Suggestions for a New Department Chair

I've finally finished grading (and, per my ritual, posted the Peanuts song on social media to mark the occasion), and have spent the last few hours packing. 

I own way too many books. By last count, I have 4 different editions of Pride and Prejudice, 3 of Wuthering Heights, and 5 of The Awakening.  I also have dozens of books related to the courses I taught way back in the 20th century, courses that newer instructors have since taken over: Native American Literature, Immigrant Literature, African American Literature.

That is one beauty about teaching at a community college: we are all generalists.  These days I teach Women Writers, Contemporary Fiction, and Autobiography, and of course I have dozens of books related to those courses, too. 

Not to mention the endless editions and volumes of American Literature anthologies.

And I may teach some of those classes again, someday, so in the boxes they go.

But I digress from the subject of this post. 

As I was packing, I discovered a printed copy of an April 10,  2010 Chronicle of Higher Education article by Michael C. Munger: "10 Suggestions for a New Department Chair".   I obviously saved it for myself to "find" 3 years later when I was passed the baton.

I didn't write on it, as is my wont, so clearly I simply filed it (by posting it to my bulletin board, underneath other postings?) to read later.  Well, it's now later.

The advice is useful and mostly common sense; in fact, I've followed #1 and #2 already by inviting faculty to hike or have coffee with me this summer to chat about individual or program goals.   Advice #5 ("If you take the job, do the job") is a good reminder, as is #10, where Munger warns us  that the chair is "bombarded by messages, calls, and visitors, all of which are saying the same thing: 'You must care about this matter that I care about!'" And that we must care, or fake it till we can care.

Except for advice #7 ("Think like a farmer"--That is, don't dwell on how much work there is to do; instead, focus on accomplishments, large and small), the advice mostly focuses on interpersonal communication, rather than the more mundane chair issues. For example, how to organize email folders so that key emails are saved, but that you aren't effectively keeping the equivalent of a Hoover File on every faculty member?  Or, how exactly do you keep in touch with dailiness of your department colleagues' working lives when your "new" office is stuck in a building occupied by another department's faculty?  Or, as Munger brings up but doesn't specifically address: How can an INTJ succeed in middle management?

Since I'm going to start focusing on my daily accomplishments, I'd like to point out that I snagged three copy paper boxes this morning, and reluctantly left a stack of books in the "free" box in the hallway for summer students. 

Perhaps in 3-4 years I'll be able to update Munger's suggestions. Current or former chairs: what else would you add?

Transitions: 2013 Edition

 



I've reached an age where "transitions" (personal or professional) are not so fraught with fear and anxiety, having weathered  many.  Yet, they still must be marked, if only to recognize that the effects of a transition are stealthy, slow, cumulative, and thus easily overlooked, ignored.

This finals week has me doing the usual grading and office cleaning, socializing (oversocializing, frankly) and losing steam.  What is not usual is the packing up my office, getting ready to assume the department chair's office and role, and thinking about adding a new cat to the household.

These are both potentially exciting and possibly traumatic events, though I admit not of the same scale.

The new cat (or kitten) may not like our household, or, more likely, Joey may have finally grieved Jazz's death and is entirely comfortable being the only cat.  The food, litter and vet bills are definitely less with one cat, and our furniture is only getting destroyed in half the time: a new cat/kitten will kill the love seat for sure.

The new role as department chair is not entirely new: I was an "acting" then "interim" then finally "department chair" of another department in the early 21st century (seems like ages ago), so I'm quite conscious of the time, energy and sanity suck the role entails. But this time, as chair of a department within my own disciplinary expertise (developmental writing, composition, and literature) I have the opportunity to explore and facilitate changes in our curriculum and delivery. It could be an exciting time. Unlike previous chairs, I'm not dealing with state mandated changes to the composition program, or a doubling of the student body. Instead, those state mandated changes seem to have been ignored by other community colleges, and our enrollment is flattening, giving us a chance to breathe, reflect, and strategically plan.  We've also just added another new faculty member, for a total of 13 full time faculty (and, alas, 28 part timers), and in the next few years, during my stint as chair, I anticipate being able to bring on another 4 tenure track faculty members as senior faculty retire. If that happens, I will be the most senior faculty member in the department, an alarming but inevitable prospect. 

Our college is getting a new Vice President for Instruction this summer: he starts the day I begin as chair.  And by next July, we'll have a new college President, and I suspect another instructional dean.  Because of the turnover in instructional administration of the last few years, it's become clear that as a college we can no longer rely on individual  institutional memory to  maintain and perpetuate communication, organization, documentation, and processes.  So we've begun reviewing our General Policy and Procedures Manual and our Chair Handbook, both woefully outdated.  While it will be frustrating as a new chair to begin at a time when our communication, documentation and processes are in flux, I can also participate in creating a system that works for a larger college, one where the expectation is no longer that administrators will be here for decades. This is exciting.

But in the meantime, before all this excitement begins, I must pack, grade, socialize some more, watch students graduate, and then, finally, get to the Humane Society and find us a new cat. 



*Image from: http://www.btlc.co.uk/Default/Moving_Office_Solution.aspx