DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 431 370 HE 032 159

AUTHOR Allan, George, Ed.TITLE The Resource Handbook for Academic Deans.INSTITUTION American Conference of Academic Deans, Washington, DC.ISBN ISBN-0-9668985-0-8PUB DATE 1999-00-00NOTE 193p.AVAILABLE FROM American Conference of Academic Deans, 1818 R St., NW,

Washington, DC 20009.PUB TYPE Collected Works - General (020) Guides - Non-Classroom

(055)

EDRS PRICE MF01/PC08 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS *College Administration; College Curriculum; *Deans;

*Educational Finance; Higher Education; *LegalResponsibility; Money Management; *Personnel Management;Professional Development; School Publications

ABSTRACTThis book collects 42 papers on the role of the academic

dean. Papers are grouped into sections on what a dean is, becoming a dean,curriculum, personnel, legal matters, finances, academic publications, and"real life." The papers are: "The Ethics of Deaning" (Charles Masiello);"Collegial.Relations" (Len Clark); "Access to the Dean" (George Allan);"Management Techniques" (Martha Crunkleton); "So Now You Are a Dean: TheFirst 100 Days" (Douglas Steeples); "Evaluating Deans" (David Hoekema);"Teaching and Research" (Virginia Coombs); "Relations with Other Deans" (LisaRossbacher); "What To Read" (Samuel Hines); "Managing Stress" (Lloyd Chapin);"Curriculum Evaluation: Department Reviews" (Peter Alexander); "CurriculumEvaluation: Other Program Reviews" (Carol Lucey); "Revising the Curriculum"(Kathleen Schatzberg); "The Politics of Change" (Charles Masiello); "OutcomesAssessment" (Lloyd Chapin); "The Accreditation of Self-Study" (Walter Swap);"Hiring New Faculty" (Linda Mantel); "Evaluating Probationary Faculty" (LindaMantel); "Evaluating and Compensating Tenured Faculty" (David Leary);"Evaluating Department Chairs" (Elizabeth Scarborough); "RetirementArrangements for Faculty" (Elizabeth Scarborough); "Faculty Development"(David Leary); "Faculty Loads, Special Compensation" (Philip Glotzbach);"Incentive Programs" (Peter Facione); "Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity"(Bari Watkins); "Dismissals, Non-Renewals, Terminations" (H. Dale Abadie);"Harassment" (Lisa Rossbacher); "Physical Disabilities and LearningDisabilities" (Kathleen Schatzberg); "Strategic Planning" (David Leary);"Fund Accounting" (Douglas Steeples); "Special Budgets" (Gary Maris);"Dealing with New Technology" (Carol Lucey); "Workload, Productivity, andCost/Benefits" (Myron Henry); "Fundraising and Entrepreneurship" (PeterFacione); "Faculty Handbook as a Living Policy Document" (James Pence);"College Catalogue" (Kathleen Schatzberg); "Responding to Criticism" (LenClark); "Transitional Leadership: The Temporary President" (CharlesMasiello); "Women Who Are Deans, Deans Who Are Women" (Linda Mantel);"Academic Deaning Despite Difference" (James Pitts); "Servant-Leadership:Deans at Church-Related Colleges" (James Pence); and "Helping Your Successor"(George Allan). (DB)

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HANDBOOK FOR

ACADEMIC

DEANS

ACADAMERICAN CONFERENCE

OF ACADEMIC DEANS

1U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION

Office of Educational Research and ImprovementEDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION

CENTER (ERIC)te4his document has been reproduced as

received from the person or organizationoriginating it.

El Minor changes have been made toimprove reproduction quality.

PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE ANDDISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS

BEEN GRANTED BY

CLIV J. tarcot

1

TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCESINFORMATION CENTEFVERIC)

Points of view or opinions stated in thisdocument do not necessarily representofficial OERI position or policy.

