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?