of assistant or associate deans and administrative support individuals. A team that you can trust and rely on in all situations is priceless. It should go without saying that overseeing the hiring of new faculty will have long-term implications for the college or university. Bad decisions can lead to difficult tenure cases, or worse. Faculty members who are good teachers and scholars but who do not get along with their colleagues can cause years of frustration and difficulty. If those individuals are tenured, it can hurt a department for decades. In contrast, hiring individuals who work well with their colleagues leads to strong departments. When the dean hires faculty members who are excellent teachers, scholars, and department citizens, and when those faculty members are supported and mentored and perform to their best ability, 18
tenure cases can be a “slam dunk.” Those individuals often become future leaders of the faculty who will work well with the dean’s successors. However, search committees are not always in agreement (amongst themselves or with the dean) about the best candidate, providing the dean with another opportunity to glide between a rock and a hard place. Many day-to-day responsibilities of the dean involve faculty and staff members, but the dean must work carefully also with other deans or vice presidents and the president. These relationships are also crucial to the success of a dean. In particular, a good working relationship with the dean of students can help to blend the boundaries between learning in and out of the classroom. Collectively, the senior leaders must support and protect the president, at least publicly. Making disagreements public can shorten a dean’s tenure dramatically. Supporting the president publicly, even when disagreeing privately, requires deft movements. The communications skills mentioned above are essential in these situations. Deans are also mentors and talent scouts. Deans need to mentor faculty, especially new department chairs, to help them develop the leadership skills necessary for them to be successful in their jobs. Fortunately, there are workshops and webinars to help department chairs. Search firms frequently send deans job advertisements and ask for recommendations of possible candidates. Deans should mentor associate deans so that they might someday move into a deanship themselves. Being a dean is a difficult job. There are numerous roles and responsibilities, and there is never enough time. Working with the faculty is often compared to herding cats. Although this can be a nearly impossible task, you can put out cat food. Publicly celebrating the success of others, giving credit to faculty and staff members where it is due (and criticizing only in private), allows a dean to guide individualistic and disparate faculty and to build the relationships that will lead to a successful and rewarding deanship. June 1, 2013. A week after graduation the campus was fairly quiet. Dean Sessions leaned back in his chair and sighed deeply. What a year it had been! There were plenty of challenges, some successes, and some things that he wished he had handled differently. He was reminded of the wise words he had heard at the ACAD annual meeting: Being a dean is not much different from being a scholar. One must learn to ask good questions, the right questions. One must learn to find good answers and help others find good answers. Perhaps most important, one must persuade others that the answers are well thought out and the conclusions are justified. And in the end, good relationships and good communication make it much easier to move between the rocks and the hard places. 19
Chapter Two A President’s Perspective on Serving as a Dean Philip A. Glotzbach Skidmore College Versions of this article have appeared in previous editions of ACAD’s Resource Handbook for Academic Deans; it has been revised and expanded for this edition. Dear colleague, Congratulations on your appointment as dean! I hope any feelings of uncertainty or trepidation associated with this new phase of your life are balanced by the promise of new opportunities now before you. Above all, I hope you are eager to do all you can to help make your college or university a better place for its students, faculty, and alumni. Your life now has changed—at least for the duration of your administrative tenure and, most probably, for the remainder of your academic career. From this point forward, you will view the world from a different perspective, and you must not be surprised when others cast you in an unfamiliar light. This certainly will be true if you have just arrived at a new school. But even if you are continuing at your current institution, you will notice a change in the attitudes of at least some faculty colleagues (even among those you have known for some time). Above all, people will expect new things of you. It is your job to live up to those expectations that are reasonable and challenge the ones that are not. As a dean, you are in a wonderful leadership position to advance the mission of your institution. If you work effectively with others, you can direct resources where they can be used most strategically; articulate, affirm, and if necessary raise academic standards; strengthen curriculum and pedagogy; support your faculty in achieving your school’s primary learning outcomes for your students; and through hiring and tenure decisions, shape your faculty for the next twenty to thirty years. Along the way, you will face obstacles that will challenge your intellect and test your spirit. In short, the position of academic dean can be, at once, a most demanding and a most rewarding administrative post. Leadership is the art of helping people accomplish together what they cannot do individually. Easily said, not always so easy to do. Your president is the overall leader of your institution. He or she expects you to be the leader of your faculty. So you now need to think more seriously about leadership than ever before: to become a student of leadership, actively develop your own leadership abilities, and work intentionally to cultivate leadership within the faculty (especially among department and committee chairs but also among both new and established faculty members). You will need to know what the faculty is thinking. You must care what the faculty is saying. You will be the administrative point-person in dealing with problems that arise within the faculty so your president does not have to play that role. At the same time, you must be the primary cheerleader for your faculty, its principal advocate within the administration, and a leading proponent of the intellectual life of your school. Following are some more specific suggestions to consider as you begin making the dean’s job your own. Even though this list includes fifteen entries, it does not begin to exhaust the inventory of your responsibilities. The range of topics covered in this third edition of the ACADResource Handbook for Academic Deans will give you a better sense of the scope of your new portfolio, along with sound advice about managing it. Still, writing as one who experienced this transition himself twenty years ago, and more recently as a president with specific expectations for his own academic administrators, I do hope the reflections offered here may prove helpful as you embark on this new and exciting stage of your professional life. 20
1. Focus on doing what is best for your college or university, and your career will take care of itself. Be guided, above all else, by the mission of your college or university. Always place your institution first, other people second, and yourself third. If you focus, instead, on advancing your career, you will make decisions that will adversely affect your institution (and ultimately your professional prospects as well). Be assured that people will discover your real agenda, and they will judge you accordingly. This job is not about you; so check your ego at the door. Do not expect people to appreciate your, no doubt, admirable virtues; instead, focus on appreciating theirs. And if their virtues are not readily apparent, look harder until you find them. Maintain your humility. More deans fail from hubris than from lack of intelligence or administrative ability. Share the credit; take the blame. The great football coach Bear Bryant used to say, “If it’s good, we did it. If it’s really good, you did it. If it’s bad, I did it.” Write lots of thank-you notes. People will appreciate them, and it’s a great way to reinforce good behavior. Sometimes people will let you know when they appreciate something you’ve done. Keep a file of thank-you notes you receive—they will help to remind you that some people do, in fact, appreciate what you are doing. Just don’t take everything you read there at face value. Take satisfaction ultimately from the results of your efforts, not from the recognition of others. 2. Internalize the following mantra: “I am never not the dean.” Every word you speak always comes from the dean. There are no throwaway lines in your script. As a faculty member you could brainstorm with colleagues, try out crazy ideas, and make immodest proposals with relative impunity. In your new role and especially at the beginning of your deanship, you will need to do that kind of “blue-sky” thinking most often with other administrators and much less frequently—in fact, seldom— with faculty colleagues. Remember that the half-baked thought you toss off and immediately forget may be remembered by someone else as a promise (or threat!) and repeated to others. Prepare to have your most benign, innocuous, or well-intentioned statements and actions scrutinized, overinterpreted, sometimes misinterpreted, or blown out of all proportion. It goes with the territory. In short, pay close attention to what you say. Always. 3. Good administrative work is fundamentally about relationships, not transactions. Good relationships enable people to work together. No matter how well-intentioned you are or how brilliant your ideas, you will fail as a leader if people refuse to work with you. Even if you are not the smartest person in the room, or the one with all the good ideas (and no one has all the good ideas), you will succeed as a leader if you facilitate effective collaboration and shared decision making. To do so, you must work effectively with others, and they must be willing to work with you. Relationships ultimately stand or fall on the basis of trust. Be generous in offering trust to others; withhold it only when someone has proven that he or she will abuse it. This does not mean that you should be naive. Ronald Reagan was right to say, “Trust but verify.”1 But always open by offering trust. People must know they can trust you with extremely sensitive information. As a dean, you will come to possess information most people in your institution do not and cannot know—including details about some of your colleagues that you would rather not know. Dealing with this burden of confidential information is an inescapable dimension of your job. Be known as someone who is absolutely reliable in keeping confidences. And understand that some of your most significant achievements as a dean will involve matters that can never be discussed, much less celebrated, beyond a very small inner administrative circle. Keep your promises. Nothing builds trust more effectively than keeping promises. If people know that you will follow through on commitments you make, they will rely on you. The inverse is equally true. Remind yourself that it takes much longer to build trust than to lose it. Develop a reputation for fairness, honesty, and consistency, and trust will follow. Your college or university (indeed, the academic world as a whole) is a very small village. Assume that what you say about someone will get back to her. In fact, when talking about a third party, a good heuristic is to imagine him to be present in the conversation. Never play favorites. Be especially transparent and clear in your reasoning when you need to make an exception to a rule. Always consider the way an action or decision will look from the perspective of those it will most directly affect. Ask yourself how you would feel if you were in their situation. Consider, as well, how your decision will look to others who cannot know all the inner details. Build relationships that can survive disagreement. As Stephen Covey (1989) has written, “seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Demonstrate to people that you will listen to them—actively listen. You need not always agree, but acknowledge and credit what others are saying before you articulate a contrary position. 21
Be impatient with yourself but patient with others. Paradoxically, some of the very strengths you cultivated as a faculty member and that brought you to this juncture—especially mental quickness and, perhaps, impatience in moving things forward—can undermine your success as a dean. Your position gives you access to information and institutional perspectives not readily available to those outside the administration. So, when sharing that information, give people a chance to catch up and process what has become familiar to you but will be new to them. Work on giving others the time they need to think through a problem at their own pace, not yours. Let them finish their thoughts, even when it seems clear to you where they are heading. (Besides, they sometimes will surprise you.) Value their participation; honor their contributions to the process. Be mindful of your own fallibility. You may be wrong—even when you are convinced you are right. (Descartes to the contrary, very strong feelings of certainty never guarantee that one actually knows something.) Displaying a willingness to change your mind when faced with new facts or superior arguments also builds credibility. Be tolerant of disagreement and strive to create a climate in which contrasting views can be explored constructively. Be grateful when someone shows you a better way to think about an issue. Even if your thinking is correct as far as it goes, someone else may have a still-better idea or one that takes the conversation in a different direction. Be open to those possibilities. There are many worthy goals and even more paths to achieving them. Develop the art of encouraging others to collaborate with you in thinking through problems, and earn a reputation for valuing their ideas. Show that you have a tough skin, can tolerate criticism, enjoy vigorous discussion, and can hold your own in debate. Maintain your sense of humor. Being able to laugh at your own foibles shows that you are not overly impressed with yourself and encourages others to relate to you as a human being—not as someone defined entirely by his or her position. No one expects a dean to be perfect. So be willing to admit your mistakes; just try not to have to do so too often. 4. Above all, people want to know who you are and what you stand for. Following Machiavelli, understand that it is far more important for a dean to be respected than to be liked —or loved.2 There will be times when you need to make and own a difficult decision or take a tough or unpopular action. If you do so with integrity, others will respect you. One way you establish your values is to say no. Be clear about what you are not prepared to accept. Others will notice. Call people on unacceptable behavior (it is, of course, better to do this privately, but sometimes it needs to happen in public), and then forgive them. We all need “a shot at redemption” (Simon, 1986) from time to time. Develop a long memory for the good deeds of others and a short memory for slights and transgressions. In addition to your decisions and actions, you establish your values by what you praise. So be careful what you applaud and how much you do so. It’s much easier to step up your praise later on, if it is merited, than to take back praise once you’ve gone too far. If you really want to be loved, get a dog. 5. Be willing to fight when necessary, and when you must fight, fight to win. As noted earlier, the ability to foster collaboration is crucial to your success as a leader. Even so, upon very rare occasions, collaboration will be impossible and you will need to invoke alternative strategies. Sun Tzu was right to say that the best general is one who wins the war without ever having to fight a battle. The truly strategic thinker is able to diffuse problems in advance or neutralize opposition before it can coalesce into an effective force. But, alas, even the most competent leader cannot always meet this high standard. Therefore, first of all, it is important to know what you are willing to fight for—what you are prepared to do to preserve a core value or support a key initiative. Next, pick your battles carefully—even if you are in the right, some battles are just not worth the collateral damage. Deciding when to do battle and when to let something go is always an act of judgment. There is no algorithm to help you make such a decision—other than to say that one must never compromise on basic values. Third, when you must fight, always fight to win. As “Viper,” the commander of the training squadron in Top Gun informs his new class of hotshot pilots, in combat “there are no points for second place.” Finally, when it’s over, remember you’re all on the same team; do everything you can to repair relationships and return to collaboration (Simpson & Bruckheimer, 1988). 6. It is far better to complete a few high priority projects than to work on many and finish none. It is important to have some early successes, even if they are mostly symbolic. So as you begin your first year, pick one or two objectives you can accomplish that will be perceived as making an immediate difference, even if they do not represent the highest strategic priorities on your long-term list. Similar advice applies later on, as well. Identify those strategic initiatives that will make the most progress toward realizing long-term institutional goals. Then focus on those that are most readily achievable. 22
Remember the slogan of the Navy Seabees: “The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a bit longer.” An objective may be extremely important but unrealizable at a given moment. If so, defer it. Do what is possible first. You can always put something back on your list later on—when people are more ready to consider it and to help achieve it, or when the necessary resources are in place. Finish what you start. 7. Efficiency matters. Administrators, faculty members, and others will judge your effectiveness, in part, in terms of the efficiency of your office. In other words, they will ascribe the efficiency—or lack of efficiency—of your staff and subordinates to you. They also will judge you by how well you manage your staff—and by how effectively your people move work along. As you transition from the faculty to administration, your effectiveness will be determined in no small part by how well you turn over to others much of the paperwork and other tasks that for so long, as a faculty member, you did for yourself. Be intentional about sharing authority and power. Develop strong working relationships with your subordinates (e.g., associate deans). Help them earn your trust and expand their sphere of autonomy. Delegate the authority they need to do their jobs, but be aware that you cannot delegate responsibility—ultimately, responsibility in your division flows up to you. Resist upward delegation. Don’t assume you have to solve every problem someone brings into your office. Most problems belong to someone else—usually those who are trying to give them to you! Therefore, your first task is to identify the right person or group to address the issue. Then coach that person or those people to resolve it. Always ask, “Whose problem is it—who owns it?” Always stop before you commit to doing something and ask yourself, “Is this something I can or should do—and, if so, by when?” It is much easier to explain, in advance, why you cannot (or should not) do what someone wants than it is, after the fact, to explain why you failed to fulfill a commitment. Once you’ve made it clear whose problem it is, identify the next step(s) in the process, and encourage the owner to return later and report on progress.3 Ensure that information flows effectively in and out of your office and is managed well in between. Never let your office become an institutional black hole into which communications vanish never to be seen again. See to it that your office employs an effective paper-management and filing system—one that is organized according to the central ongoing tasks that you oversee (curriculum, faculty reviews, student matters, board matters, departmental issues, accreditation, assessment, and so on). You may find it helpful to distinguish the various categories through color-coding your office files. Make sure your principal assistant understands the importance of having an effective system, collaborate with her or him to design one, and see that it is implemented. Do it in whatever way makes best sense to you and your team. But do it. The worst possible use of your time is searching for a misplaced piece of paper. Discipline yourself to touch a piece of paper (or e-mail!) once: respond to it, refer it to a file, to your assistant, or to someone else, or relegate it to the trash. Think “OHIO”: only handle it once. Decide how to manage the notes from all those meetings that now will occupy such a large portion of your time. As you take your notes, delineate follow-up items to which you must attend personally and distinguish them from those you will delegate to others.4 Develop a system for your assistant to create and manage your project follow-up list, ensure that nothing gets lost, and keep you on track in following through on your commitments. Your assistant then can inform others as to the progress of key tasks, letting people know that you haven’t forgotten about their concerns. Give your executive assistant the guidelines he or she needs to manage your calendar and your day (rules for prioritizing meetings, scheduling desk time for you in addition to meetings, and so on). Try to reserve some time in each day to deal with the unexpected and unplanned problems that inevitably will crop up. Make sure your assistant communicates with those outside your office clearly and in ways that reflect your values. Remember that everything she or he says—and how it is said—will be attributed directly to you. Help your assistant learn to guard your time without walling you off from those who need to see you, and most especially without making people who do not gain immediate access to you feel unimportant. 8. You are still a teacher. In your administrative role, instead of students, you now are teaching members of your faculty (especially department chairs, program directors, and committee chairs), other administrators, and even members of the board of trustees. Think of yourself as running an extended graduate seminar on shared governance, curriculum, pedagogy, institutional history, and leadership, along with other key dimensions of your portfolio. As a dean, you must advocate for the academic programs in your college or university, but this advocacy can 23