00000000000000000000000000000

The Resource Handbook for

Academic Deans

GEORGE ALLAN, EDITOR

ACADAMERICAN CONFERENCE

OF ACADEMIC DEANS

0000000000000000000000000000

3

Editor: George Allan

A project of theBoard of Directors of the American Conference of Academic Deans

Production Editors:Eliza Jane Reilly, Executive Director, ACADRachel Riedner. Program Manager, ACM)

Copy Editor: Susan ReissDesigner: Dee Bogetti

The American Conference of Academic Deans would like to thankSuzanne Hyers and Maria Helena Price, former Executive Officers ofACAD, under whose leadership this project was initiated and developed.

Published byAmerican Conference of Academic Deans

1818 R Street, NWWashington, DC 20009

Copyright 1999ISBN: 0-9668985-0-8

Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 98-074716

TABLE OF (ONTOill

v PREFACE

1 WHAT A DEAN IS3 The Ethics of Deaning

Charles D. Masiello, Pace University7 Collegial Relations

Len Clark, Earlham College10 Access to the Dean

George Allan, Dickinson College

14 Management TechniquesMartha A. Crunkleton, Bates College

16 So Now You Are a Dean: The First100 DaysDouglas Steeples, Mercer University

23 BECOMING A DEAN

25 Evaluating DeansDavid Hoekerna, Calvin College

31 Teaching and ResearchVirginia Coombs, Oklahoma CityCollege

34 Relations With Other DeansLisa A. Rossbacher, SouthernPolytechnic State University

36 What To ReadSamuel M. Hines, Jr., College ofCharleston

41 Managing StressLloyd W. Chapin, Eckerd College

45 CURRICULUM

47 Curriculum Evaluation:Department ReviewsPeter Alexander, St. Peter's College

55 Curriculum Evaluation: OtherProgram ReviewsCarol A. Lucey, SUNY College ofTechnology at Alfred

57 Revising the CurriculumKathleen Schatzberg, Cape CodCommunity College

61 The Politics of ChangeCharles D. Masiello, Pace University

67 Outcomes AssessmentLloyd W. Chapin, Eckerd College jj

69 The Accreditation Self-StudyWalter C. Swap, Tufts University

73 PERSONNEL75 Hiring New Faculty

Linda H. Mantel, WillametteUniversity

79 Evaluating Probationary FacultyLinda H. Mantel, WillametteUniversity

o 82 Evaluating and CompensatingTenured Faculty

O David E. Leary, University ofO Richmond

86 Evaluating Department ChairsElizabeth Scarborough, IndianaUniversity, South Bend

89 Retirement Arrangements forFacultyElizabeth Scarborough, IndianaUniversity, South Bend

92 Faculty DevelopmentDavid E. Leary, University ofRichmond

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95 Faculty Loads, SpecialCompensationPhilip Glotzbach, University ofRedlands

100 Incentive ProgramsPeter A. Facione, Santa ClaraUniversity

107 LEGAL MATTERS

109 Affirmative Action/EqualOpportunityBari Watkins, Morningside College

113 Dismissals, Non-Renewals,TerminationsH. Dale Abadie, Croft Institutefor International StudiesUniversity of Mississippi

116 HarassmentLisa A. Rossbacher, SouthernPolytechnic State University

118 Physical Disabilities and LearningDisabilitiesKathleen Schatzberg, Cape CodCommunity College

123 THE FINANCIAL SIDEOF DEANING

125 Strategic PlanningDavid E. Leary, University ofRichmond

132 Fund AccountingDouglas Steeples, Mercer College

138 Special BudgetsGary L. Maris, Stetson University

143 Dealing with New TechnologyCarol A. Lucey, SUNY College ofTechnology at Alfred

148 Workload, Productivity, and Cost/BenefitsMyron S. Henry, University ofSouthern Mississippi

152 Fundraising and EntrepreneurshipPeter A. Facione, Santa ClaraUniversity

157 ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS

159 Faculty Handbook as a LivingPolicy DocumentJames L. Pence, St. Olaf College

164 College CatalogueKathleen Schatzberg, Cape CodCommunity College

167 REAL LIFE169 Responding to Criticism

Len Clark, Earlham College171 Transitional Leadership:

