Department chairs call for leadership training

Universities should bolster their guidance of chairs, faculty say.

By Bridget Murray
Monitor staff

When John Kremer, PhD, took over as chair of a psychology department, he spent from 8 to 5 on the job, and the rest of his time thinking about it--the budgeting and paperwork, the disgruntled students, the salary disputes, the weighty task of pleasing both dean and faculty, with little support.

"The worry was pervasive," says Kremer, who chaired the department at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) for six years, until 1997. "At lunch, in the shower, at home with my family. It kept me up at night." But Kremer says the job wouldn't have been nearly as hard if he'd known better what to expect. "I wasn't prepared for the stress," he says. "Training would have helped."

Kremer came to the position the way most chairs do, unless they're appointed from the outside. He was a well-liked, 15-year veteran of the department, nominated by his colleagues for the job and appointed by the dean. Psychology chairs in the United States number well into the thousands, including those who manage undergraduate departments.

Typically, they serve three- to five-year renewable terms, with some serving consecutive ones. Kremer held the job for six years, and, as is typical, he learned it by doing it--problematic because it's akin to "the way we treat child-rearing," says John Hazer, PhD, Kremer's predecessor at IUPUI, who along with Kremer, is still there. "It's an important job for which people aren't trained." Some have proposed restructuring the system--training and hiring "professional chairs" who are primed for management. But a group of current and ex-chairs say such a setup would only alienate faculty. They say the current system could work if universities bolster training for chairs and clarify their requirements and expectations for the position.

And for their part, chairs could better prepare by seeking management experience and tapping available training. Also important is knowing and accepting the demands of the position before signing on, says Ernest Chavez, PhD, psychology chair at Colorado State University. "This shouldn't be just a service position people rotate in and out of," he says. "If people come in with a vision, they won't get so bogged down in details."

What schools can do

To form that vision, aspiring chairs must first understand the position's realities, Chavez says. Some may not fully realize the challenges of navigating a highly complicated, bureaucratic university administration, says Jonathon Fife, EdD, a scholar of higher education leadership. Fife directs the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC) Clearinghouse on Higher Education at George Washington University and is currently a visiting professor with the Education Policy Institute at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

The responsibilities of chairs vary among institutions, he says, but often chairs take on a somewhat ambiguous role of faculty member and manager. While continuing their teaching and scholarship, they must also plan the departmental budget and evaluate the performance of faculty colleagues, among other administrative tasks. At some places, their authority extends to hiring faculty.

For example, Washington University in St. Louis, Mo., recruited Roddy Roediger, PhD, from Rice University, to enlarge its psychology department. For this he has license to choose about a dozen new hires in conjunction with search committees and his dean. But Roediger is an exception. In many cases, Fife says, chairs have only limited power to make changes--one of the position's frustrations.

Few chairs hold the power to hire and terminate faculty, alter faculty salaries or significantly overhaul the departmental budget, without filling out extensive paperwork and lobbying the dean and vice president for approval, says Fife. He believes universities should allow chairs more decision-making and administrative clout to make them stronger leaders.

Fife says universities owe it to chairs to delineate, in workshops and training sessions, the scope of their powers. A number of universities offer orientation workshops for new chairs. But typically those focus on paperwork and deadlines, he says, not on the chair role itself.

"Universities need more targeted training about specific expectations and objectives for chairs," says Fife.

Also needed is continuing education for chairs, says Hazer of IUPUI, who, along with several others, recounted his chairing experiences in a 1998 special issue of the Psychologist-Manager Journal (Vol. 2, No. 2), focused exclusively on the academic department head position. Hazer suggests updating chairs on technological advances and administrative trends, a service that typically isn't offered specifically for chairs. Another useful preparation tool is the chair apprenticeship, he says. He and J. Gregor Fetterman, PhD, the current IUPUI chair, say they benefited from a temporary assistant chair position in their department. Few departments have instituted such positions, however. Hazer and Fetterman urge universities to establish them. And they suggest offering other mentoring opportunities, too--brown bag lunches, for example, or listservs.

A shared responsibility

But the onus of better preparing chairs isn't only on universities. People aspiring to the position need to seriously consider whether they qualify, says Fetterman.

"You have to ask yourself, 'Do I have the stuff to be a manager?'" he says. "'Am I service-oriented and a good team player?' 'Am I willing to cut back my teaching and research?'"

Good scientists don't necessarily make good chairs, he says. People with management experience, however, often do, says Joseph Steinmetz, PhD, psychology chair at Indiana University. He suggests that, once chair hopefuls determine they have leadership potential, they then seek related work. Options include filling administrative positions in the department or university at large, or serving on departmental budgeting, steering or policy committees. Other possibilities include directing a university program or serving as principal investigator on a grant.

Also helpful are handbooks and other reading guides for chairs, says Steinmetz. Sometimes, universities provide institution-specific guides, and general ones are available commercially. Perhaps even more useful is training offered by other chairs and managers, says Rodney Lowman, PhD, a former psychology department chair and now professor and director of the organizational psychology program at the California School of Professional Psychology-San Diego.

While few universities offer that training for their own chairs, plenty is available elsewhere, he says. For example, the American Council on Education (ACE) offers leadership workshops for department chairs and deans in June and November. And the Council of Graduate Departments of Psychology (COGDOP) provides leadership training at its annual winter meeting. The COGDOP training is open to assistant and associate chairs, as well as to new chairs.

Some universities offer general chair training, as well. For example, Harvard University's education department holds two-week professional development sessions for educational leaders each summer. Chavez, of Colorado State, attended one that focused on budgeting, tenure decisions, faculty evaluation, hiring and termination and university politics. He says it's helped him to negotiate academic administration. He also tapped a private training program for business managers, which enabled him to develop departmental goals and the means to achieve them.

Networking with other chairs and managers is as important as formal training, according to Lowman. One way is to join the Society of Psychologists in Management (SPIM), an international professional association for psychologist-managers. Networking with other chairs at one's own institution is beneficial, too.

At Wake Forest University, for example, chairs have banded together--meeting regularly to share tips on budgeting, juggling demands and other matters. The group also pinpoints mutual concerns, which the group's leader raises with higher administrators.

"It's become a productive line of communication among chairs and with deans," says Deborah Best, PhD, chair of COGDOP and of Wake Forest's psychology department. By sharing "sage advice," she says, chairs feel less stressed and better equipped to effectively run their departments.

For more information on ACE workshops for chairs, visit www.acenet.edu/about/programs/
Programs&Analysis/CIII/dlp/information.html#MeetingInfo.

For information on Harvard professional development programs, go to gseweb.harvard.edu/~ppe/index.
html. To join COGDOP e-mail Rosemary Hayes-Thomas at rlowe@uwf.edu or to find about it visit psych.psy.wfu.edu/cogdop.

And for information on joining SPIM, or to order a copy of the 1998 Psychologist-Manager Journal special issue on chairs, e-mail Joan Zinober, membership chair, at Lorraine Rieff and Associates, LJRieff@aol.com.

Read our privacy statement and Terms of Use

Cover Page for this Issue

PsychNET®
© 1999 American Psychological Association

APA Home Page . Search . Site Map