never go in just one direction. You also must help the members of your faculty understand the larger institutional context in which they operate, just as you must help other administrators understand the academic perspective.5 Similarly, you must help department chairs themselves learn to function as mediators between their departments and the larger school or college. Effective mediation requires understanding both sides of the relationship and the willingness to advocate in both directions. 9. Administrative privilege entails corresponding responsibilities. Your administrative position gives you access to the highest levels of institutional decision making, and with that access comes a capacity to influence policy that no one on the faculty can possess. But this access to administrative decision making comes with a price. As a dean, you relinquish any right to complain to the faculty about administrative matters—for example, about not carrying the day in a budget or policy decision or the bad behavior of an administrative colleague. You now have three—and only three—options as you participate in administrative deliberations: (a) persuade others that your position is right, be persuaded by them of the merit of their views, or collaborate in crafting a compromise that you can embrace; (b) accept and implement a decision with which you disagree without communicating your disagreement beyond the administration; or (c) resign your position. There is no legitimate fourth option of going back to the faculty (or any other group outside the administration) to continue fighting a lost battle. In short, never bring an administrative conflict back to the faculty or position yourself with the faculty in opposition to your president (or provost or vice president for academic affairs). Doing so may provide you a short-term advantage with some constituency, but in the long run it can only fragment the faculty itself or divide the faculty as a whole from the administration. No president (or provost) worth his or her salt will countenance such behavior. 10. Be proactive in managing your boss. Anticipate the information he is likely to need from you and provide it before you are asked. Make sure she hears bad news from you first. Never bring him a problem without suggesting at least one or two possible solutions. Regardless of whether you report directly to your president, never surprise him or her in a meeting where others are present—and most especially, never do so in front of the board of trustees. Remember that just as your primary constituency is the faculty, your president’s is the board. 11. Prepare a yearly written plan of goals and major projects and assess your progress annually. Review your plan with your immediate superior, and refer to it throughout the year. Track your progress in achieving your goals. Keep a file of accomplishments. This file will be useful when you revise your CV and when you prepare your annual report to your boss, which you should do whether you are asked for one or not. 12. Don’t sacrifice your body to your job. Unlike a faculty position, in which the year is broken up by academic terms and breaks that give one time to recover and shift focus, administrative jobs are relentless and ongoing. Discipline yourself to eat well and to remain physically active. Take vacations that get you out of the office for blocks of time during which you can reconnect with yourself and the significant others in your life. As Vince Lombardi frequently remarked, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.” 13. Don’t sacrifice your mind to your job. Reserve time regularly in your schedule to plan and to reflect. Make it a point always to be reading something that interests you that is not directly related to your administrative job. If possible, keep your hand in teaching, and stay connected to your academic discipline. But if it proves impossible to do so—and it frequently is impossible, in these jobs—you still can (and must!) stay connected to current developments in the world of ideas in general. It is important that the members of your faculty continue to respect the ideas you bring to discussions. 14. Don’t sacrifice your spirit to your job. Deans face relentless demands. Issues will arise without warning, and without your ability to control them. Facing these challenges year in and year out can wear you down. Your position calls on you to be at your best when the stakes are highest and a misstep could prove to be most costly. It is easy to feel isolated and even fearful. In the end you have to find the resources to overcome your anxiety. But in doing so you are never alone. You should be able to seek counsel from your administrative colleagues and superiors. It is a sign of respect to ask them for help, and they should be more than willing to offer advice and support. Admitting your difficulties also helps you remain humble. The problems you face will be familiar to your counterparts at other institutions. So be intentional in building relationships with professional colleagues; develop a network of deans at other schools whom you respect and trust. Seek their advice. Create opportunities for mutual professional support and renewal. Join 24
ACAD. Attend professional meetings regularly. Discuss your most difficult challenges, and share success stories as well. 15. Always remember why you entered the academy in the first place—presumably, for a love of learning and the other intrinsic values you found there. A college or university should be a place that nurtures a flourishing life of the mind and spirit, and its ultimate success is measured in the educational and personal development of its students. Your job is to help make it so. Therefore, always consider the following questions when deliberating a course of action: “Will this decision serve to enhance or diminish my institution’s values and its capacity to fulfill its fundamental educational mission?” and, more specifically, “How will this decision affect our students?” To be an excellent dean, you need to respect and, yes, love both your institution and the members of your faculty. No one expects either a school or a faculty to be perfect. But these relationships should be marked by love all the same—even if you’re sometimes called on to provide some “tough love.” So if you cannot develop such a profound level of caring and affection for your faculty and institution, you need to find another job. In sum, as an academic dean, you are called on to be efficient, patient, ethical, courageous, visionary, and wise—certainly a daunting list of attributes. But if others did not see these traits in you, you would not have been appointed to your deanship in the first place. So even as you remain cognizant of your own limitations and practice humility, be honest as well in affirming your strengths. Just as you must know your faculty, follow the Socratic imperative and make sure that you know yourself best of all. In the final analysis, no one can tell you how to make the key decisions that will shape your deanship. You have to develop your own capacities for judgment and trust your instincts. Approach them as experiments, whose success or failure will be determined not a priori but after the fact—by the results they produce. But in making these inductive decisions, an abiding commitment to the core values of your college or university and a steadfast focus on the important work you have taken on will remain your most important assets. If you persist in that commitment and maintain such a focus throughout your tenure in office, you will have a profound influence over the direction of your institution. Virtually all of our schools are feeling the challenges of these times—financial, regulatory, political, ideological, and other trials that place in question not only our institutions’ core values but, in some cases, their very survival. But moments of great adversity also present great opportunities. It is a good bet that you have within you the capacity to provide the leadership your school requires to identify and capitalize on the opportunities that are present. Even if those opportunities are not obvious, it is your job to help bring them to light. Over time, realizing the difference you have made for your school will provide an enormous sense of professional and personal satisfaction. Indeed, many people who have moved from a deanship to other positions (e.g., a presidency) will tell you they enjoyed their time in the dean’s office more than in any other administrative position. My fondest hope is that you will have just such an experience. All best wishes for your success! 25
Notes 1. Reagan repeated this phrase frequently—especially in the context of arms negotiations with the Soviet Union. Ironically, as he was aware, Reagan was quoting a Russian proverb that was a favorite of Lenin. 2. Discerning readers will note that I have taken a liberty here. In The Prince, Machiavelli considers the merits of a prince’s being loved versus his being feared—probably the right contrast for sixteenth-century Italy, but certainly not the right one for the twenty-first-century dean’s office. Today a dean who is feared by the faculty (or others) is most likely dysfunctional and destined for a short term of office. On the other hand, a dean who is respected can lead effectively and remain in office long enough to accomplish important work. See NiccolÒ Machiavelli, The Prince, in The Portable Machiavelli, trans. and ed. Peter Bondanella and Mark Musa (New York: Penguin Books, 1979), chapter XVII, pp. 130–33. 3. A very helpful (short) book on this topic, which should be required reading for any new dean, is The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey, by Kenneth Blanchard, William Oncken Jr. and Hal Burrows (New York: Harper Collins, 1989). 4. Levenger’s “Annotation Ruled” notepads (an example of one commercial product) make it easy to differentiate a to-do list from informational notes. There certainly are other options, including creating your own unique structure within your notes. But it really is worth the effort to decide how you want to do this. So create an effective strategy and then employ it consistently over time. 5. See Richard Morrow, Strategic Leadership: Integrating Strategy and Leadership in Colleges and Universities (Praeger Publishers: Westport, CT, 2007). 26
References Covey, S. (1989). The seven habits of highly effective people. New York: Simon and Schuster. Chapter 5. Simon, P. (1986). You can call me Al. Graceland. Burbank, CA: Warner Bros. Simpson, D. & Bruckheimer, J. (Producers) & Scott, T., (Director). (1988). Top gun [Motion Picture]. United States: Paramount Pictures. 27
Chapter Three The Qualities of Effective Senior Academic Leadership Robert Holyer AGB Search Thanks to members of the American Conference of Academic Deans for their suggestions, via the Discussion List, about important qualities and characteristics of senior academic leaders. The dean or chief academic officer has arguably the most demanding job on campus—in many ways, more demanding than the president’s. The hours are long, the tasks are many and varied, the necessary skill-set is extensive, much of the work is on the front line, mistakes are often very public and may affect colleagues’ careers and well-being, resources are always constrained, and faculty are not easily led and certainly not “managed.” However, for the right kind of person, it can be the most rewarding job in higher education. Those who enjoy their work as a dean or a chief academic officer (CAO) and do it well find it satisfying in many ways. They enjoy working with a broad range of talented colleagues—faculty, student-life staff, the president’s cabinet, the academic deans and academic affairs staff, board members, and the president. They find that administrative work is intellectually engaging and challenging. However, the deepest satisfactions come from the opportunity to improve education and to be of service to colleagues. Effective senior academic leaders are deeply committed to educational values, and they know that their position provides them with a unique opportunity to collaborate with colleagues to improve higher education. They are also committed to the personal and professional growth of their colleagues, and they are the kind of people who take personal pleasure in the accomplishments and success of others. What is more, they have the ability to see potential in their colleagues and understand that part of their work is providing the context and the opportunities for faculty to develop their abilities—possibly even to enter academic administration. Effective deans or chief academic officers are both leaders and managers. As leaders they must understand the “big picture” and bring a vision to their work. Indeed, it falls to them as to no one else to articulate and defend the institution’s mission and values and to bring them to bear on institutional discussions and decisions. At the same time, they must be good managers of both finances and people. They must be effective at budgeting and financial management, able to bring both into the service of larger goals and institutional values. They must also be good at handling administrative detail. There is much of it, and without the skills to handle it effectively, the dean or CAO is easily overwhelmed and loses valuable opportunities. Deans and CAOs also come to realize that their role is not just to work with colleagues, but also to manage staff—and they are comfortable doing so. As good managers, they know the line between managing and micromanaging and realize that talented people flourish when they receive the same trust and freedom that they themselves would like to receive from the president. Senior academic leaders also must be able to see the potential in others and provide the opportunities for it to develop, readily recognize the good work of others, and be eager to express praise and gratitude. At the same time, they are able to deliver the honest but possibly painful evaluation and counsel necessary for good colleagues, even good friends, to become better. In all of this, effective deans or CAOs are good at aligning administrative detail and managerial practice with the bigger issues. They know that they lead in part by managing and administering well and that how they do both types of work sets a powerful example for colleagues and helps set the tone for the institution as a whole. The vision out of which deans or CAOs work is rooted in fundamental moral, educational, and institutional values. Good deans and CAOs are mission-focused, and they regard their work as a calling. They have the wisdom to know when these values are better advanced by their own direct support and advocacy and when they are better entrusted to others. In either case, though, the vision that guides their work is inclusive in the 28
sense that it has room for—indeed, requires—the creative contributions of others. While adhering strongly to underlying values, effective senior academic leaders are appropriately flexible in how these values are implemented. Indeed, they are always ready and eager to give ownership to others, delegating important tasks to those able and willing to take them on. To a unique degree, deans or CAOs have the opportunity and obligation to live out in a public way their institution’s basic moral and educational values. As clichéd as it may sound, the heart of the dean’s or CAO’s work is effective communication, and a good dean or CAO needs to be skilled in the communicative arts. They must communicate instructions and decisions clearly; they must also be able to explain educational issues and policies to wider audiences—faculty, students, parents, trustees, the community at large—in clear and compelling ways. They must be effective and empathetic listeners, able to listen equally to all parties in a dispute, able to listen to criticism of themselves without becoming defensive, and able to listen patiently to irrational requests. What is more, they must have a certain level of comfort with confrontation. Not only is it unavoidable, but if embraced productively, it is necessary for making progress on difficult issues. Equally, deans or CAOs must practice the discipline of silence, keeping private information private and waiting until the appropriate time and place to offer productive criticism, to confront inappropriate behavior, and to voice and pursue disagreements. The soil from which effective communication grows is the person of the dean or CAO. Effective deans or CAOs are easily approachable, comfortable with peers, and able to establish rapport easily even with those who are very different from them. They are also able to inspire trust through honest communication and forthright action, by their ability to keep confidences and measure their remarks, and, most important, by their willingness to trust others as they would like to be trusted. Effective deans or CAOs also must convey a comfort with public disagreement and a high degree of public scrutiny of their work. Additionally, such senior academic leaders also must possess a certain intellectual character and certain intellectual skills. They are bright. Not only does this help with the work, but because institutions of higher education are full of other bright people, it also helps to establish and maintain trust and credibility. Faculty colleagues will naturally assume that administrative mistakes are conspiracies, and the fewer mistakes, the less opportunity there is for mistrust to develop. Effective deans or CAOs also have the habit of working hard to get things right, whether by doing sufficient background reading or by mastering the relevant facts, histories, and documents or by understanding the processes that most reliably lead to good decisions and effective planning. Conversely, they must be comfortable admitting that they don’t know or are in error and be welcoming of those who can offer instruction, guidance, and correction. Good leaders also are patient with ambiguity and see its value as part of a larger process. It is disastrous for deans or CAOs to believe that they are the source of all good ideas, decisions, and plans; they must have the wisdom to recognize good ideas, decisions, and plans. Increasingly, academic administration has a quantitative dimension. The effective dean or CAO must be good with budgets, quantitative assessment of programs and learning outcomes, and data- driven planning. Good deans or CAOs also must have broad intellectual and artistic interests and an eagerness to learn things outside their own academic disciplines. Faculty expect their senior academic leader to value and exemplify the life of the mind as well as to understand and appreciate their respective disciplines. Effective deans or CAOs must also be very good at reading institutional culture and understanding how differences of power affect human relationships. Perhaps most important, they know themselves. They are almost always part of the equation, and to know how and in what ways is invaluable. Although some of these skills and dispositions can be acquired and all of them improved, a natural disinclination with respect to any one of them may be a serious obstacle to effectiveness. Effective senior academic leaders also must have a certain temperament. To a very high degree, they must be persistent—on occasions, even courageous. Most things will not require the dean’s or CAO’s direct involvement, but they will require persistence in the face of setbacks, failures, opposition, perplexities, doubt, and waning support. What is more, they must have the resilience not to be worn down by very demanding work and a brutal schedule. The mood and temperament of the dean or CAO exercises a significant influence on faculty and staff. So they must naturally project a sense of humble confidence and be able to handle adversity calmly. They are also able to move easily and quickly from situations that evoke very different emotional responses without letting the emotions natural to one bleed into the other—celebrating a faculty accomplishment, meeting immediately thereafter with the parents of a student expelled for repeated academic failure, followed by a meeting with the cabinet to deal with a major budget shortfall. Perhaps most challenging is that almost all of this has to be accomplished without the usual support provided by faculty colleagues. In short, senior academic leaders must have formidable emotional resources that do not require much emotional support from others. Certainly one of the greatest gifts a dean or CAO can give to colleagues of any description is a sense of humor. It brightens the gloomiest of days; it helps disarm tense situations and leads to productive outcomes; it 29
helps to establish rapport; and it can be the best way of communicating one’s humanity and humility. If you are considering moving into senior academic leadership positions or are already there, it may be helpful to consider the following questions: What are your personal strengths and weaknesses, and how well do they match up with the qualities and characteristics of successful leadership? Why does serving as a senior academic leader appeal to you professionally? What areas of such a position give you pause? What are the qualities that you most admire in senior academic leaders with whom you have worked? How might you incorporate such qualities into your own practices? 30
Chapter Four The Role of the Academic Dean in a Community College Thomas W. Meyer Broward College Despite the afternoon heat, Dean Palmer scurries out of the student union and across the hot cement courtyard to the administration building. He’s a little worse for wear but on a day like this, he doesn’t have time for a stroll through the air-conditioned corridor that connects the two buildings. In addition to the regular run of late spring meetings, he has called an emergency meeting of the academic leadership team to discuss pending Florida legislation that would drastically alter state funding of college preparatory courses. One version in the House of Representatives would eliminate funding for all such courses, while the Senate version would eliminate the lowest level of these courses. Community colleges would still be permitted to offer college preparatory courses, but would face two challenges: they would not receive any funding from the state to cover the costs, and students would not be able to count such courses toward credits earned or use them to qualify for student financial aid. All the campus presidents, academic and student deans, and the associate deans responsible for college preparatory math, English, and reading are gathered together to discuss the ramifications and possible solutions. The legislators have been talking about this for a long time, but now it may finally be a reality. After years of questioning the dismal success rates of students in college readiness courses, and after years of trying new methods and approaches to teaching students in these courses, everyone is disappointed but not surprised. Hundreds of sections would be affected, leading to a possible reduction in workforce (full-time and part-time faculty, as well as lab staff). Thousands of students would no longer have the opportunity to improve their basic knowledge in order to take college-level courses. The college stands to lose millions of dollars. Once again, legislation, student success, and access to education are at the forefront of items confronting Dean Palmer at his community college. Deans at community colleges share many of the responsibilities and challenges that their contemporaries at other institutions of higher education face. Simply put, the dean of any institution is the leader of the faculty; that is, it is the dean’s job to set forth a vision with respect to academic programming and student success, gain faculty buy in, monitor tasks required to implement the vision, and eventually, through successful execution, bring the vision to life. However, given the unique role that community colleges play in preparing students for transfer to four-year institutions or to enter the workforce, academic deans at our nation’s community colleges often focus on items specific to two-year public institutions. The role of deans in this specific setting differs in many ways from that of their counterparts at public and private four-year institutions. This is due in large part to the increasingly important role two-year colleges play in the American higher education system. The White House briefing “Building American Skills through Community Colleges” accurately describes the unique characteristics of the two-year college: As the largest part of the nation’s higher education system, community colleges enroll more than six million and are growing rapidly. They feature affordable tuition, open admission policies, flexible course schedules, and convenient locations. Community colleges are particularly important for students who are older, working, or need remedial classes. Community colleges work with businesses, industry and government to create tailored training programs to meet economic needs like nursing, health information technology, advanced manufacturing, and green jobs. (White House, 2010) Community colleges serve a growing demographic of mature students and specialize in enhancing employability through affordable technical and workforce education. Therefore, deans at two-year colleges 31