The Temporary PresidentCharles D. Masiello, PaceUniversity

175 Women Who Are Deans, DeansWho Are WomenLinda H. Mantel, WillametteUniversity

177 Academic Deaning DespiteDifferenceJames P. Pitts, University of NorthCarolina at Asheville

180 Servant-Leadership: Deans atChurch-Related CollegesJames L. Pence, St. Olaf College

186 Helping Your SuccessorGeorge Allan, Dickinson College

List of ResourcesContributors

This Handbook, it says, is for Deans. Theterm "dean" is old wine that comes thesedays in many new bottles. You are to takeit as a portmanteau word, a word, asHumpty Dumpty explained to Alice,capable of carrying a great number ofdiverse meanings. In this case, it doesthe work of a great diversity of titles forthe senior academic officer of an institu-tion of higher education: Vice Chancellorfor Academic Affairs, Vice President forAcademic Affairs, Provost, Dean of theCollege, Dean of the Faculty. Moreover,this Handbook may well be of help tothose who are academic officers but notthe senior academic officer. This wouldinclude associate or assistant deans whoreport to deans, deans who report toprovosts, provosts who report to vice-presidents, and many another idiosyn-cratic expression of the organizationalstructure of an academic administration.Deans in all these senses serve at insti-tutions with a great variety of ways bywhich to identify their genus: Academy,Community College, Junior College, Four-Year College, Technical College, Compre-hensive College, College of a University,University, University System. The usualway in this Handbook has been to refer to

PREFE

the institution of higher education as your"institution," but often as a "college" andsometimes as a "university." But whateverthe name, whatever the locale: this Hand-book is for those who toil in the vineyardsof academe as the administrators respon-sible for overall management of the pro-cesses by which a faculty is recruited anddeveloped and a cuniculum fashioned andreformed as an instrument for the educa-tion of students and the furtherance ofknowledge.

In 1992 members of the Board of Directorsof the American Conference of AcademicDeans (ACAD) decided it would be usefulif there were a handbook that could helpnew deans adjust to the challenges andterrors of their new position. The menand women who fmd themselves holdingappointments to major positions in aca-demic administration are rarely aware ofwhat their responsibilities involve. Theymay have thought they knew. But whatfrom the outside, from the vantage pointof a faculty member or a junior admin-istrative position, may have seemed in-telligible often turns out to be quitedifferent when experienced from theinside. The responsibilities sketched in

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a job description and the proceduresdetailed in task booklets and tickler filesare complicated, and the sheer volume ofthem can seem overwhelming. Far moredaunting, however, is the interpersonalcharacter of most of these responsibilities,calling for sensitivity, discretion, politicalacumen, moral insight, and prudentialjudgment.

The ACAD Board thought it would behelpful to put down on paper some of thewords of advice experienced deans thinktheir less experienced new colleagueswould appreciate. This Resource Hand-book is the result. The Board agreed thatthe handbook should be practical. Thereare plenty of other venues for providinginterpretive frameworks, historical per-spectives, psychological analyses, andhortatory expectorations regardingcleanliness. And there are hundreds ofmonographs filled with the detailed tech-nicalities of particular policies, programs,procedures, and pedagogical products. TheResource Handbook aims at the middlerange: more general than the nitty-gritty,more specific than the theoretical. It ishoped that it will be something that newdeans consult first when confronted withan issue they fmd perplexing. The Hand-book is thus a bit like Dr. Spock, providingreassurances, indicating some preliminar-ies to be considered, suggesting where toacquire additional information.

