The Philosophers' Cocoon

Advice for taking on a department chair role?

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

This is really a molting-season question, but for those of us who are near, on the cusp of, or just barely past the tenure line, new service asks are showing up.

I'm particularly curious about folks who have stepped into a chair role at or relatively soon after tenure. Were you able to keep your research productive through that? Did you negotiate anything for accepting the chair role to keep yourself from getting swamped? Other strategies? Advice?

These are good questions. However, I suspect the answers may differ from institution to institution. For example, some institutions may have preset course offloads for chairs, but not be open to negotiating anything beyond that, whereas others may be willing to negotiate but not have preset offloads. So, it would be great to hear from readers with experience here. For my part, I served as chair (with a modest course offload) and was able to keep up my research just fine. But then, due to my teaching load I do most of my research during summers anyway, so it was mostly a wash.

Do any readers with chairing experience have helpful answers, experiences, or other insights to share?

Advice for new department chairs?

In our new "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

Advice for someone becoming a department chair? (Small department, small school, if that matters.)

Great question. I'm on childcare duty this week, so I don't have much time to type. But having served as chair for four years, I'll say that the job can be pretty easy until it's not (though maybe the easy part is idiosyncratic to my department, which is fortunately free of the kinds of divisions that can be hard problems for a chair to navigate).

In my experience, the most difficult parts (by far) are handling the kinds of emergencies/putting out fires that it's impossible to prepare for: instructors quitting mid-semester, student and/or parent complaints, etc. Do things by the book, document everything, stand by your faculty, treat them fairly and with integrity and transparency, and learn how to handle a hard conversation tactfully and compassionately when necessary.

Finally, I'd recommend realizing that some issues (e.g. legal ones) are above your pay grade, and should be settled by deans and other administrators, not you.

But these are just a few quick tips. Do any readers with experience have any other helpful ones to share?

Tips for a leadership & administration statement?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, DS asks:

I realize this is an 'early career' site, but has anyone ever had to write a statement of 'leadership and administration philosophy' when applying for a chair position? I am interested in applying to such a position at another college and am looking for some pointers. There seem to be some obvious things, like how you would mentor faculty, but any advice would be welcome.

I've never had to write a statement like this, so I'm not sure what to advise. But I'm inclined to think one should probably approach it like any other similar kind of statement (e.g. teaching statements, diversity statements, etc.): namely, that you should just explain what you do as an administrator and why you do it.

Department chairing do’s and don’ts?

A little while back, Helen asked me if I would be willing to write a post or find someone to write a guest post on how to be a good department chair. I thought it was a great idea—but naturally because I'm a chair, things have been really busy, so I hadn't been able to get around to it. However, in our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a potential future chair made a similar query, asking:

Would you be willing to run a "do's and don't's" post on being a chair? I want to see what kind of consensuses there are.

So I figured I should try to finally write something up, and then ask you all what you think some department chairing do's and don'ts are. I think it would be great to hear not only from department chairs, but also people who aren’t, as it's not just department chairs who can have views about these things!