often find themselves supporting interdisciplinary discussions, working with faculty senates and unions, promoting student success and access, and forging relationships that stretch far beyond the confines of the campus. 32
DEAN AS GENERALIST When I introduce myself to others as a dean, I am often questioned as to what exactly I am dean of. I find myself having to explain that at community colleges, deans are often interdisciplinary academic leaders due to the structure of the two-year educational institution. In four-year colleges there are deans of schools of nursing, arts and letters, engineering, social science, or education, to name a few. And although some community colleges subscribe to a similar structure, the majority require deans to oversee all academic areas or academic departments. In this type of setting, the dean is not an expert in every area of study; instead the dean is a generalist, given the task of hiring subject matter experts to be associate deans, directors, or chairs to work with the faculty in their respective academic disciplines. Larger schools might have their own deans, but overwhelmingly the dean at the community college is responsible for ensuring that all academic programming campus-wide is distributed fairly and appropriately so that students can complete their general education courses and degree requirements in a timely and cost-effective fashion. 33
FACULTY UNIONS Community colleges are often unionized, requiring the dean to possess a unique complement of skills. As dean, you will inevitably set forth an academic vision or new initiative. Faculty unions can sometimes create challenging obstacles and at other times, they can prove quite helpful. It is the dean’s job to work with the union as they would with any faculty or any faculty senate, with an understanding that certain nuances exist. Fortunately, the faculty contract spells out most responsibilities as well as governance, and a successful dean will make it a point to read the contract in full and become familiar with it. It is vital to know what is and what is not permitted under the contract and then work with union colleagues to more clearly define gray areas. Avoid statements such as, “the contract doesn’t allow for that” or “that’s not in the contract” because this may lead the faculty to believe you are being too rigid or don’t wish to help them. Even though faculty may quote the contract, deans should use caution citing contractual obligations. Forge a good working relationship with union colleagues and ask them for assistance in ensuring the success of your vision and college initiatives. Unions are present to protect faculty, and once their leaders see that you wish to work with them to ensure faculty success and well-being, they will often prove a valuable ally. 34
TEACHING FOCUS Another unique feature of community colleges is the expectation that faculty are experts at teaching the materials in the area in which they are credentialed. Community colleges certainly encourage publication and research, but such research is usually more classroom-based and oriented toward student success, and it is not a requirement for tenure. “Publish or perish” is not the mantra at two-year colleges. Professors at two-year colleges are expected to be and typically are good teachers. Community college professors are grounded in student learning, and deans at community colleges promote excellence in classroom teaching and the best practices related to student success. Good community college deans solicit feedback from faculty on best classroom practices, find innovative ways of institutionalizing them, and provide the resources faculty members need to help their students succeed. 35
THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE STUDENT POPULATION Certain nuances exist in the student population of two-year colleges as well, stemming from our inherent core mission. First, community colleges remain open enrollment. As such, the community college remains the only option or opportunity for those students with a high school diploma who initially lack a definitive vision of their future. Deans at community colleges encourage the creation of programs that prepare college-ready students for careers (the focus of the Associate in Science degree) or transfer to a four-year institution (the focus of the Associate in Arts degree). As a result, there are three important considerations to keep in mind about students at two-year colleges that most likely will affect your work as dean. 36
Less Likely to Be Prepared Unfortunately, having a high school diploma does not necessarily mean a student is college-ready. The fact that any student with a high school diploma is welcome to study at the community college means that deans at two-year institutions must also familiarize themselves with the challenges of developmental education. Deans at two-year colleges often find themselves managing programs that help students learn the knowledge they should have acquired in high school, or that help returning students relearn the foundational education they have forgotten over the years. Many community college deans forge partnerships with their local high schools in the creation of such programs in order to align curricula with the goal of graduating more high school students who are college-ready. 37
More Likely to Study Part-Time Many community college students are more likely to study part-time due to the fact that they are working part-time or full-time jobs. Additionally, many of them are often taking care of family members or are in the process of raising a family. This means that a significant percentage of community college students’ schedules do not fit into the traditional college schedule. Because of this, community colleges offer classes in a variety of flexible schedules to help accommodate the lifestyles of commuting students. Classes are offered in sessions of varying length and are taught from early morning to late into the evening. Online or blended formats are gaining momentum to ease the burden of travel time to and from campus. It is the dean’s role at the community college to see that innovative schedules are fostered to serve the local community. 38
Less Likely to Be Privileged Another key difference of the community college is affordability. Without this, many disadvantaged Americans would not otherwise be able to attend college and pursue a higher degree. Community colleges pride themselves on providing quality education at a relatively inexpensive price thus providing opportunity to students who would not otherwise be able to afford the cost of higher education. It is the dean’s role at a community college to ensure and maintain educational opportunities at reasonable costs by keeping lab fees low, resisting unnecessary tuition increases, and maintaining seat limits that promote productivity and discourage waste. 39
PUBLIC FUNDING Funding is another distinction with which deans at community colleges must contend. There is a depressing saying in the two-year college community that goes something like this: “We used to be publicly funded; now we are barely publicly supported.” According to the US Department of Education, state and local appropriations for basic operations fell from 70 percent of total revenues in 1980 to 50 percent in 1996 (Merisotis & Wolanin, 1999). Although on the decline, the amount of money that community colleges receive from public funding still consists of a sizeable portion of the community college budget. Community colleges are highly dependent on state funding since, unlike four-year, public schools, they do not have diversified revenue sources such as hospitals, endowments, or research grants. While enrollments have been increasing, state support per student has remained relatively flat. (Kingkade, 2012) Were such funding to evaporate, many two-year colleges would likely close or be forced to implement sharp cuts in services. Moreover, in today’s political climate and with the increasing politicization of education, the management of funds in public institutions of higher education is more closely scrutinized than in the past. Deans at two-year colleges have varying degrees of involvement in managing public funds, but with respect to key decisions on how funds are allocated for growth, construction, and program development, the dean is often included. To help your institution stay financially sound, you can use strategies such as monitoring enrollment, developing private-public partnerships, and seeking out alternative funding sources. 40
Monitor Enrollment As a community college dean, it is important to monitor enrollment closely and supervise chairs and associate deans to ensure that courses have sufficient enrollment and programs remain viable and relevant. Maintaining an adequate balance of larger general education lectures and smaller boutique programs with lower enrollment is critical at the community college. This is the dreaded business aspect of community colleges that so many academicians loathe; however, it is the dean’s managerial role to see to efficient classroom operations. At larger two-year institutions this can pose challenges because many of the academic departments operate in silos and classroom allocations roll over from term to term. A review of the enrollment reports often reflects oversights such as a class with a seat limit of fifteen scheduled in a classroom that seats twenty-five, or a program that has been operating at 50 percent capacity for years yet still remains in the catalog of offerings. By monitoring enrollment, ensuring productive use of classrooms and labs, and eliminating obsolete programs, the dean at a community college plays a critical role in saving the institution money. 41
Develop Public-Private Partnerships Another way that community college deans can boost their institutions’ income is by partnering with local businesses and industries to create innovative two-year degree programs or career-enhancing certificates. In such cases, the dean seeks out partnerships in which the college offers the academic training and the business provides funding for facilities, internships for students, or equipment for classrooms and labs. For example, when a south Florida power company realized that many of its employees were retiring, two community college systems were tapped to help provide additional workforce training. Courses were created for a viable degree, and instead of a commencement ceremony, successful graduates attended a hiring ceremony and began working at the power plant immediately. Another example of a public-private partnership can be found in the development of a culinary program. A private partner may equip and operate a restaurant where college students complete their lab hours, serve as interns, and gain valuable real-life experience prior to graduation. The opportunities in this area are endless, and imaginative deans can help their institutions earn or save money while preparing students for lucrative careers. 42
Seek Alternative Modes of Funding Because public funding is on the decline, deans at community colleges find an increasing percentage of their responsibility becoming the identification and management of alternative modes of funding, such as grants. Although this part of the job may not be entirely new or unique to a community college dean, the increased expectation is, and in a two-year setting fundraising does have its differences. Grants that community college deans pursue are more likely to be related to student success initiatives or transfer to a four-year institution. Because deans are generalists at community colleges, the dean is more likely to work with associate deans, chairpersons, and faculty to provide support and leadership in the writing of the grants. For example, a dean at a two-year college might pull together a team of experts from the various STEM disciplines to partner on writing grants related to recruitment, retention, and success of underserved populations in the STEM fields. Once again, deans are not necessarily the experts; they simply lend assistance and guidance to the group. Community college deans promote and support grant-writing endeavors, recognizing those who try and lauding those who succeed. As a community college dean, you should remember the following: Capitalize on the strengths and talents of your discipline experts. Deans at community colleges wear many different hats. You are the leader of the faculty from a multitude of disciplines and must work with colleagues across the college to implement innovations as well as daily functions. Be an ambassador for access to education and educate others about the important role of the community college in the US higher education system. Create opportunities for students. Think innovatively about new programs that will lead students to transfer to a four-year degree program or to enter the workforce. Find creative ways to raise funds for the college. Public-private partnerships are great ways to help new programs get started and to prepare valuable hands-on training experiences for students. Find ways to serve the community through partnerships with local industries or through sponsorship of educational events for local residents. With the recent increased awareness of the important role that community colleges play in the US higher education system, deans at two-year institutions will have a huge impact on the workforce of the twenty-first century. “In the coming years,” President Barack Obama has noted, “jobs requiring at least an associate degree are projected to grow twice as fast as jobs requiring no college experience. We will not fill those jobs—or keep those jobs on our shores—without the training offered by community colleges” (Obama, 2009). By ensuring access to education through open enrollment and low-cost innovative programming, community college deans remain integral to getting people started on the path to the American Dream. 43
References Kingkade, T. (2012, December 26). Community college funding shrinks, for-profit enrollment grows: Treasury report. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/26/community-college-for-profit_n_2340958.html Merisotis, J. P. & T. R. Wolanin. (1999). Community college financing: Strategies and challenges. Washington, DC: The Institute for Higher Education Policy. Obama, B. (2009, July 14). Excerpt from remarks on the American Graduation Initiative delivered in Warren, MI. White House. (2010, October 4). Building American skills through community colleges. Retrieved from http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education/higher-education/building-american-skills-through- community-colleges 44
Chapter Five A Successful Career as an Online Dean Pamela Monaco Southwestern College of Professional Studies Now that online education has become an educational option at most colleges and universities, your college has given some serious consideration to how to brand online education more effectively in the market. The arrival of massive open online courses (MOOCs) showed potential students worldwide what could be done to make an online course more visually appealing, to provide instant feedback on some types of exercises, and to bring the sense of the professor’s presence into the asynchronous experience. Your provost was one of the thousands who signed up for a MOOC; she kept reading about this “disruption” and wanted to see what it was all about. She is convinced your college should not miss this opportunity to participate in this new kind of online course. The IT department is a bit concerned that should such a course be delivered, the department wouldn’t be ready to handle all the support it might need to offer; currently, online has been growing slowly but steadily and the IT department has been able to accommodate the demands. However, the IT department has wondered if now might be the time to change learning management systems (LMS), or at least consider a different hosting option. If the LMS changes, all the current courses may have to be revised. Staff in the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) are intrigued by the MOOC possibility, but no one has used the level of technology required, and there is concern that the production resources are just not available for this kind of project. You have looked at the courses presently being offered online and the faculty involved. Most tenured faculty have been reluctant about developing and delivering an online course. They discovered the extra time requirements to teach this kind of course and think faculty loads need to be adjusted to reflect online teaching assignments. Your university has been fortunate to have developed some very fine contingent faculty who teach most of these courses, and although the full-time faculty are happy someone else is doing the online teaching in their discipline, they are not convinced the courses are as rigorous as an on-the-ground course. You know some of the part-time faculty are doing a great job and they understand how to engage with students online. You find all of this conversation about online education in general, and MOOCs in particular, intriguing, and a good thing, too: your provost has tasked you with being the dean who will serve as point person as your university makes its way into online education. What do you need to think about as you get this initiative ready? Online course and program delivery began in the mid-1990s and quickly replaced or supplemented various kinds of distance education options offered by colleges and universities whose primary target was working adults and degree completion students. Residential colleges saw little reason to embrace online education, both because of a high level of skepticism about the quality of the teaching and learning experience in online education and because of the belief that students attended a traditional or residential university in order to experience life on a college campus. Some large land-grant universities started to offer online courses through their continuing or extended education offices, and some even offered full degrees online. After the financial problems of 2008–2009, many colleges, particularly state college systems that have continued to operate with lower state funding levels, realized that online offerings provided a revenue stream and opened the possibility to new markets of students. Today, it is the rare college or university that does not offer some online courses. The role of dean of online learning can take many permutations. Sometimes the job title is very clear, sometimes not. Frequently, the well-defined position of leadership for online learning occurs within schools or colleges of continuing education. In other cases, being dean of online learning means providing leadership for a traditional disciplinary-defined school or college, and part of the course offerings include some, or perhaps mostly, online courses or programs. The difference between these two types of deanships has more to do with reporting structure, the amount of time devoted to concerns about online learning, differing divisions of 45
revenue sharing, and the kind of networking required than with anything else. Most important, no matter where situated in a college or university, the dean whose portfolio includes online instruction will have to be focused on assuring a quality program to an often skeptical audience, both internally and externally. If the online dean is situated in a school or college of professional or continuing education, or as a separate university within a state system, the online dean will be actively engaged with the leadership of the other colleges or universities in the college or system. Often, in these circumstances, the online dean negotiates with other existing degree programs to migrate courses or programs to online delivery. Negotiate is the appropriate term for these discussions. The dean will want to work out agreements about intellectual property for courses developed for online delivery. Will a particular course be taught only by the person who was involved with the original course? If so, for how long? Can the particular course be taught by others in the original design? Part of the appeal of online learning, in addition to the potential for new student populations, is the ability to standardize a course and replicate it many times without additional investment in design. Another point of discussion is the disbursements of the revenue return. In many institutions, there is a revenue share agreement between the online office or college and the department, school, or college that manages the curriculum. The online dean’s office will want to develop the policies to regulate this process. It will be important to outline who pays for the instructor, whether teaching online is part of a teaching load or overload, what oversight of delivery the online dean maintains, and what percentage of net revenue is shared, and with which office. In these circumstances, it also is wise to have clear policies in place about staffing decisions, about who does what with teaching evaluations, about the support and training offered and by whom, and about the scheduling decisions, including when and under what circumstances to no longer schedule a course or program. The traditional method of teaching, often referred to as face-to-face instruction, seems fairly simple in retrospect. Departments know how many sections to offer, the time in a classroom is universally calculated with exceptions for lab, studio, or practicum courses, and faculty are expected to bring scholarship into the class, stay current in the field, and provide a quality learning experience. Online learning requires rethinking everything one knows about teaching and learning. In a traditional class, the professor is expected to bring to his or her lectures, readings, and assignments the latest theory and development, as appropriate in the field. In the online environment, updated curriculum must be supported by updated technology. The dean will be involved in discussions about updates to the learning management system, new technology tools, and the rapid evolution of defining the qualities of a good online course. Accrediting bodies want the online class to meet the standards of the on-the-ground class. What does the Carnegie unit mean when students can log in to class whenever it is convenient for them? How do we calculate the amount of time a student is engaged in the class? Is this important? With a host of options available for synchronous components of an online class, many colleges encourage this, but distance learners may be in different time zones or have working hours or obligations that prevent this level of engagement. Ongoing concerns about student authentication have resulted in retina scans, cameras that record who is taking an exam, remote disabling of the Internet during a test and even recognition of typing patterns. These solutions carry a price, including responsibility of managing the process. Depending on to whom one is marketing online courses or programs, the mechanisms that answer the critics’ concerns about online integrity can be viewed as impediments by students. With the high competition in the online market and the push on many campuses to use online education for a revenue stream, balance must be a goal. Teaching online courses well takes dedicated, innovative professors. Teaching online requires considerably more time than traditional teaching. The level of faculty involvement in the online class matters, which means an online instructor should try to be in the online class daily. More and more colleges are mandating instructor engagement a set number of times during the week. The instructor will have to devote considerable time developing the course and maintaining the course. The more technologically sophisticated a course or the more a class relies on materials or experiences other than the traditional printed text, the greater the need to make sure the course remains current and up-to-date. Although full-time faculty may enjoy teaching the specialized courses in their discipline, many colleges rely on contingent faculty to teach service and lower-level courses online. Both of these populations, full-time and part-time faculty, will need training in how to teach online and then monitoring, to ensure the quality of the course and the teaching. Service and lower-level courses may be standardized because the investment in the course development and the alignment with the face-to-face course are best realized through replication. Expect to have some discussions about the competing desires for standardized courses and academic freedom. The wise dean has to think about workload issues and compensation of the faculty who teach online because the time commitment is different from a traditionally offered course. If there is a centralized center for teaching and learning, each college or university will want to make sure part-time faculty are receiving 46