The original idea had been that the Hand-book might be written by one person, ormaybe a troika of authors. But it wasclear that no extant dean had either thewisdom or the time to pull this off. InJune 1994, a committee composed ofDavid Jordan (Austin College), BariWatkins (Morningside College), and

myself as chair, undertook to draft a setof topics that the Board would then assignto various deans around the countrybased on their interest or expertise in agiven area. Deans are busy people, how-ever, and finding ones who would agree totake on a writing assignment, much lesssecuring their drafts in timely fashion,proved to be very much like the proverbialdifficulties involved in changing a curricu-lum. Eventually, however, the graveyardwas moved and the cats herded across theroad, and the results are now before you.Along the way, the pool of authors shrunkto be only slightly wider than the membersof the Board.

An idea only accomplished in a few in-stances was to post drafts of the variousdiscussions to the internet news groupfor academic deans which is run by ACAD.It was hoped that the wide variety of per-spectives afforded by these colleagueswould reap a bountiful harvest of furthercomments and critiques; some of thesecontributions could then be added to theauthor's original discussion. Unfortunatelyharried deans don't spontaneously putresponses to e-mail requests for commen-tary at the top of their daily agendas, es-pecially if the questions are complex andask for more than the comparatively easy"at my institution we..." kind of response.Nonetheless, the Handbook has managedto include a few of these exchanges. Theysymbolize the way in which a Dean'sHandbook should be a work in progress,a text always in need of glosses, commen-taries, and addenda. You are encouragedto share your reactions with members ofthe ACAD Board or with the WashingtonD.C. office. It is hoped that such ex-changes about the Handbook will soon

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require a Revised Edition, and in that 0 educational leadership and service. Oneedition that you will have become one of <\-, exquisite evidence of this loyalty is theirthe voices in its ongoing conversation willingness to fmd the time to prepareabout the basic practicalities of academic their contributions to this Handbook, foradministration, they have done so without fmancial remu-

neration and without much expectationTwo lists are provided at the conclusion of 0 of anyone caringexcept new deans,this book. The first list contains the names unknown to them, who will someday readof the Chairs of the ACAD Board over the what they have said, and maybe be helpedyears from the inception of the Handbook 0 by it. The deans appearing in these twoidea to its publication. They have had the

<> lists are identified by the institution withinteresting responsibility of being a cat

cb which they were associated at the time ofherders' herder, patiently but persistentlymoving this project forward. The other list

their contribution to this project.

is of the authors of the 42 topics that corn- George Allan

prise this Handbook. If academic deansHandbook EditorApril 1998

are in any sense a community it is by vir- <c,

tue of their common loyalty to ideals of

What

A Dean Is

ACAD,

AMERICAN CONFERENCEOF ACADEMIC DEANS

THE [TIM Of DEMING

Charles D. Masiello, Pace University

INTRODUCTION

Albert Einstein believed that his erawas characterized by the perfectionof means and the confusion of ends.Times may not have changed much,but academic leaders bear a particu-

lar responsibility both to be clear aboutthe ends they are striving to achieve andto be certain that the means to those endsare beyond reproach.

While some cynics may view an "ethicaldean" as an oxymoron, your role as deanis critical in nurturing ethical behavior inyour college or university. You stand atthe nexus of the sometimes competinginterests of administration, faculty, andstudents. You are called upon on a dailybasis to make numerous decisions andmust exercise Solomon-like wisdom toresolve complex issues that are apt tohave significant consequences for thethree groups cited, as well as for thefuture of the institution. Many, perhapsmost, of these issues have an ethical

dimension that must square with theprevailing culture and your personalstandards.

You are expected to present a balanced,equitable, and ethical perspective on allissues and to act accordingly. Unfortu-nately, such behavior on your part is oftenviewed by various constituencies as indi-cating your agreement with the positionsthey have advanced. This, of course, posesa dilemma for any ethical person holdingthe office of dean. How can you satisfyyour own conscience, do the "right thing,"and thereby feel good about your actions,while at the same time making those ac-tions acceptable to the various consti-tuencies served by your office, at least tothe extent that your institution's survivaland progress are insured?

