Resources for Department Chairs

The following is a list of print and Web resources for department chairs.

• Web Resources
• Center for Teaching Library Resources
• Case Studies

Web Resources

• Good Practice in Tenure Evaluation: Advice for Tenured Faculty, Department Chairs, and Academic Administrators. A Joint Project of The American Council on Education, The American Association of University Professors, and United Educators Insurance Risk Retention Group. From the introduction: "This report provides guidance on conducting tenure evaluations that are thoughtful and just. Flawed tenure processes can exact a heavy toll on the unsuccessful candidate, his or her colleagues, and the institution. Our hope is that the good practices offered here may lessen the frequency and impact of disputes over tenure. We seek not to debate the merits of tenure in American higher education, but rather we seek to examine the tenure process and offer some suggestions to those responsible for conducting it."

• Site of an initiative of the American Council on Education on "Chairing the Academic Department: Workshops for Division and Department Chairs and Deans." These are three national annual conferences with workshops on a variety of topics, including evaluating college teaching, conflict management, time management, shaping mission and leading change, and legal issues for chairs.

• Section on Management and Administration (with topics of Time Management, Maintaining Department Records, Facilitating Meetings, and Managing Conflict) from the Department Heads Guidebook at University of Tennessee-Chattanooga.

• Olmstead, M. (1993). Mentoring new faculty: Advice to department chairs. Committee on the Status of Women in Physics Gazette, 13(1), 1.

• Transitions: What's Love Got to Do with It?: Kathleen T. Brinko, Appalachian State University, writes about the importance of collegiality in helping new faculty make the transition onto campus.

CFT Library Resources

The Department Chair, published by Anker Publishing, is a quarterly newsletter available at the CFT Library.

The following books are located in the CFT Library and are available for check-out. You can check Acorn, the Vanderbilt Library's online catalog, for availability.

Department Leadership / Department Chair Roles

Creswell, John W. et al. The Academic Chairperson's Handbook . Lincoln: U. of Nebraska Press, 1990.

Leaming, Deryl R. Academic Leadership: A Practical Guide to Chairing the Department . Bolton, MA: Anker, 1998.

Lucas, Ann F. Strengthening Departmental Leadership: A Team-Building Guide in Colleges and Universities . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994.

Lucas, Ann F. and Associates. Leading Academic Change: Essential Roles for Department Chairs . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000.

Mentoring Junior Faculty

Bensimon, Estela M., et al. Department Chair's Role in Developing New Faculty Into Teachers and Scholars. Bolton, MA: Anker, 2000.

Boice, Robert. Advice for New Faculty Members . Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2000.

Daloz, Laurent A. Mentor: Guiding the Journey of Adult Learners . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999.

Jarvis, Donald K. Junior Faculty Development: A Handbook . NY: Modern Language Association, 1991.

Menges, Robert J. Faculty in New Jobs : A Guide to Settling In, Becoming Established, and Building Institutional Support . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1999

Zachary, Lois J. The Mentor's Guide: Facilitating Effective Learning Relationships . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2000.

Evaluating Faculty Work

Diamond, Robert M. Aligning Faculty Rewards with Institutional Mission: Statements, Policies, and Guidelines . Bolton, MA: Anker, 1999.

Diamond, Robert M. Preparing for Promotion and Tenure Review . Bolton, MA: Anker, 1995.

Hutchings, Pat. Making Teaching Community Property: A Menu for Peer Collaboration and Peer Review . American Association for Higher Education, 1996.

Seldin, Peter and Associates. Changing Practices in Evaluating Teaching: A Practical Guide to Improved Faculty Performance and Promotion/Tenure Decisions . Bolton, MA: Anker, 1999.

Seldin, Peter and Associates. How Administrators Can Improve Teaching . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990.

Mentoring Graduate Students

Goldman, Charles A. and William F. Massy. T he Ph.D. Factor: Training and Employment of Science and Engineering Doctorates in the United States . Bolton, MA: Anker, 2001.

Marincovich, Michele et al., eds. The Professional Development of Graduate Teaching Assistants . Bolton, MA: Anker, 1998.

Case Studies for Department Chairs

1. Part A: Susan, a former graduate student from your department calls and says: "I have some information of serious concern about one of your faculty members. But our conversation must remain entirely confidential. Can we meet to discuss this?" How do you respond?

   Part B: You agree to meet with Susan, and hear the charge that a tenure-track faculty member in your department has plagiarized work from current and former graduate students, taking credit for their work as his own. What do you do now?

2. You succeed in hiring a brilliant new faculty member in a difficult-to-recruit field. In late November, he approaches you with the news that he and his wife are expecting a child in mid-March, and that she will need to return to her job at Nissan after 6 weeks. He teaches two courses that are critical to the major, and there is no one who can replace his teaching in these areas. He wants to know what parental leave policies exist at your institution: Who will cover his classes for him? What arrangements can you make for stopping his tenure clock while he's on parental leave? etc. How do you respond?

3. You present a reasoned argument to your dean about why a faculty line should be added or preserved in your department, but then learn that the dean denies it. This feels like an arbitrary decision. Your senior faculty (and you) are sure that it's unfair; you feel pressure to make the dean change her or his mind. Much sleeplessness follows. What can you do?

4. You have a new junior faculty member who is a non-native speaker of English from Korea. Three weeks into the semester, a group of US-born, Caucasian students from his large introductory lecture course come to see you. They complain, "We don't see why you hired Professor Kim! We can't understand him when he's speaking, he's disorganized, and he's arrogant." How do you respond to the students? What, if anything, do you say to Professor Kim?

5. Two senior professors in your department actively hate each other. You learn from entering graduate students, for example, that each refuses to let "their" students take courses with the other person. In addition, you observe that at department meetings, each of them lobbies for support from various sides. You learn from others in the department that with colleagues both inside and beyond Vanderbilt, each criticizes the other. Finally, one of them informs you that he is keeping a file on the other and is seeking legal counsel on bringing suit against the other and against you and the school. What do you do?

6. One morning as you are opening up your office door, you overhear two students talking in the hallway. One says, "I'm not going to take Professor Fischer's course-Leona says he's a terrible teacher!" You look more closely and recognize that the speaker is someone who is a work-study student 10 hours a week in your department; Leona is the departmental secretary. After asking around some more, you learn that Leona has been leaking information to students about the teaching evaluations that she types up, and about the salaries of your two new junior faculty hires. What do you do?

HOME | ABOUT CFT | PROGRAMS | SERVICES | RESOURCES