appropriate training and support for online instruction, and this, too, must be calculated with respect to contingent employee contracts. Will an adjunct be paid for training, or will the training be considered an opportunity for professional development? Much of the ongoing training that online teaching now requires, from upgrades to the learning management system to the use of new tools, should be offered through a center for teaching and learning, but the dean’s office will want to provide input into the setting of standards and expectations. Who will perform quality checks to make sure the course is ready for online delivery each semester? Who will perform a peer review, and during what time frame of observation and during what point in the semester? Does a peer review even need to occur during the active semester, or should the review occur after the semester so the entire teaching experience can be reviewed? If contingent faculty will not be widely used, the dean needs to develop policies about who teaches online, what the balance between traditional and online courses may be, and consider how policies, such as office hour requirements, might need to be weighed. Student behavior in an online course has become of increasing interest. The impact of social media and the erasure of boundaries in electronic communication mean that not all students are well prepared for academic discourse, tolerance of differing points of view, or social interaction in online communities. Netiquette policies set expectations, but problems may still occur. Increasingly, the mental and emotional health of online students is receiving attention. In many online environments, the college, the instructor, and the students all can be in different locations, even different states or countries. A faculty member confronting a student in crisis needs to know whom to call or consult, and the solution is not to wait until someone returns to work during normal business hours on the campus. Gray areas will continue to deepen. What kind of protection does the college need to provide an instructor or another student against aggressive or bullying behavior that occurs because of the online environment? The online dean wants to consider these situations before a need for intervention occurs. As a dean of online education, your will bear responsibility for increasing enrollments. You will be responsible for ensuring the online offerings have the same rigor as the traditional offerings, and you will work closely with the admissions office to guide policies and standards regarding those seeking online offerings. It will be important also to work closely with the recruitment and marketing offices, because the regulations of “distance education” at the state and federal levels must be closely understood and monitored. Many, if not most, colleges and universities have a staff position responsible for “state authorization.” States have long regulated institutions offering education within their boundaries, but the explosion of online instruction has brought nuances to the definition of “presence” in another state. Each state’s regulations must be carefully studied. For example, if your college employs contingent faculty at a distance, some states consider the hiring of their residents as having a presence in that state. If your college’s online programs or courses include practicums or internship requirements, placing students in these experiences in other states could also signal presence in those other states. The strategies for marketing and for requirements that are used to generate online enrollments must be viewed in light of state authorization rules. Some states impose very high fees to operate in their boundaries, even if “operate” means only enrolling students in an online program. If a state’s fees or requirements to operate are too high or stringent, it will be essential to make clear to prospective applicants that they cannot enroll in your online program if they reside in certain states. As of 2010, the federal government issued new regulations with regard to “program integrity” that enforce the need to seek authorization to operate in another state if students of other states are to receive federal financial aid. As online education continues to evolve, one should expect that regulations will do so too. Higher education is no longer a predicable business for those in academic administration. Online education is just one of the ways our evolving global world and technological advances have changed what it means to “go” to college. As on online dean, or one who is considering this career option, keep in mind the following questions: What is the responsibility of the online dean’s office with respect to enrollment goals for the entire college and university? An online dean must be comfortable thinking beyond academic concerns and considering and understanding the role of enrollment management. Does this college have the resources—financial, instructional, and technological—to be competitive in the online market? How comfortable are you, as an academic administrator, in a world without carefully defined boundaries? Maintaining work-life balance is challenging for any academic administrator, but the online world is always awake and always looking for more attention. 47
48
Chapter Six Moving from Professor to Dean Bonnie D. Irwin Eastern Illinois University After serving a term as chair of the faculty senate, a professor found herself increasingly frustrated with the narrow view of her departmental colleagues and why they did not see the bigger picture of the university that she had become accustomed to seeing. When the position of graduate dean became open, she decided to apply. She had taught many graduate courses, had served on the graduate council, and believed she had some unique skills to bring to the position, a combination of experiences that, when coupled with her admirable campus and departmental service, made her a well-qualified candidate. When she became a finalist for the position, some of her longtime colleagues and friends questioned her loyalty to her department and her discipline. Knowing she would control budget decisions, graduate assistant assignments, and a host of other resources, some friends worried that their relationship would change and that they could no longer trust her once she was on the “dark side.” More than one colleague approached her with the words “I hope we can still be friends.” Did this mean that they expected favors from her or that they feared they would not be able to go out to dinner anymore? Even if a dean believes that she is the same person as she was as a faculty member, others will think differently. Jokes about the dark side aside, administrators have a different relationship with their institution and their faculty than they had before joining the administrative team. Imagine wearing a neon side above your head that reads “Dean.” You may not be able to see it, but others certainly will. 49
ATTENDING SOCIAL AND CEREMONIAL OCCASIONS Many deans find the first few months an awkward transition, especially if they have become dean on a campus where they have spent significant time as a faculty member. Invitations to regular informal social occasions may dwindle because your friends are unsure if you can or will associate with them on the same level. Faculty friends imagine that your day is chock full of all manner of busywork, and that you no longer have time for lunch. There is some truth to that assumption, as your calendar becomes something that can control you if you do not control it. You may find that you must reach out to those who harbor doubts about your availability if you indeed want to see them. There will be no lack of invitations, however—to receptions, ceremonies, dinners, and luncheons. These are less social occasions than working ones. The dean becomes accustomed to standing and waving as others applaud her mere presence. Often your seat will be assigned, and often that assignment is at a head table, meaning that you are on display throughout the event. If you are not naturally a gregarious person, you will learn to become one, making small talk with whomever is at your table or in your company at such events. At these ceremonial occasions, you will often be asked to give welcoming or concluding remarks, and on some days, particularly in the months of April or May, you may have several different such occasions stacked up. Preparing a stock of core messages with specific talking points for each audience will help streamline the preparation process until these sorts of events become second nature. It is essential to learn who the audience will be and what kinds of remarks are expected before setting off to the next reception. You also may be buttonholed at such events by those who have specific questions for you. Some of these questions are easily answered, but others will entail research. Faculty can just show up at events; deans need to prepare and always carry a pad or smartphone on which to jot a couple of notes. 50
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The Resource Handbook For Academic Deans Hardcover Laura L Behling

  • 1.
    The Resource HandbookFor Academic Deans Hardcover Laura L Behling download https://ebookbell.com/product/the-resource-handbook-for-academic- deans-hardcover-laura-l-behling-10007800 Explore and download more ebooks at ebookbell.com
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  • 6.
    Contents The American Conferenceof Academic Deans Preface Editor’s Introduction PART ONE: BECOMING A DEAN Chapter 1: Preparing for a Successful Career in Academic Leadership Chapter 2: A President’s Perspective on Serving as a Dean Chapter 3: The Qualities of Effective Senior Academic Leadership Chapter 4: The Role of the Academic Dean in a Community College Dean as Generalist Faculty Unions Teaching Focus The Community College Student Population Public Funding Chapter 5: A Successful Career as an Online Dean Chapter 6: Moving from Professor to Dean Attending Social and Ceremonial Occasions Interacting with Faculty Becoming Accustomed to Handlers Sharing One’s Views Learning to Find Reward in the Accomplishments of Others Establishing New Networks Chapter 7: Understanding the Social Roles of a Dean Chapter 8: Working with a Former Dean Chapter 9: Understanding Institutional Climate Leadership Style and Situation A Model for Leader Effectiveness Chapter 10: Balancing Management and Leadership Management and Leadership Styles Why People Follow Leaders 2
  • 7.
    PART TWO: ROLESAND RESPONSIBILITIES OF BEING A DEAN Chapter 11: The Case for Servant Leadership Basic Principles of Servant Leadership Benefits of Servant Leadership Resources about Servant Leadership Chapter 12: The Art and Science of Good Decision Making Factors Leading to Poor Decisions Decision-Making Basics Chapter 13: The Art of Governance Chapter 14: Building a Shared Vision of Your Institution An Uneasy Definition Some Questions to Ask Regarding your Own Institution Chapter 15: Managing Change Successfully Using Data or External Pressures Matching Changes and Processes to A Strategic Plan Communicating Chapter 16: Understanding the Game and Your Team Chapter 17: The Dean’s Role in Mentoring Chapter 18: Academic Deans Balancing Professional and Personal Lives Reframing Balance from Subject to Object Motivation and Momentum Flow, Progress, and Presence Chapter 19: Modeling Active Engagement in Teaching and Research Chapter 20: Staying Alive in Teaching and Research Get Help Have a Back-Up Plan Don’t Overdo it Chapter 21: Self-Assessment, or How Do I Know If I Am Succeeding? Chapter 22: Discerning When to Transition to New Opportunities Chapter 23: When to Move On, Ready or Not 3
  • 8.
    PART THREE: WHATA DEAN DOES Chapter 24: The Administrative Dance Managing Up Managing Down Managing Across The Communication of Managing Up, Down, and Across Chapter 25: Establishing and Implementing Your Vision Vision, Mission, and Values Environmental Scanning, or the Swot Analysis Strategy and Tactics Chapter 26: Working with Regional Accreditors Know the Accreditation Standards of your Regional Accrediting Agency Serve on a Visiting Team or a Substantive Change Committee Become a Leader in your Institution’s “Climate of Assessment” Chapter 27: The Dean’s Roles and Responsibilities in General Education Curriculum Development Chapter 28: The Role of the Dean in Department and Program Review Why How The Dean’s Response Chapter 29: The Backward Design Process of Curriculum Development Curriculum Development as a Process Context: Philosophy and Metaphors Learning Outcomes: Knowledge, Skills, and Dispositions Resources: Faculty, Facilities, and Time Curriculum Maps and Matrices for Programs and Departments Chapter 30: Curricular Development in an International Setting Chapter 31: Online Curriculum Development Chapter 32: Representing Your Institution Well Chapter 33: The Entrepreneurial Dean Chapter 34: Creating Powerful Collaborations between the Academic and Development Divisions 4
  • 9.
    Chapter 35: ProductivelyWorking with Advancement and Development PART FOUR: FOSTERING TEAMWORK ACROSS THE INSTITUTION Chapter 36: Using Conflict-Handling Modes to Solve Problems and Create New Collaborations The Conflict-Handling Modes When is the Best Time to use Each Conflict-Handling Mode? Chapter 37: What Teams Are You On Now? Chapter 38: Deans in the (Academic) Game Teams for Deans The Role of the Dean Within Academic Teams Chapter 39: Working with Other Deans Collaboration and Communication Resource Sharing Setting the Stage for Collaboration Chapter 40: The Role of the Dean in Decision Making at the University Level Chapter 41: Productive Relationships with Department Chairs and Program Directors Budget Data Personnel Challenges Chapter 42: Developing Productive Relationships with Assistant and Associate Deans Chapter 43: Effective Hiring and Evaluation of Staff Identify the Need Define the Responsibilities and Outcomes Consider the “Fit” Screen and Interview Effectively Evaluate to Nurture Performance PART FIVE: DEVELOPING FACULTY EXCELLENCE AND ACHIEVING STUDENT SUCCESS 5
  • 10.
    Chapter 44: SettingExpectations, Intentionality, and Clarity in Faculty Hiring First Meeting of the Search Committee Narrowing the Pool and Initial Interview Campus Interview Next Steps Chapter 45: Diversifying the Campus Hiring Curriculum Chapter 46: Enhancing Faculty Relationships through Transparent and Consistent Evaluation Annual Evaluations Tenure and Promotion Evaluations Common Expectations and Best Practices Chapter 47: Contingent Faculty Leading from the Middle Effecting Change in Context Effecting Change in Context II: The Hiring and Reappointment Process Chapter 48: Working with People in Conflict A Conversational Analysis Useful Language Important Reminders No one Wants to be Difficult Chapter 49: The Responsibility of Leadership in Dealing with Difficult People The Human Context in Higher Education The Responsibility of Leadership Some Practical Ideas for Everyday Survival Chapter 50: The Bully on Campus Chapter 51: Difficult Disciplinary Decisions Strategic and Proactive Faculty Development Dismissal for Poor Performance or for Cause Chapter 52: Legal Issues in Faculty Evaluation Procedures and Criteria for Evaluation Discrimination How to Address Discrimination Claims 6
  • 11.
    Academic Freedom Chapter 53:Addressing Concerns about Harassment, Grievances, and Discrimination Harassment New Focus on Title IX Chapter 54: Fostering Excellent Teaching Chapter 55: Creating and Maintaining a Supportive Environment for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity Connecting and Coordinating Empowering and Supporting Recognizing and Celebrating Chapter 56: Engaging Faculty in Service and Community Work What is Service, and why is it Important? “These are the Decisions we Want to Make” Mavericks: “Riding the Wave” to Faculty Service Would Faculty Volunteer for Service if it Were not Required? Chapter 57: “The War of the Worlds” Provide Leadership Suggest a Model Close the Loop Acknowledge Success Chapter 58: Effectively Working with Student Media Professionalism Prior Review Transparency and Access Curriculum Engagement Chapter 59: Managing Student Relationships Chapter 60: Establishing an Effective Academic Advising Program Who is your Student Population? Who is Doing the Advising? Training of Faculty Advisers Philosophy or Mission Physical Space Services Proximity to Other Offices Evaluation and Recognition for Effective Academic Advising 7
  • 12.
    Chapter 61: FacultyMentoring and Evaluation Chapter 62: Learning How to Work “In Between” Chapter 63: Supervising Faculty The Contributors ACAD: The American Conference of Academic Deans Index 8
  • 13.
  • 14.
    Cover design: MichaelCook Cover image: © Vectorig/iStockphoto Copyright © 2014 by the American Conference of Academic Deans Published by Jossey-Bass A Wiley Brand One Montgomery Street, Suite 1200, San Francisco, CA 94104–4594 —www.josseybass.com/highereducation No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646- 8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748- 6011, fax 201-748-6008, or online at www.wiley.com/go/permissions. Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. Readers should be aware that Internet websites offered as citations and/or sources for further information may have changed or disappeared between the time this was written and when it is read. Jossey-Bass books and products are available through most bookstores. To contact Jossey-Bass directly call our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-956-7739, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3986, or fax 317- 572-4002. Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and is on file at the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-1-118-72042-4 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-72051-6 (ebk.); ISBN 978-1-118-72040-0 (ebk.) 10
  • 15.
    The Jossey-Bass Higherand Adult Education Series 11
  • 16.
    THE AMERICAN CONFERENCEOF ACADEMIC DEANS The mission of the American Conference of Academic Deans (ACAD) is to provide academic leaders who share a commitment to student learning and to the ideals of liberal education with networking and professional development opportunities and to support them in their work as educational leaders. ACAD is committed to the ideals of a liberal education and supports academic leaders in their work. ACAD supports academic administrators as they strive to promote and support the ideals of a liberal education. ACAD is a membership-driven organization that provides academic leaders with the resources they need to excel in their field. http://www.acad-edu.org/ 12
  • 17.
    PREFACE A few yearsago, literally on the eve of becoming the chair of ACAD’s board of directors, I had coffee and a chat with Joseph Subbiondo. Joe is currently the president of the California Institute of Integral Studies, but in the 1980s, he served a term as the ACAD board chair. In our conversation, he shared a thought that resonated powerfully. All of us who serve as academic administrators first completed advanced degrees and climbed up the professorial ranks. After spending years mastering the work of teaching and researching in our first disciplines, we were called to work for which we were mostly unprepared. We became academic administrators, and then, Joe explained, we had to master a second discipline. The parallel really is striking. The process of earning a doctoral degree involves tremendous focus and, even today, does not commonly include purposeful preparation for college teaching. Rewards are the fruits of narrowing our field of view and excluding distractions. Even as part of a team, the doctoral student must demonstrate the ability to make and defend original contributions, and the doctoral degree becomes, in a sense, a license to do autonomous research. When we begin faculty work—teaching, doing research, contributing to campus governance, and serving the profession—we quickly learn that doctoral study really only prepares us for part of the job, and we must learn from our colleagues and from trial and error how to do the other parts. After several years, we might come to feel that we have achieved some degree of mastery of the first discipline. When making the transition from faculty work to academic administration, we discover that there is little in faculty work that prepares us for administrative work. The community of colleagues on our campus that supported our mastery of the first discipline isn’t there to support mastery of the second discipline. The mission of ACAD is to provide academic leaders who share a commitment to student learning and the ideals of liberal education with networking and professional development opportunities and to support them in their work as educational leaders. Joe Subbiondo put that mission in perspective for me: ACAD exists to help deans, provosts, and other senior academic leaders master their second discipline. ACAD was founded in 1945. At that time, the college president leaders of the American Association of Colleges, the forerunner of today’s American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), recognized the need for an organization to support academic deans in their work. ACAD and AAC&U have remained closely linked and jointly sponsor an annual meeting. For the past two years, ACAD has offered a highly successful Dean’s Institute, an all-day workshop on the day before the annual meeting. ACAD also provides workshops at some of AAC&U’s Network for Academic Renewal meetings. In addition to its connection to AAC&U, ACAD enjoys a productive relationship with the Phi Beta Kappa Society, jointly sponsoring a biennial conference in odd-numbered falls. The first joint ACAD-PBK conference was on the topic of leadership for the liberal arts, and the subsequent conferences have explored liberal arts themes relating to global liberal education, science and the liberal education, and the humanities. Online, ACAD provides its members a very active discussion list on which deans and provosts discuss issues and get advice from their colleagues. In fact, one of the most significant benefits of ACAD membership is the fellowship of other academic leaders. ACAD remains a “conference” of individuals, as opposed to an association of institutions, reflecting its long-standing commitment to networking and professional development. One of ACAD’s most important resources is The Resource Handbook for Academic Deans, and we are very pleased to introduce this third edition. In this significantly expanded and updated version of the Handbook, academic leaders speak to academic leaders, covering more than fifty topics organized in reference style. I have every confidence that experienced and new leaders alike will find this Handbook a valuable source of information and, I hope at least occasionally, inspiration. Previous editions of the Handbook were published and distributed by ACAD, but we are happy to celebrate a new partnership with Jossey-Bass in publishing this edition. I am very grateful to my board colleagues for helping to nurture the partnership, especially Linda Cabe Halpern (James Madison University), my predecessor as chair, and Marc Roy (Goucher College), the current chair. Our gratitude is also extended to Sheryl Fullerton, executive editor at Jossey-Bass for her commitment to building a relationship with ACAD. Laura Rzepka, ACAD’s executive director, makes everything happen at ACAD, and her dedication to ACAD’s mission is immensely appreciated. Finally, many thanks to Laura Behling (Knox College) for selflessly assuming the editorship of the Handbook and wrangling dozens of contributors. Carl O. Moses Susquehanna University 13
  • 18.
    Past chair, ACADboard of directors 14
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    EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION The rolesand responsibilities of college and university senior academic leaders—deans and provosts, and their associate and assistant deans and provosts—are many and diverse. From faculty hiring and evaluation to curriculum development and review, from working with presidents and other colleagues across campuses, to responding to external constituencies, including those who are involved in fundraising—the work of the college and campus academic leaders is not easy, and is becoming even more complex. This third edition of The Resource Handbook for Academic Deans intends to provide valuable perspective and support on the challenges and opportunities senior academic leaders encounter, both deans of colleges within larger universities and deans or provosts who serve as an institution’s chief academic officer (including those associate and assistant deans and provosts who work closely with such leaders). ACAD, partially through this Resource Handbook, provides support for a variety of senior academic leaders because the position of “dean” requires different roles and responsibilities depending on the type of institution. Such a diversity of experiences provides a diversity of perspectives, some of which may be more relevant to your particular position, but all of which provide valuable insight. As the major publication of the American Conference of Academic Deans (ACAD), the national association providing connection among academic leaders at senior leadership levels, this Resource Handbook, written by academic leaders and ACAD members from across the country, delivers that diverse perspective. Topics and approaches to each topic have been suggested and written by these leaders who are drawing on their own experiences—senior academic leaders who have provided leadership for general education programs, who have understood the cycles of their own careers, and who have engaged in strategic planning, to name just a few of the more than fifty topics covered in the Resource Handbook. You’ll find a multitude of topics, many of which point to the new work that now takes an academic leader’s attention, such as developing online courses and curriculum. You’ll find entries that speak to the unique work of deans at different kinds of institutions, two- and four-year colleges, as well as universities, public and private. And you’ll find that many of the topics are the ones to which senior academic leaders always must be attentive—faculty development, curriculum development, evaluation, teamwork, and, not surprisingly to those who have done or aspire to the work of a senior academic leader, the challenges of personnel and personalities on campuses. Each entry has been written by an academic leader and reflects her or his own views and perspectives, based on personal experience. You’ll find that brief scenarios begin each entry, allowing you to imagine the type of experience that you may encounter (or to find comfort in the similarities of the work we all do); entries then explore the issues raised in each scenario so as to provide you with ways particular concerns may be addressed. Each entry closes with several points of advice, including questions to ask when dealing with particular issues, perspectives to take, points to remember, or clear suggestions to help you in your work. More than forty-five contributors from around the country and from a range of types of institutions contributed to the volume, underscoring the importance of collaboration, conversation, and collegiality. As many deans and other academic leaders will confess, this can often be lonely work, with few, if any, people to talk with on campus about the issues detailed in this volume. ACAD’s Resource Handbook for Academic Deans understands that, and thus, offers readers a collection of perspectives on issues common to all of us. Thanks to the contributors for their willingness to share their wisdom and experiences, and to Lisa Ijiri, Mariangela Maguire, Pete Skoner, and two anonymous reviewers for their careful and thoughtful critiques of the Handbook. Just as ACAD remains true to its mission as a conference of academic leaders and colleagues, so too does ACAD’s Resource Handbook provide a tangible resource for senior academic leaders to be thoughtfully effective for the good of their colleges and universities. October 2013 Laura L. Behling Knox College 15
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    Chapter One Preparing fora Successful Career in Academic Leadership Understanding Your Role Marc M. Roy Goucher College July 1, 2012. Charles Sessions approached his office and inwardly smiled. There was his name on the door: Dean Sessions. He could not help but feel some pride as he opened the door, set down his briefcase, and sat in the executive chair behind a beautiful desk, complete with a new computer, tablet, and smartphone. The moment did not last long. Dean Sessions felt a sinking feeling rapidly replacing the pride of a few moments ago when he noticed the piles of folders left by his predecessor. As his assistant knocked on the door and said, “The president would like to see you in five minutes, and you have an appointment with the dean of students at 9:30,” Dean Sessions had just one thought. “What have I gotten myself into?” The feeling of being overwhelmed as a new dean is quite common. Because most deans start as faculty, very few deans have had formal leadership training. Instead, deans have risen through the ranks, all the while engaging in campus service and leadership, such as chairing committees, or directing departments, programs, or special centers on their campuses. Because they have knowledge of the institution, and the respect of the faculty, often these faculty leaders are tapped to serve as assistant or associate deans, giving them some chance to learn by watching their deans. However, there is not a “dean’s school” for aspiring deans, and many deans learn their roles and responsibilities as they begin their jobs. The learning curve can be especially steep if the dean has moved to a new institution. The roles of deans vary considerably from one institution to another, but there are similarities. In small colleges, the dean is usually the chief academic officer and may also have the title of vice president for academic affairs or provost. In larger universities, the dean is the head of a college and, along with the deans of other colleges, reports to the provost. Regardless of their scope of responsibilities and their type of institution, people who serve as senior academic leaders at the dean, provost, or associate or assistant levels, will encounter similar scenarios, challenges, and opportunities. Metaphorically, deans work between a rock and a hard place, and the best way to move in that tight space is to realize that good relationships are essential for success. On the one hand, deans are champions for the academic division, especially for the faculty. On the other hand, they are administrative officers and must keep the best interests of the college in mind. These positions inevitably come into conflict. For example, the faculty may want larger departmental budgets, and there may be good reasons for increases. However, the college or university may not have the financial resources necessary to increase the budgets of some or all departments. What should be the highest priority? Should all departments be treated the same? Can the dean try to get additional funds? Any decision is likely to be met with criticism from one corner or another. Therefore, decisions about all matters need to be presented clearly so that faculty members can understand the rationale, even if they do not agree with the outcome. Even then, there is no escaping the position between the rock and the hard place. Deans are first and foremost academic leaders working with faculty members to shape the curriculum and provide educational opportunities that are consistent with the college’s mission and values. The dean needs to articulate an overarching vision while refraining from simply imposing this vision on the faculty. Along with the college or university mission and strategic plan, the vision should guide decisions about curricular changes, hiring of faculty and staff, and budgeting. There is a natural tension between serving as an academic leader and participating in shared governance. The faculty are responsible for most curricular decisions, and the dean 17
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    must lead, oftenfrom behind. To walk between this rock and a hard place, a dean must be an excellent communicator. The quality and timing of one’s oral and written communication skills can lead to success or sink a dean’s career. Seemingly small mistakes, such as typographical errors, can be interpreted as sloppiness or a lack of caring. Faculty members want to read high-quality academic prose, but vice presidents and staff members often prefer clear, brief messages. The faculty and staff want as much transparency as possible. Although some issues are necessarily confidential, openness helps to build trust and effective working relationships. How things are said is often as important as what is said. Unfortunately, electronic communication is limited in its ability to convey the feelings and intentions behind our words. This frequently leads to misunderstandings. Many successful deans invite faculty and staff members to speak on the phone or in person rather than engage in lengthy e-mail exchanges. A quick way to choose a medium is to ask yourself: “Will it take more than a brief paragraph to explain the situation?” If the answer is yes, pick up the phone or call a meeting. Another useful guide comes from a question posed by a president: “Do you want your words to appear on the front page of the local newspaper?” In the age of nearly instant electronic communication, what we say, whether in writing or orally, can be shared around campus and across the country in moments, so choose your medium of communication as carefully as you choose your words. Deans look forward to the opportunities to wrestle with big ideas and provide visionary leadership, and this is an important role. New deans can be surprised to learn that much of a dean’s daily work is management. At times, managing situations, people, and budgets interferes with the time necessary for “big picture” thinking and leadership. However, careful management and appropriate attention to detail are also important in being a successful dean. One must clearly articulate expectations and hold faculty and staff members accountable for their responsibilities. At the same time, the dean needs to empower individuals to carry out their duties. Department chairs in particular often feel as though they have very little power and influence, making their jobs quite difficult. Deans can help those individuals understand the influence that they do have. When the dean supports decisions made by chairs (and assistant or associate deans), this empowers those individuals and helps them to be effective leaders. Being an effective manager and leader requires that deans be careful listeners, seeking out multiple points of view. Repeating back to another individual allows the dean to confirm that she has listened carefully: “What I hear you saying is that . . .” Some individuals will come to speak to the dean wanting little more than to be heard. They are not necessarily asking for the dean to solve a problem. After listening to a person air concerns, it can be helpful to ask what he would like to see done to resolve the problem and then guide the individual to find his own good solution. Another role of an academic dean is problem solving when others are not able to do so or when it is not appropriate for them to solve the particular problem. This too can involve moving between a rock and a hard place. If the dean imposes a solution without careful listening and consultation, there will inevitably be pushback because the solution was handed down from “the administration.” Engaging faculty and staff members in problem solving allows the dean to suggest possible solutions and work with the individuals to find a solution that is acceptable to all parties. However, there are times when policy issues come into play and the dean must make decisions and impose solutions. Using careful communication to convey the decisions can mitigate any pushback that might arise. Budget management is a critical part of a dean’s responsibilities. The chief financial officer can be the dean’s best friend or worst enemy. Building a good relationship with the CFO is important to success in managing budgets. Details are important. When seeking additions to the budget (or defending against cuts), clear, brief arguments are often the best way to make your case. Many college officers, unlike faculty, do not want to wade through lengthy arguments and justifications. The dean is also responsible for ensuring that departments and offices manage their budgets appropriately. A history of good management and balanced budgets is quite helpful when the dean is seeking increases in the budget. In contrast, frequent overspending will work against requests for additions to the budget. Another important role of the dean is to hire (or oversee hiring of) the best individuals possible. One must build a strong team of assistant or associate deans and administrative support individuals. A team that you can trust and rely on in all situations is priceless. It should go without saying that overseeing the hiring of new faculty will have long-term implications for the college or university. Bad decisions can lead to difficult tenure cases, or worse. Faculty members who are good teachers and scholars but who do not get along with their colleagues can cause years of frustration and difficulty. If those individuals are tenured, it can hurt a department for decades. In contrast, hiring individuals who work well with their colleagues leads to strong departments. When the dean hires faculty members who are excellent teachers, scholars, and department citizens, and when those faculty members are supported and mentored and perform to their best ability, 18
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    tenure cases canbe a “slam dunk.” Those individuals often become future leaders of the faculty who will work well with the dean’s successors. However, search committees are not always in agreement (amongst themselves or with the dean) about the best candidate, providing the dean with another opportunity to glide between a rock and a hard place. Many day-to-day responsibilities of the dean involve faculty and staff members, but the dean must work carefully also with other deans or vice presidents and the president. These relationships are also crucial to the success of a dean. In particular, a good working relationship with the dean of students can help to blend the boundaries between learning in and out of the classroom. Collectively, the senior leaders must support and protect the president, at least publicly. Making disagreements public can shorten a dean’s tenure dramatically. Supporting the president publicly, even when disagreeing privately, requires deft movements. The communications skills mentioned above are essential in these situations. Deans are also mentors and talent scouts. Deans need to mentor faculty, especially new department chairs, to help them develop the leadership skills necessary for them to be successful in their jobs. Fortunately, there are workshops and webinars to help department chairs. Search firms frequently send deans job advertisements and ask for recommendations of possible candidates. Deans should mentor associate deans so that they might someday move into a deanship themselves. Being a dean is a difficult job. There are numerous roles and responsibilities, and there is never enough time. Working with the faculty is often compared to herding cats. Although this can be a nearly impossible task, you can put out cat food. Publicly celebrating the success of others, giving credit to faculty and staff members where it is due (and criticizing only in private), allows a dean to guide individualistic and disparate faculty and to build the relationships that will lead to a successful and rewarding deanship. June 1, 2013. A week after graduation the campus was fairly quiet. Dean Sessions leaned back in his chair and sighed deeply. What a year it had been! There were plenty of challenges, some successes, and some things that he wished he had handled differently. He was reminded of the wise words he had heard at the ACAD annual meeting: Being a dean is not much different from being a scholar. One must learn to ask good questions, the right questions. One must learn to find good answers and help others find good answers. Perhaps most important, one must persuade others that the answers are well thought out and the conclusions are justified. And in the end, good relationships and good communication make it much easier to move between the rocks and the hard places. 19
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    Chapter Two A President’sPerspective on Serving as a Dean Philip A. Glotzbach Skidmore College Versions of this article have appeared in previous editions of ACAD’s Resource Handbook for Academic Deans; it has been revised and expanded for this edition. Dear colleague, Congratulations on your appointment as dean! I hope any feelings of uncertainty or trepidation associated with this new phase of your life are balanced by the promise of new opportunities now before you. Above all, I hope you are eager to do all you can to help make your college or university a better place for its students, faculty, and alumni. Your life now has changed—at least for the duration of your administrative tenure and, most probably, for the remainder of your academic career. From this point forward, you will view the world from a different perspective, and you must not be surprised when others cast you in an unfamiliar light. This certainly will be true if you have just arrived at a new school. But even if you are continuing at your current institution, you will notice a change in the attitudes of at least some faculty colleagues (even among those you have known for some time). Above all, people will expect new things of you. It is your job to live up to those expectations that are reasonable and challenge the ones that are not. As a dean, you are in a wonderful leadership position to advance the mission of your institution. If you work effectively with others, you can direct resources where they can be used most strategically; articulate, affirm, and if necessary raise academic standards; strengthen curriculum and pedagogy; support your faculty in achieving your school’s primary learning outcomes for your students; and through hiring and tenure decisions, shape your faculty for the next twenty to thirty years. Along the way, you will face obstacles that will challenge your intellect and test your spirit. In short, the position of academic dean can be, at once, a most demanding and a most rewarding administrative post. Leadership is the art of helping people accomplish together what they cannot do individually. Easily said, not always so easy to do. Your president is the overall leader of your institution. He or she expects you to be the leader of your faculty. So you now need to think more seriously about leadership than ever before: to become a student of leadership, actively develop your own leadership abilities, and work intentionally to cultivate leadership within the faculty (especially among department and committee chairs but also among both new and established faculty members). You will need to know what the faculty is thinking. You must care what the faculty is saying. You will be the administrative point-person in dealing with problems that arise within the faculty so your president does not have to play that role. At the same time, you must be the primary cheerleader for your faculty, its principal advocate within the administration, and a leading proponent of the intellectual life of your school. Following are some more specific suggestions to consider as you begin making the dean’s job your own. Even though this list includes fifteen entries, it does not begin to exhaust the inventory of your responsibilities. The range of topics covered in this third edition of the ACADResource Handbook for Academic Deans will give you a better sense of the scope of your new portfolio, along with sound advice about managing it. Still, writing as one who experienced this transition himself twenty years ago, and more recently as a president with specific expectations for his own academic administrators, I do hope the reflections offered here may prove helpful as you embark on this new and exciting stage of your professional life. 20
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    1. Focus ondoing what is best for your college or university, and your career will take care of itself. Be guided, above all else, by the mission of your college or university. Always place your institution first, other people second, and yourself third. If you focus, instead, on advancing your career, you will make decisions that will adversely affect your institution (and ultimately your professional prospects as well). Be assured that people will discover your real agenda, and they will judge you accordingly. This job is not about you; so check your ego at the door. Do not expect people to appreciate your, no doubt, admirable virtues; instead, focus on appreciating theirs. And if their virtues are not readily apparent, look harder until you find them. Maintain your humility. More deans fail from hubris than from lack of intelligence or administrative ability. Share the credit; take the blame. The great football coach Bear Bryant used to say, “If it’s good, we did it. If it’s really good, you did it. If it’s bad, I did it.” Write lots of thank-you notes. People will appreciate them, and it’s a great way to reinforce good behavior. Sometimes people will let you know when they appreciate something you’ve done. Keep a file of thank-you notes you receive—they will help to remind you that some people do, in fact, appreciate what you are doing. Just don’t take everything you read there at face value. Take satisfaction ultimately from the results of your efforts, not from the recognition of others. 2. Internalize the following mantra: “I am never not the dean.” Every word you speak always comes from the dean. There are no throwaway lines in your script. As a faculty member you could brainstorm with colleagues, try out crazy ideas, and make immodest proposals with relative impunity. In your new role and especially at the beginning of your deanship, you will need to do that kind of “blue-sky” thinking most often with other administrators and much less frequently—in fact, seldom— with faculty colleagues. Remember that the half-baked thought you toss off and immediately forget may be remembered by someone else as a promise (or threat!) and repeated to others. Prepare to have your most benign, innocuous, or well-intentioned statements and actions scrutinized, overinterpreted, sometimes misinterpreted, or blown out of all proportion. It goes with the territory. In short, pay close attention to what you say. Always. 3. Good administrative work is fundamentally about relationships, not transactions. Good relationships enable people to work together. No matter how well-intentioned you are or how brilliant your ideas, you will fail as a leader if people refuse to work with you. Even if you are not the smartest person in the room, or the one with all the good ideas (and no one has all the good ideas), you will succeed as a leader if you facilitate effective collaboration and shared decision making. To do so, you must work effectively with others, and they must be willing to work with you. Relationships ultimately stand or fall on the basis of trust. Be generous in offering trust to others; withhold it only when someone has proven that he or she will abuse it. This does not mean that you should be naive. Ronald Reagan was right to say, “Trust but verify.”1 But always open by offering trust. People must know they can trust you with extremely sensitive information. As a dean, you will come to possess information most people in your institution do not and cannot know—including details about some of your colleagues that you would rather not know. Dealing with this burden of confidential information is an inescapable dimension of your job. Be known as someone who is absolutely reliable in keeping confidences. And understand that some of your most significant achievements as a dean will involve matters that can never be discussed, much less celebrated, beyond a very small inner administrative circle. Keep your promises. Nothing builds trust more effectively than keeping promises. If people know that you will follow through on commitments you make, they will rely on you. The inverse is equally true. Remind yourself that it takes much longer to build trust than to lose it. Develop a reputation for fairness, honesty, and consistency, and trust will follow. Your college or university (indeed, the academic world as a whole) is a very small village. Assume that what you say about someone will get back to her. In fact, when talking about a third party, a good heuristic is to imagine him to be present in the conversation. Never play favorites. Be especially transparent and clear in your reasoning when you need to make an exception to a rule. Always consider the way an action or decision will look from the perspective of those it will most directly affect. Ask yourself how you would feel if you were in their situation. Consider, as well, how your decision will look to others who cannot know all the inner details. Build relationships that can survive disagreement. As Stephen Covey (1989) has written, “seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Demonstrate to people that you will listen to them—actively listen. You need not always agree, but acknowledge and credit what others are saying before you articulate a contrary position. 21
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    Be impatient withyourself but patient with others. Paradoxically, some of the very strengths you cultivated as a faculty member and that brought you to this juncture—especially mental quickness and, perhaps, impatience in moving things forward—can undermine your success as a dean. Your position gives you access to information and institutional perspectives not readily available to those outside the administration. So, when sharing that information, give people a chance to catch up and process what has become familiar to you but will be new to them. Work on giving others the time they need to think through a problem at their own pace, not yours. Let them finish their thoughts, even when it seems clear to you where they are heading. (Besides, they sometimes will surprise you.) Value their participation; honor their contributions to the process. Be mindful of your own fallibility. You may be wrong—even when you are convinced you are right. (Descartes to the contrary, very strong feelings of certainty never guarantee that one actually knows something.) Displaying a willingness to change your mind when faced with new facts or superior arguments also builds credibility. Be tolerant of disagreement and strive to create a climate in which contrasting views can be explored constructively. Be grateful when someone shows you a better way to think about an issue. Even if your thinking is correct as far as it goes, someone else may have a still-better idea or one that takes the conversation in a different direction. Be open to those possibilities. There are many worthy goals and even more paths to achieving them. Develop the art of encouraging others to collaborate with you in thinking through problems, and earn a reputation for valuing their ideas. Show that you have a tough skin, can tolerate criticism, enjoy vigorous discussion, and can hold your own in debate. Maintain your sense of humor. Being able to laugh at your own foibles shows that you are not overly impressed with yourself and encourages others to relate to you as a human being—not as someone defined entirely by his or her position. No one expects a dean to be perfect. So be willing to admit your mistakes; just try not to have to do so too often. 4. Above all, people want to know who you are and what you stand for. Following Machiavelli, understand that it is far more important for a dean to be respected than to be liked —or loved.2 There will be times when you need to make and own a difficult decision or take a tough or unpopular action. If you do so with integrity, others will respect you. One way you establish your values is to say no. Be clear about what you are not prepared to accept. Others will notice. Call people on unacceptable behavior (it is, of course, better to do this privately, but sometimes it needs to happen in public), and then forgive them. We all need “a shot at redemption” (Simon, 1986) from time to time. Develop a long memory for the good deeds of others and a short memory for slights and transgressions. In addition to your decisions and actions, you establish your values by what you praise. So be careful what you applaud and how much you do so. It’s much easier to step up your praise later on, if it is merited, than to take back praise once you’ve gone too far. If you really want to be loved, get a dog. 5. Be willing to fight when necessary, and when you must fight, fight to win. As noted earlier, the ability to foster collaboration is crucial to your success as a leader. Even so, upon very rare occasions, collaboration will be impossible and you will need to invoke alternative strategies. Sun Tzu was right to say that the best general is one who wins the war without ever having to fight a battle. The truly strategic thinker is able to diffuse problems in advance or neutralize opposition before it can coalesce into an effective force. But, alas, even the most competent leader cannot always meet this high standard. Therefore, first of all, it is important to know what you are willing to fight for—what you are prepared to do to preserve a core value or support a key initiative. Next, pick your battles carefully—even if you are in the right, some battles are just not worth the collateral damage. Deciding when to do battle and when to let something go is always an act of judgment. There is no algorithm to help you make such a decision—other than to say that one must never compromise on basic values. Third, when you must fight, always fight to win. As “Viper,” the commander of the training squadron in Top Gun informs his new class of hotshot pilots, in combat “there are no points for second place.” Finally, when it’s over, remember you’re all on the same team; do everything you can to repair relationships and return to collaboration (Simpson & Bruckheimer, 1988). 6. It is far better to complete a few high priority projects than to work on many and finish none. It is important to have some early successes, even if they are mostly symbolic. So as you begin your first year, pick one or two objectives you can accomplish that will be perceived as making an immediate difference, even if they do not represent the highest strategic priorities on your long-term list. Similar advice applies later on, as well. Identify those strategic initiatives that will make the most progress toward realizing long-term institutional goals. Then focus on those that are most readily achievable. 22
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    Remember the sloganof the Navy Seabees: “The difficult we do immediately; the impossible takes a bit longer.” An objective may be extremely important but unrealizable at a given moment. If so, defer it. Do what is possible first. You can always put something back on your list later on—when people are more ready to consider it and to help achieve it, or when the necessary resources are in place. Finish what you start. 7. Efficiency matters. Administrators, faculty members, and others will judge your effectiveness, in part, in terms of the efficiency of your office. In other words, they will ascribe the efficiency—or lack of efficiency—of your staff and subordinates to you. They also will judge you by how well you manage your staff—and by how effectively your people move work along. As you transition from the faculty to administration, your effectiveness will be determined in no small part by how well you turn over to others much of the paperwork and other tasks that for so long, as a faculty member, you did for yourself. Be intentional about sharing authority and power. Develop strong working relationships with your subordinates (e.g., associate deans). Help them earn your trust and expand their sphere of autonomy. Delegate the authority they need to do their jobs, but be aware that you cannot delegate responsibility—ultimately, responsibility in your division flows up to you. Resist upward delegation. Don’t assume you have to solve every problem someone brings into your office. Most problems belong to someone else—usually those who are trying to give them to you! Therefore, your first task is to identify the right person or group to address the issue. Then coach that person or those people to resolve it. Always ask, “Whose problem is it—who owns it?” Always stop before you commit to doing something and ask yourself, “Is this something I can or should do—and, if so, by when?” It is much easier to explain, in advance, why you cannot (or should not) do what someone wants than it is, after the fact, to explain why you failed to fulfill a commitment. Once you’ve made it clear whose problem it is, identify the next step(s) in the process, and encourage the owner to return later and report on progress.3 Ensure that information flows effectively in and out of your office and is managed well in between. Never let your office become an institutional black hole into which communications vanish never to be seen again. See to it that your office employs an effective paper-management and filing system—one that is organized according to the central ongoing tasks that you oversee (curriculum, faculty reviews, student matters, board matters, departmental issues, accreditation, assessment, and so on). You may find it helpful to distinguish the various categories through color-coding your office files. Make sure your principal assistant understands the importance of having an effective system, collaborate with her or him to design one, and see that it is implemented. Do it in whatever way makes best sense to you and your team. But do it. The worst possible use of your time is searching for a misplaced piece of paper. Discipline yourself to touch a piece of paper (or e-mail!) once: respond to it, refer it to a file, to your assistant, or to someone else, or relegate it to the trash. Think “OHIO”: only handle it once. Decide how to manage the notes from all those meetings that now will occupy such a large portion of your time. As you take your notes, delineate follow-up items to which you must attend personally and distinguish them from those you will delegate to others.4 Develop a system for your assistant to create and manage your project follow-up list, ensure that nothing gets lost, and keep you on track in following through on your commitments. Your assistant then can inform others as to the progress of key tasks, letting people know that you haven’t forgotten about their concerns. Give your executive assistant the guidelines he or she needs to manage your calendar and your day (rules for prioritizing meetings, scheduling desk time for you in addition to meetings, and so on). Try to reserve some time in each day to deal with the unexpected and unplanned problems that inevitably will crop up. Make sure your assistant communicates with those outside your office clearly and in ways that reflect your values. Remember that everything she or he says—and how it is said—will be attributed directly to you. Help your assistant learn to guard your time without walling you off from those who need to see you, and most especially without making people who do not gain immediate access to you feel unimportant. 8. You are still a teacher. In your administrative role, instead of students, you now are teaching members of your faculty (especially department chairs, program directors, and committee chairs), other administrators, and even members of the board of trustees. Think of yourself as running an extended graduate seminar on shared governance, curriculum, pedagogy, institutional history, and leadership, along with other key dimensions of your portfolio. As a dean, you must advocate for the academic programs in your college or university, but this advocacy can 23
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    never go injust one direction. You also must help the members of your faculty understand the larger institutional context in which they operate, just as you must help other administrators understand the academic perspective.5 Similarly, you must help department chairs themselves learn to function as mediators between their departments and the larger school or college. Effective mediation requires understanding both sides of the relationship and the willingness to advocate in both directions. 9. Administrative privilege entails corresponding responsibilities. Your administrative position gives you access to the highest levels of institutional decision making, and with that access comes a capacity to influence policy that no one on the faculty can possess. But this access to administrative decision making comes with a price. As a dean, you relinquish any right to complain to the faculty about administrative matters—for example, about not carrying the day in a budget or policy decision or the bad behavior of an administrative colleague. You now have three—and only three—options as you participate in administrative deliberations: (a) persuade others that your position is right, be persuaded by them of the merit of their views, or collaborate in crafting a compromise that you can embrace; (b) accept and implement a decision with which you disagree without communicating your disagreement beyond the administration; or (c) resign your position. There is no legitimate fourth option of going back to the faculty (or any other group outside the administration) to continue fighting a lost battle. In short, never bring an administrative conflict back to the faculty or position yourself with the faculty in opposition to your president (or provost or vice president for academic affairs). Doing so may provide you a short-term advantage with some constituency, but in the long run it can only fragment the faculty itself or divide the faculty as a whole from the administration. No president (or provost) worth his or her salt will countenance such behavior. 10. Be proactive in managing your boss. Anticipate the information he is likely to need from you and provide it before you are asked. Make sure she hears bad news from you first. Never bring him a problem without suggesting at least one or two possible solutions. Regardless of whether you report directly to your president, never surprise him or her in a meeting where others are present—and most especially, never do so in front of the board of trustees. Remember that just as your primary constituency is the faculty, your president’s is the board. 11. Prepare a yearly written plan of goals and major projects and assess your progress annually. Review your plan with your immediate superior, and refer to it throughout the year. Track your progress in achieving your goals. Keep a file of accomplishments. This file will be useful when you revise your CV and when you prepare your annual report to your boss, which you should do whether you are asked for one or not. 12. Don’t sacrifice your body to your job. Unlike a faculty position, in which the year is broken up by academic terms and breaks that give one time to recover and shift focus, administrative jobs are relentless and ongoing. Discipline yourself to eat well and to remain physically active. Take vacations that get you out of the office for blocks of time during which you can reconnect with yourself and the significant others in your life. As Vince Lombardi frequently remarked, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.” 13. Don’t sacrifice your mind to your job. Reserve time regularly in your schedule to plan and to reflect. Make it a point always to be reading something that interests you that is not directly related to your administrative job. If possible, keep your hand in teaching, and stay connected to your academic discipline. But if it proves impossible to do so—and it frequently is impossible, in these jobs—you still can (and must!) stay connected to current developments in the world of ideas in general. It is important that the members of your faculty continue to respect the ideas you bring to discussions. 14. Don’t sacrifice your spirit to your job. Deans face relentless demands. Issues will arise without warning, and without your ability to control them. Facing these challenges year in and year out can wear you down. Your position calls on you to be at your best when the stakes are highest and a misstep could prove to be most costly. It is easy to feel isolated and even fearful. In the end you have to find the resources to overcome your anxiety. But in doing so you are never alone. You should be able to seek counsel from your administrative colleagues and superiors. It is a sign of respect to ask them for help, and they should be more than willing to offer advice and support. Admitting your difficulties also helps you remain humble. The problems you face will be familiar to your counterparts at other institutions. So be intentional in building relationships with professional colleagues; develop a network of deans at other schools whom you respect and trust. Seek their advice. Create opportunities for mutual professional support and renewal. Join 24
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    ACAD. Attend professionalmeetings regularly. Discuss your most difficult challenges, and share success stories as well. 15. Always remember why you entered the academy in the first place—presumably, for a love of learning and the other intrinsic values you found there. A college or university should be a place that nurtures a flourishing life of the mind and spirit, and its ultimate success is measured in the educational and personal development of its students. Your job is to help make it so. Therefore, always consider the following questions when deliberating a course of action: “Will this decision serve to enhance or diminish my institution’s values and its capacity to fulfill its fundamental educational mission?” and, more specifically, “How will this decision affect our students?” To be an excellent dean, you need to respect and, yes, love both your institution and the members of your faculty. No one expects either a school or a faculty to be perfect. But these relationships should be marked by love all the same—even if you’re sometimes called on to provide some “tough love.” So if you cannot develop such a profound level of caring and affection for your faculty and institution, you need to find another job. In sum, as an academic dean, you are called on to be efficient, patient, ethical, courageous, visionary, and wise—certainly a daunting list of attributes. But if others did not see these traits in you, you would not have been appointed to your deanship in the first place. So even as you remain cognizant of your own limitations and practice humility, be honest as well in affirming your strengths. Just as you must know your faculty, follow the Socratic imperative and make sure that you know yourself best of all. In the final analysis, no one can tell you how to make the key decisions that will shape your deanship. You have to develop your own capacities for judgment and trust your instincts. Approach them as experiments, whose success or failure will be determined not a priori but after the fact—by the results they produce. But in making these inductive decisions, an abiding commitment to the core values of your college or university and a steadfast focus on the important work you have taken on will remain your most important assets. If you persist in that commitment and maintain such a focus throughout your tenure in office, you will have a profound influence over the direction of your institution. Virtually all of our schools are feeling the challenges of these times—financial, regulatory, political, ideological, and other trials that place in question not only our institutions’ core values but, in some cases, their very survival. But moments of great adversity also present great opportunities. It is a good bet that you have within you the capacity to provide the leadership your school requires to identify and capitalize on the opportunities that are present. Even if those opportunities are not obvious, it is your job to help bring them to light. Over time, realizing the difference you have made for your school will provide an enormous sense of professional and personal satisfaction. Indeed, many people who have moved from a deanship to other positions (e.g., a presidency) will tell you they enjoyed their time in the dean’s office more than in any other administrative position. My fondest hope is that you will have just such an experience. All best wishes for your success! 25
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    Notes 1. Reagan repeatedthis phrase frequently—especially in the context of arms negotiations with the Soviet Union. Ironically, as he was aware, Reagan was quoting a Russian proverb that was a favorite of Lenin. 2. Discerning readers will note that I have taken a liberty here. In The Prince, Machiavelli considers the merits of a prince’s being loved versus his being feared—probably the right contrast for sixteenth-century Italy, but certainly not the right one for the twenty-first-century dean’s office. Today a dean who is feared by the faculty (or others) is most likely dysfunctional and destined for a short term of office. On the other hand, a dean who is respected can lead effectively and remain in office long enough to accomplish important work. See NiccolÒ Machiavelli, The Prince, in The Portable Machiavelli, trans. and ed. Peter Bondanella and Mark Musa (New York: Penguin Books, 1979), chapter XVII, pp. 130–33. 3. A very helpful (short) book on this topic, which should be required reading for any new dean, is The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey, by Kenneth Blanchard, William Oncken Jr. and Hal Burrows (New York: Harper Collins, 1989). 4. Levenger’s “Annotation Ruled” notepads (an example of one commercial product) make it easy to differentiate a to-do list from informational notes. There certainly are other options, including creating your own unique structure within your notes. But it really is worth the effort to decide how you want to do this. So create an effective strategy and then employ it consistently over time. 5. See Richard Morrow, Strategic Leadership: Integrating Strategy and Leadership in Colleges and Universities (Praeger Publishers: Westport, CT, 2007). 26
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    References Covey, S. (1989).The seven habits of highly effective people. New York: Simon and Schuster. Chapter 5. Simon, P. (1986). You can call me Al. Graceland. Burbank, CA: Warner Bros. Simpson, D. & Bruckheimer, J. (Producers) & Scott, T., (Director). (1988). Top gun [Motion Picture]. United States: Paramount Pictures. 27
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    Chapter Three The Qualitiesof Effective Senior Academic Leadership Robert Holyer AGB Search Thanks to members of the American Conference of Academic Deans for their suggestions, via the Discussion List, about important qualities and characteristics of senior academic leaders. The dean or chief academic officer has arguably the most demanding job on campus—in many ways, more demanding than the president’s. The hours are long, the tasks are many and varied, the necessary skill-set is extensive, much of the work is on the front line, mistakes are often very public and may affect colleagues’ careers and well-being, resources are always constrained, and faculty are not easily led and certainly not “managed.” However, for the right kind of person, it can be the most rewarding job in higher education. Those who enjoy their work as a dean or a chief academic officer (CAO) and do it well find it satisfying in many ways. They enjoy working with a broad range of talented colleagues—faculty, student-life staff, the president’s cabinet, the academic deans and academic affairs staff, board members, and the president. They find that administrative work is intellectually engaging and challenging. However, the deepest satisfactions come from the opportunity to improve education and to be of service to colleagues. Effective senior academic leaders are deeply committed to educational values, and they know that their position provides them with a unique opportunity to collaborate with colleagues to improve higher education. They are also committed to the personal and professional growth of their colleagues, and they are the kind of people who take personal pleasure in the accomplishments and success of others. What is more, they have the ability to see potential in their colleagues and understand that part of their work is providing the context and the opportunities for faculty to develop their abilities—possibly even to enter academic administration. Effective deans or chief academic officers are both leaders and managers. As leaders they must understand the “big picture” and bring a vision to their work. Indeed, it falls to them as to no one else to articulate and defend the institution’s mission and values and to bring them to bear on institutional discussions and decisions. At the same time, they must be good managers of both finances and people. They must be effective at budgeting and financial management, able to bring both into the service of larger goals and institutional values. They must also be good at handling administrative detail. There is much of it, and without the skills to handle it effectively, the dean or CAO is easily overwhelmed and loses valuable opportunities. Deans and CAOs also come to realize that their role is not just to work with colleagues, but also to manage staff—and they are comfortable doing so. As good managers, they know the line between managing and micromanaging and realize that talented people flourish when they receive the same trust and freedom that they themselves would like to receive from the president. Senior academic leaders also must be able to see the potential in others and provide the opportunities for it to develop, readily recognize the good work of others, and be eager to express praise and gratitude. At the same time, they are able to deliver the honest but possibly painful evaluation and counsel necessary for good colleagues, even good friends, to become better. In all of this, effective deans or CAOs are good at aligning administrative detail and managerial practice with the bigger issues. They know that they lead in part by managing and administering well and that how they do both types of work sets a powerful example for colleagues and helps set the tone for the institution as a whole. The vision out of which deans or CAOs work is rooted in fundamental moral, educational, and institutional values. Good deans and CAOs are mission-focused, and they regard their work as a calling. They have the wisdom to know when these values are better advanced by their own direct support and advocacy and when they are better entrusted to others. In either case, though, the vision that guides their work is inclusive in the 28
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    sense that ithas room for—indeed, requires—the creative contributions of others. While adhering strongly to underlying values, effective senior academic leaders are appropriately flexible in how these values are implemented. Indeed, they are always ready and eager to give ownership to others, delegating important tasks to those able and willing to take them on. To a unique degree, deans or CAOs have the opportunity and obligation to live out in a public way their institution’s basic moral and educational values. As clichéd as it may sound, the heart of the dean’s or CAO’s work is effective communication, and a good dean or CAO needs to be skilled in the communicative arts. They must communicate instructions and decisions clearly; they must also be able to explain educational issues and policies to wider audiences—faculty, students, parents, trustees, the community at large—in clear and compelling ways. They must be effective and empathetic listeners, able to listen equally to all parties in a dispute, able to listen to criticism of themselves without becoming defensive, and able to listen patiently to irrational requests. What is more, they must have a certain level of comfort with confrontation. Not only is it unavoidable, but if embraced productively, it is necessary for making progress on difficult issues. Equally, deans or CAOs must practice the discipline of silence, keeping private information private and waiting until the appropriate time and place to offer productive criticism, to confront inappropriate behavior, and to voice and pursue disagreements. The soil from which effective communication grows is the person of the dean or CAO. Effective deans or CAOs are easily approachable, comfortable with peers, and able to establish rapport easily even with those who are very different from them. They are also able to inspire trust through honest communication and forthright action, by their ability to keep confidences and measure their remarks, and, most important, by their willingness to trust others as they would like to be trusted. Effective deans or CAOs also must convey a comfort with public disagreement and a high degree of public scrutiny of their work. Additionally, such senior academic leaders also must possess a certain intellectual character and certain intellectual skills. They are bright. Not only does this help with the work, but because institutions of higher education are full of other bright people, it also helps to establish and maintain trust and credibility. Faculty colleagues will naturally assume that administrative mistakes are conspiracies, and the fewer mistakes, the less opportunity there is for mistrust to develop. Effective deans or CAOs also have the habit of working hard to get things right, whether by doing sufficient background reading or by mastering the relevant facts, histories, and documents or by understanding the processes that most reliably lead to good decisions and effective planning. Conversely, they must be comfortable admitting that they don’t know or are in error and be welcoming of those who can offer instruction, guidance, and correction. Good leaders also are patient with ambiguity and see its value as part of a larger process. It is disastrous for deans or CAOs to believe that they are the source of all good ideas, decisions, and plans; they must have the wisdom to recognize good ideas, decisions, and plans. Increasingly, academic administration has a quantitative dimension. The effective dean or CAO must be good with budgets, quantitative assessment of programs and learning outcomes, and data- driven planning. Good deans or CAOs also must have broad intellectual and artistic interests and an eagerness to learn things outside their own academic disciplines. Faculty expect their senior academic leader to value and exemplify the life of the mind as well as to understand and appreciate their respective disciplines. Effective deans or CAOs must also be very good at reading institutional culture and understanding how differences of power affect human relationships. Perhaps most important, they know themselves. They are almost always part of the equation, and to know how and in what ways is invaluable. Although some of these skills and dispositions can be acquired and all of them improved, a natural disinclination with respect to any one of them may be a serious obstacle to effectiveness. Effective senior academic leaders also must have a certain temperament. To a very high degree, they must be persistent—on occasions, even courageous. Most things will not require the dean’s or CAO’s direct involvement, but they will require persistence in the face of setbacks, failures, opposition, perplexities, doubt, and waning support. What is more, they must have the resilience not to be worn down by very demanding work and a brutal schedule. The mood and temperament of the dean or CAO exercises a significant influence on faculty and staff. So they must naturally project a sense of humble confidence and be able to handle adversity calmly. They are also able to move easily and quickly from situations that evoke very different emotional responses without letting the emotions natural to one bleed into the other—celebrating a faculty accomplishment, meeting immediately thereafter with the parents of a student expelled for repeated academic failure, followed by a meeting with the cabinet to deal with a major budget shortfall. Perhaps most challenging is that almost all of this has to be accomplished without the usual support provided by faculty colleagues. In short, senior academic leaders must have formidable emotional resources that do not require much emotional support from others. Certainly one of the greatest gifts a dean or CAO can give to colleagues of any description is a sense of humor. It brightens the gloomiest of days; it helps disarm tense situations and leads to productive outcomes; it 29
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    helps to establishrapport; and it can be the best way of communicating one’s humanity and humility. If you are considering moving into senior academic leadership positions or are already there, it may be helpful to consider the following questions: What are your personal strengths and weaknesses, and how well do they match up with the qualities and characteristics of successful leadership? Why does serving as a senior academic leader appeal to you professionally? What areas of such a position give you pause? What are the qualities that you most admire in senior academic leaders with whom you have worked? How might you incorporate such qualities into your own practices? 30
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    Chapter Four The Roleof the Academic Dean in a Community College Thomas W. Meyer Broward College Despite the afternoon heat, Dean Palmer scurries out of the student union and across the hot cement courtyard to the administration building. He’s a little worse for wear but on a day like this, he doesn’t have time for a stroll through the air-conditioned corridor that connects the two buildings. In addition to the regular run of late spring meetings, he has called an emergency meeting of the academic leadership team to discuss pending Florida legislation that would drastically alter state funding of college preparatory courses. One version in the House of Representatives would eliminate funding for all such courses, while the Senate version would eliminate the lowest level of these courses. Community colleges would still be permitted to offer college preparatory courses, but would face two challenges: they would not receive any funding from the state to cover the costs, and students would not be able to count such courses toward credits earned or use them to qualify for student financial aid. All the campus presidents, academic and student deans, and the associate deans responsible for college preparatory math, English, and reading are gathered together to discuss the ramifications and possible solutions. The legislators have been talking about this for a long time, but now it may finally be a reality. After years of questioning the dismal success rates of students in college readiness courses, and after years of trying new methods and approaches to teaching students in these courses, everyone is disappointed but not surprised. Hundreds of sections would be affected, leading to a possible reduction in workforce (full-time and part-time faculty, as well as lab staff). Thousands of students would no longer have the opportunity to improve their basic knowledge in order to take college-level courses. The college stands to lose millions of dollars. Once again, legislation, student success, and access to education are at the forefront of items confronting Dean Palmer at his community college. Deans at community colleges share many of the responsibilities and challenges that their contemporaries at other institutions of higher education face. Simply put, the dean of any institution is the leader of the faculty; that is, it is the dean’s job to set forth a vision with respect to academic programming and student success, gain faculty buy in, monitor tasks required to implement the vision, and eventually, through successful execution, bring the vision to life. However, given the unique role that community colleges play in preparing students for transfer to four-year institutions or to enter the workforce, academic deans at our nation’s community colleges often focus on items specific to two-year public institutions. The role of deans in this specific setting differs in many ways from that of their counterparts at public and private four-year institutions. This is due in large part to the increasingly important role two-year colleges play in the American higher education system. The White House briefing “Building American Skills through Community Colleges” accurately describes the unique characteristics of the two-year college: As the largest part of the nation’s higher education system, community colleges enroll more than six million and are growing rapidly. They feature affordable tuition, open admission policies, flexible course schedules, and convenient locations. Community colleges are particularly important for students who are older, working, or need remedial classes. Community colleges work with businesses, industry and government to create tailored training programs to meet economic needs like nursing, health information technology, advanced manufacturing, and green jobs. (White House, 2010) Community colleges serve a growing demographic of mature students and specialize in enhancing employability through affordable technical and workforce education. Therefore, deans at two-year colleges 31
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    often find themselvessupporting interdisciplinary discussions, working with faculty senates and unions, promoting student success and access, and forging relationships that stretch far beyond the confines of the campus. 32
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    DEAN AS GENERALIST WhenI introduce myself to others as a dean, I am often questioned as to what exactly I am dean of. I find myself having to explain that at community colleges, deans are often interdisciplinary academic leaders due to the structure of the two-year educational institution. In four-year colleges there are deans of schools of nursing, arts and letters, engineering, social science, or education, to name a few. And although some community colleges subscribe to a similar structure, the majority require deans to oversee all academic areas or academic departments. In this type of setting, the dean is not an expert in every area of study; instead the dean is a generalist, given the task of hiring subject matter experts to be associate deans, directors, or chairs to work with the faculty in their respective academic disciplines. Larger schools might have their own deans, but overwhelmingly the dean at the community college is responsible for ensuring that all academic programming campus-wide is distributed fairly and appropriately so that students can complete their general education courses and degree requirements in a timely and cost-effective fashion. 33
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    FACULTY UNIONS Community collegesare often unionized, requiring the dean to possess a unique complement of skills. As dean, you will inevitably set forth an academic vision or new initiative. Faculty unions can sometimes create challenging obstacles and at other times, they can prove quite helpful. It is the dean’s job to work with the union as they would with any faculty or any faculty senate, with an understanding that certain nuances exist. Fortunately, the faculty contract spells out most responsibilities as well as governance, and a successful dean will make it a point to read the contract in full and become familiar with it. It is vital to know what is and what is not permitted under the contract and then work with union colleagues to more clearly define gray areas. Avoid statements such as, “the contract doesn’t allow for that” or “that’s not in the contract” because this may lead the faculty to believe you are being too rigid or don’t wish to help them. Even though faculty may quote the contract, deans should use caution citing contractual obligations. Forge a good working relationship with union colleagues and ask them for assistance in ensuring the success of your vision and college initiatives. Unions are present to protect faculty, and once their leaders see that you wish to work with them to ensure faculty success and well-being, they will often prove a valuable ally. 34
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    TEACHING FOCUS Another uniquefeature of community colleges is the expectation that faculty are experts at teaching the materials in the area in which they are credentialed. Community colleges certainly encourage publication and research, but such research is usually more classroom-based and oriented toward student success, and it is not a requirement for tenure. “Publish or perish” is not the mantra at two-year colleges. Professors at two-year colleges are expected to be and typically are good teachers. Community college professors are grounded in student learning, and deans at community colleges promote excellence in classroom teaching and the best practices related to student success. Good community college deans solicit feedback from faculty on best classroom practices, find innovative ways of institutionalizing them, and provide the resources faculty members need to help their students succeed. 35
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    THE COMMUNITY COLLEGESTUDENT POPULATION Certain nuances exist in the student population of two-year colleges as well, stemming from our inherent core mission. First, community colleges remain open enrollment. As such, the community college remains the only option or opportunity for those students with a high school diploma who initially lack a definitive vision of their future. Deans at community colleges encourage the creation of programs that prepare college-ready students for careers (the focus of the Associate in Science degree) or transfer to a four-year institution (the focus of the Associate in Arts degree). As a result, there are three important considerations to keep in mind about students at two-year colleges that most likely will affect your work as dean. 36
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    Less Likely toBe Prepared Unfortunately, having a high school diploma does not necessarily mean a student is college-ready. The fact that any student with a high school diploma is welcome to study at the community college means that deans at two-year institutions must also familiarize themselves with the challenges of developmental education. Deans at two-year colleges often find themselves managing programs that help students learn the knowledge they should have acquired in high school, or that help returning students relearn the foundational education they have forgotten over the years. Many community college deans forge partnerships with their local high schools in the creation of such programs in order to align curricula with the goal of graduating more high school students who are college-ready. 37
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    More Likely toStudy Part-Time Many community college students are more likely to study part-time due to the fact that they are working part-time or full-time jobs. Additionally, many of them are often taking care of family members or are in the process of raising a family. This means that a significant percentage of community college students’ schedules do not fit into the traditional college schedule. Because of this, community colleges offer classes in a variety of flexible schedules to help accommodate the lifestyles of commuting students. Classes are offered in sessions of varying length and are taught from early morning to late into the evening. Online or blended formats are gaining momentum to ease the burden of travel time to and from campus. It is the dean’s role at the community college to see that innovative schedules are fostered to serve the local community. 38
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    Less Likely toBe Privileged Another key difference of the community college is affordability. Without this, many disadvantaged Americans would not otherwise be able to attend college and pursue a higher degree. Community colleges pride themselves on providing quality education at a relatively inexpensive price thus providing opportunity to students who would not otherwise be able to afford the cost of higher education. It is the dean’s role at a community college to ensure and maintain educational opportunities at reasonable costs by keeping lab fees low, resisting unnecessary tuition increases, and maintaining seat limits that promote productivity and discourage waste. 39
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    PUBLIC FUNDING Funding isanother distinction with which deans at community colleges must contend. There is a depressing saying in the two-year college community that goes something like this: “We used to be publicly funded; now we are barely publicly supported.” According to the US Department of Education, state and local appropriations for basic operations fell from 70 percent of total revenues in 1980 to 50 percent in 1996 (Merisotis & Wolanin, 1999). Although on the decline, the amount of money that community colleges receive from public funding still consists of a sizeable portion of the community college budget. Community colleges are highly dependent on state funding since, unlike four-year, public schools, they do not have diversified revenue sources such as hospitals, endowments, or research grants. While enrollments have been increasing, state support per student has remained relatively flat. (Kingkade, 2012) Were such funding to evaporate, many two-year colleges would likely close or be forced to implement sharp cuts in services. Moreover, in today’s political climate and with the increasing politicization of education, the management of funds in public institutions of higher education is more closely scrutinized than in the past. Deans at two-year colleges have varying degrees of involvement in managing public funds, but with respect to key decisions on how funds are allocated for growth, construction, and program development, the dean is often included. To help your institution stay financially sound, you can use strategies such as monitoring enrollment, developing private-public partnerships, and seeking out alternative funding sources. 40
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    Monitor Enrollment As acommunity college dean, it is important to monitor enrollment closely and supervise chairs and associate deans to ensure that courses have sufficient enrollment and programs remain viable and relevant. Maintaining an adequate balance of larger general education lectures and smaller boutique programs with lower enrollment is critical at the community college. This is the dreaded business aspect of community colleges that so many academicians loathe; however, it is the dean’s managerial role to see to efficient classroom operations. At larger two-year institutions this can pose challenges because many of the academic departments operate in silos and classroom allocations roll over from term to term. A review of the enrollment reports often reflects oversights such as a class with a seat limit of fifteen scheduled in a classroom that seats twenty-five, or a program that has been operating at 50 percent capacity for years yet still remains in the catalog of offerings. By monitoring enrollment, ensuring productive use of classrooms and labs, and eliminating obsolete programs, the dean at a community college plays a critical role in saving the institution money. 41
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    Develop Public-Private Partnerships Anotherway that community college deans can boost their institutions’ income is by partnering with local businesses and industries to create innovative two-year degree programs or career-enhancing certificates. In such cases, the dean seeks out partnerships in which the college offers the academic training and the business provides funding for facilities, internships for students, or equipment for classrooms and labs. For example, when a south Florida power company realized that many of its employees were retiring, two community college systems were tapped to help provide additional workforce training. Courses were created for a viable degree, and instead of a commencement ceremony, successful graduates attended a hiring ceremony and began working at the power plant immediately. Another example of a public-private partnership can be found in the development of a culinary program. A private partner may equip and operate a restaurant where college students complete their lab hours, serve as interns, and gain valuable real-life experience prior to graduation. The opportunities in this area are endless, and imaginative deans can help their institutions earn or save money while preparing students for lucrative careers. 42
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    Seek Alternative Modesof Funding Because public funding is on the decline, deans at community colleges find an increasing percentage of their responsibility becoming the identification and management of alternative modes of funding, such as grants. Although this part of the job may not be entirely new or unique to a community college dean, the increased expectation is, and in a two-year setting fundraising does have its differences. Grants that community college deans pursue are more likely to be related to student success initiatives or transfer to a four-year institution. Because deans are generalists at community colleges, the dean is more likely to work with associate deans, chairpersons, and faculty to provide support and leadership in the writing of the grants. For example, a dean at a two-year college might pull together a team of experts from the various STEM disciplines to partner on writing grants related to recruitment, retention, and success of underserved populations in the STEM fields. Once again, deans are not necessarily the experts; they simply lend assistance and guidance to the group. Community college deans promote and support grant-writing endeavors, recognizing those who try and lauding those who succeed. As a community college dean, you should remember the following: Capitalize on the strengths and talents of your discipline experts. Deans at community colleges wear many different hats. You are the leader of the faculty from a multitude of disciplines and must work with colleagues across the college to implement innovations as well as daily functions. Be an ambassador for access to education and educate others about the important role of the community college in the US higher education system. Create opportunities for students. Think innovatively about new programs that will lead students to transfer to a four-year degree program or to enter the workforce. Find creative ways to raise funds for the college. Public-private partnerships are great ways to help new programs get started and to prepare valuable hands-on training experiences for students. Find ways to serve the community through partnerships with local industries or through sponsorship of educational events for local residents. With the recent increased awareness of the important role that community colleges play in the US higher education system, deans at two-year institutions will have a huge impact on the workforce of the twenty-first century. “In the coming years,” President Barack Obama has noted, “jobs requiring at least an associate degree are projected to grow twice as fast as jobs requiring no college experience. We will not fill those jobs—or keep those jobs on our shores—without the training offered by community colleges” (Obama, 2009). By ensuring access to education through open enrollment and low-cost innovative programming, community college deans remain integral to getting people started on the path to the American Dream. 43
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    References Kingkade, T. (2012,December 26). Community college funding shrinks, for-profit enrollment grows: Treasury report. The Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/26/community-college-for-profit_n_2340958.html Merisotis, J. P. & T. R. Wolanin. (1999). Community college financing: Strategies and challenges. Washington, DC: The Institute for Higher Education Policy. Obama, B. (2009, July 14). Excerpt from remarks on the American Graduation Initiative delivered in Warren, MI. White House. (2010, October 4). Building American skills through community colleges. Retrieved from http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education/higher-education/building-american-skills-through- community-colleges 44
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    Chapter Five A SuccessfulCareer as an Online Dean Pamela Monaco Southwestern College of Professional Studies Now that online education has become an educational option at most colleges and universities, your college has given some serious consideration to how to brand online education more effectively in the market. The arrival of massive open online courses (MOOCs) showed potential students worldwide what could be done to make an online course more visually appealing, to provide instant feedback on some types of exercises, and to bring the sense of the professor’s presence into the asynchronous experience. Your provost was one of the thousands who signed up for a MOOC; she kept reading about this “disruption” and wanted to see what it was all about. She is convinced your college should not miss this opportunity to participate in this new kind of online course. The IT department is a bit concerned that should such a course be delivered, the department wouldn’t be ready to handle all the support it might need to offer; currently, online has been growing slowly but steadily and the IT department has been able to accommodate the demands. However, the IT department has wondered if now might be the time to change learning management systems (LMS), or at least consider a different hosting option. If the LMS changes, all the current courses may have to be revised. Staff in the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) are intrigued by the MOOC possibility, but no one has used the level of technology required, and there is concern that the production resources are just not available for this kind of project. You have looked at the courses presently being offered online and the faculty involved. Most tenured faculty have been reluctant about developing and delivering an online course. They discovered the extra time requirements to teach this kind of course and think faculty loads need to be adjusted to reflect online teaching assignments. Your university has been fortunate to have developed some very fine contingent faculty who teach most of these courses, and although the full-time faculty are happy someone else is doing the online teaching in their discipline, they are not convinced the courses are as rigorous as an on-the-ground course. You know some of the part-time faculty are doing a great job and they understand how to engage with students online. You find all of this conversation about online education in general, and MOOCs in particular, intriguing, and a good thing, too: your provost has tasked you with being the dean who will serve as point person as your university makes its way into online education. What do you need to think about as you get this initiative ready? Online course and program delivery began in the mid-1990s and quickly replaced or supplemented various kinds of distance education options offered by colleges and universities whose primary target was working adults and degree completion students. Residential colleges saw little reason to embrace online education, both because of a high level of skepticism about the quality of the teaching and learning experience in online education and because of the belief that students attended a traditional or residential university in order to experience life on a college campus. Some large land-grant universities started to offer online courses through their continuing or extended education offices, and some even offered full degrees online. After the financial problems of 2008–2009, many colleges, particularly state college systems that have continued to operate with lower state funding levels, realized that online offerings provided a revenue stream and opened the possibility to new markets of students. Today, it is the rare college or university that does not offer some online courses. The role of dean of online learning can take many permutations. Sometimes the job title is very clear, sometimes not. Frequently, the well-defined position of leadership for online learning occurs within schools or colleges of continuing education. In other cases, being dean of online learning means providing leadership for a traditional disciplinary-defined school or college, and part of the course offerings include some, or perhaps mostly, online courses or programs. The difference between these two types of deanships has more to do with reporting structure, the amount of time devoted to concerns about online learning, differing divisions of 45
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    revenue sharing, andthe kind of networking required than with anything else. Most important, no matter where situated in a college or university, the dean whose portfolio includes online instruction will have to be focused on assuring a quality program to an often skeptical audience, both internally and externally. If the online dean is situated in a school or college of professional or continuing education, or as a separate university within a state system, the online dean will be actively engaged with the leadership of the other colleges or universities in the college or system. Often, in these circumstances, the online dean negotiates with other existing degree programs to migrate courses or programs to online delivery. Negotiate is the appropriate term for these discussions. The dean will want to work out agreements about intellectual property for courses developed for online delivery. Will a particular course be taught only by the person who was involved with the original course? If so, for how long? Can the particular course be taught by others in the original design? Part of the appeal of online learning, in addition to the potential for new student populations, is the ability to standardize a course and replicate it many times without additional investment in design. Another point of discussion is the disbursements of the revenue return. In many institutions, there is a revenue share agreement between the online office or college and the department, school, or college that manages the curriculum. The online dean’s office will want to develop the policies to regulate this process. It will be important to outline who pays for the instructor, whether teaching online is part of a teaching load or overload, what oversight of delivery the online dean maintains, and what percentage of net revenue is shared, and with which office. In these circumstances, it also is wise to have clear policies in place about staffing decisions, about who does what with teaching evaluations, about the support and training offered and by whom, and about the scheduling decisions, including when and under what circumstances to no longer schedule a course or program. The traditional method of teaching, often referred to as face-to-face instruction, seems fairly simple in retrospect. Departments know how many sections to offer, the time in a classroom is universally calculated with exceptions for lab, studio, or practicum courses, and faculty are expected to bring scholarship into the class, stay current in the field, and provide a quality learning experience. Online learning requires rethinking everything one knows about teaching and learning. In a traditional class, the professor is expected to bring to his or her lectures, readings, and assignments the latest theory and development, as appropriate in the field. In the online environment, updated curriculum must be supported by updated technology. The dean will be involved in discussions about updates to the learning management system, new technology tools, and the rapid evolution of defining the qualities of a good online course. Accrediting bodies want the online class to meet the standards of the on-the-ground class. What does the Carnegie unit mean when students can log in to class whenever it is convenient for them? How do we calculate the amount of time a student is engaged in the class? Is this important? With a host of options available for synchronous components of an online class, many colleges encourage this, but distance learners may be in different time zones or have working hours or obligations that prevent this level of engagement. Ongoing concerns about student authentication have resulted in retina scans, cameras that record who is taking an exam, remote disabling of the Internet during a test and even recognition of typing patterns. These solutions carry a price, including responsibility of managing the process. Depending on to whom one is marketing online courses or programs, the mechanisms that answer the critics’ concerns about online integrity can be viewed as impediments by students. With the high competition in the online market and the push on many campuses to use online education for a revenue stream, balance must be a goal. Teaching online courses well takes dedicated, innovative professors. Teaching online requires considerably more time than traditional teaching. The level of faculty involvement in the online class matters, which means an online instructor should try to be in the online class daily. More and more colleges are mandating instructor engagement a set number of times during the week. The instructor will have to devote considerable time developing the course and maintaining the course. The more technologically sophisticated a course or the more a class relies on materials or experiences other than the traditional printed text, the greater the need to make sure the course remains current and up-to-date. Although full-time faculty may enjoy teaching the specialized courses in their discipline, many colleges rely on contingent faculty to teach service and lower-level courses online. Both of these populations, full-time and part-time faculty, will need training in how to teach online and then monitoring, to ensure the quality of the course and the teaching. Service and lower-level courses may be standardized because the investment in the course development and the alignment with the face-to-face course are best realized through replication. Expect to have some discussions about the competing desires for standardized courses and academic freedom. The wise dean has to think about workload issues and compensation of the faculty who teach online because the time commitment is different from a traditionally offered course. If there is a centralized center for teaching and learning, each college or university will want to make sure part-time faculty are receiving 46
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    appropriate training andsupport for online instruction, and this, too, must be calculated with respect to contingent employee contracts. Will an adjunct be paid for training, or will the training be considered an opportunity for professional development? Much of the ongoing training that online teaching now requires, from upgrades to the learning management system to the use of new tools, should be offered through a center for teaching and learning, but the dean’s office will want to provide input into the setting of standards and expectations. Who will perform quality checks to make sure the course is ready for online delivery each semester? Who will perform a peer review, and during what time frame of observation and during what point in the semester? Does a peer review even need to occur during the active semester, or should the review occur after the semester so the entire teaching experience can be reviewed? If contingent faculty will not be widely used, the dean needs to develop policies about who teaches online, what the balance between traditional and online courses may be, and consider how policies, such as office hour requirements, might need to be weighed. Student behavior in an online course has become of increasing interest. The impact of social media and the erasure of boundaries in electronic communication mean that not all students are well prepared for academic discourse, tolerance of differing points of view, or social interaction in online communities. Netiquette policies set expectations, but problems may still occur. Increasingly, the mental and emotional health of online students is receiving attention. In many online environments, the college, the instructor, and the students all can be in different locations, even different states or countries. A faculty member confronting a student in crisis needs to know whom to call or consult, and the solution is not to wait until someone returns to work during normal business hours on the campus. Gray areas will continue to deepen. What kind of protection does the college need to provide an instructor or another student against aggressive or bullying behavior that occurs because of the online environment? The online dean wants to consider these situations before a need for intervention occurs. As a dean of online education, your will bear responsibility for increasing enrollments. You will be responsible for ensuring the online offerings have the same rigor as the traditional offerings, and you will work closely with the admissions office to guide policies and standards regarding those seeking online offerings. It will be important also to work closely with the recruitment and marketing offices, because the regulations of “distance education” at the state and federal levels must be closely understood and monitored. Many, if not most, colleges and universities have a staff position responsible for “state authorization.” States have long regulated institutions offering education within their boundaries, but the explosion of online instruction has brought nuances to the definition of “presence” in another state. Each state’s regulations must be carefully studied. For example, if your college employs contingent faculty at a distance, some states consider the hiring of their residents as having a presence in that state. If your college’s online programs or courses include practicums or internship requirements, placing students in these experiences in other states could also signal presence in those other states. The strategies for marketing and for requirements that are used to generate online enrollments must be viewed in light of state authorization rules. Some states impose very high fees to operate in their boundaries, even if “operate” means only enrolling students in an online program. If a state’s fees or requirements to operate are too high or stringent, it will be essential to make clear to prospective applicants that they cannot enroll in your online program if they reside in certain states. As of 2010, the federal government issued new regulations with regard to “program integrity” that enforce the need to seek authorization to operate in another state if students of other states are to receive federal financial aid. As online education continues to evolve, one should expect that regulations will do so too. Higher education is no longer a predicable business for those in academic administration. Online education is just one of the ways our evolving global world and technological advances have changed what it means to “go” to college. As on online dean, or one who is considering this career option, keep in mind the following questions: What is the responsibility of the online dean’s office with respect to enrollment goals for the entire college and university? An online dean must be comfortable thinking beyond academic concerns and considering and understanding the role of enrollment management. Does this college have the resources—financial, instructional, and technological—to be competitive in the online market? How comfortable are you, as an academic administrator, in a world without carefully defined boundaries? Maintaining work-life balance is challenging for any academic administrator, but the online world is always awake and always looking for more attention. 47
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    Chapter Six Moving fromProfessor to Dean Bonnie D. Irwin Eastern Illinois University After serving a term as chair of the faculty senate, a professor found herself increasingly frustrated with the narrow view of her departmental colleagues and why they did not see the bigger picture of the university that she had become accustomed to seeing. When the position of graduate dean became open, she decided to apply. She had taught many graduate courses, had served on the graduate council, and believed she had some unique skills to bring to the position, a combination of experiences that, when coupled with her admirable campus and departmental service, made her a well-qualified candidate. When she became a finalist for the position, some of her longtime colleagues and friends questioned her loyalty to her department and her discipline. Knowing she would control budget decisions, graduate assistant assignments, and a host of other resources, some friends worried that their relationship would change and that they could no longer trust her once she was on the “dark side.” More than one colleague approached her with the words “I hope we can still be friends.” Did this mean that they expected favors from her or that they feared they would not be able to go out to dinner anymore? Even if a dean believes that she is the same person as she was as a faculty member, others will think differently. Jokes about the dark side aside, administrators have a different relationship with their institution and their faculty than they had before joining the administrative team. Imagine wearing a neon side above your head that reads “Dean.” You may not be able to see it, but others certainly will. 49
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    ATTENDING SOCIAL ANDCEREMONIAL OCCASIONS Many deans find the first few months an awkward transition, especially if they have become dean on a campus where they have spent significant time as a faculty member. Invitations to regular informal social occasions may dwindle because your friends are unsure if you can or will associate with them on the same level. Faculty friends imagine that your day is chock full of all manner of busywork, and that you no longer have time for lunch. There is some truth to that assumption, as your calendar becomes something that can control you if you do not control it. You may find that you must reach out to those who harbor doubts about your availability if you indeed want to see them. There will be no lack of invitations, however—to receptions, ceremonies, dinners, and luncheons. These are less social occasions than working ones. The dean becomes accustomed to standing and waving as others applaud her mere presence. Often your seat will be assigned, and often that assignment is at a head table, meaning that you are on display throughout the event. If you are not naturally a gregarious person, you will learn to become one, making small talk with whomever is at your table or in your company at such events. At these ceremonial occasions, you will often be asked to give welcoming or concluding remarks, and on some days, particularly in the months of April or May, you may have several different such occasions stacked up. Preparing a stock of core messages with specific talking points for each audience will help streamline the preparation process until these sorts of events become second nature. It is essential to learn who the audience will be and what kinds of remarks are expected before setting off to the next reception. You also may be buttonholed at such events by those who have specific questions for you. Some of these questions are easily answered, but others will entail research. Faculty can just show up at events; deans need to prepare and always carry a pad or smartphone on which to jot a couple of notes. 50
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    Exploring the Varietyof Random Documents with Different Content
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