Those of us who hold the title of deanknow this dilemma all too well. Likely,there is no perfect answer to this ques-tion, but the following reflections maybe helpful.

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SOME THOUGHTS

Be clear in your own mind about yourpersonal code of ethics. Remember the oldadmonition: know thyself? Be sure othersknow you too and what you stand for.Manifest your code of ethics in your be-havior. Where appropriate and genuine,pick issues to air publicly that can illus-trate your code of ethics.

Know the cultureor more likely cul-tureswithin which you are functioning.Determine the extent to which your per-sonal values coincide with prevailing con-victions, especially those of the faculty andthe president. If these two are irreconcil-able, begin now to seek another position.You are in the wrong job or place. Morelikely, however, you will discover consider-able but not complete overlap.

Examine present issues in light of both ofthe above admonitions. Measure themagainst your own standards and attemptto view them from the perspectives ofother relevant and affected people orgroups. Such reflection usually leads toinsights that can be helpful in resolvingeven complex issues.

Remember Norman Vincent Peale's stresson the power of positive thinking. Do notbecome entangled in negative thinking,criticism, or action. Do not contribute toan atmosphere of suspicion or anxiety.Do not dwell on failings, but instead con-centrate on strengths and use them toachieve a more effective organization.

Pope John MIL in another context, isreported to have expressed the view thatone should see everything, overlook agreat deal, and change a little. That isgood advice for deans in most situations.

However, there may be times when youwill want or need to change much. Besure to do it judiciously, with skill, con-sultation, and adequate explanation.You will not be successful if you areunable to bring the community to shareyour perspective.

One of your principal tasks is to bringabout the involvement of all relevant per-sons and groups in an issue, including itsethical aspects, and to develop as muchagreement as possible. Having done that,it is your duty to make decisions in atimely fashion. Faculty members aretrained to keep the question open, butadministrators, by virtue of their respon-sibilities, need to decide and act withinrestricted time frames and often withincomplete data, making clear the falli-bility but nonetheless the importance ofsuch decisions.

Have faith in yourself and in your ownjudgment. Not everything can be decidedon purely objective grounds; there aretimes when subjective judgment is neces-sary, even desirable. It falls to you as anacademic leader to be scrupulously fair,consistent, and caring. You must also beresponsive to various people and groups.But remember that responsiveness canmean saying no as well as yes.

Expect the best from yourself and others.It is your obligation to help others to real-ize their full potential. You also have aresponsibility to yourself to provideenough time for reflection and physicalactivity to maintain your energy and cre-ativity, not to mention your well-being.

People typically say they want a leaderwho will serve the common good, but theyalso want their parochial interests served.

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It is your job to direct those special inter-ests for the benefit of all. Of course the"common good" will be defmed in differentways by different constituencies. But takeheart, you as dean probably know moremembers of the academic community thanany other person on campus. and you willbe acutely aware of competing perspec-tives. You likely have broader experiencein dealing with these constituencies aswell. This gives you major advantages indefming the common good in a way thatis acceptable to a broad spectrum of thecommunity. Although special interestgroups will evaluate you in terms of howoften you agree with their perspectives,your ethical stance must be firm, con-sistent, and evident.

GUIDELINES FORETHICAL LEADERSILIP

Listen before you act.Acknowledge the interdependence of thecomponents of your institution.

+ Consult with relevant individuals andgroups.

+ Take the time to be sensitive to yourconstituencies.Make every effort to serve their basicneeds.

+ Do not distort reality to achieve yourown ends, even good ones.

+ Correct misconceptions and incorrectinterpretations.Respect others; do not diminish them inan attempt to make your point or winsupport for your perspective.

+ Resolve rather than exploit conflict.Trust others until such time that theyprove unworthy of your trust.Help others to realize their fullpotential.

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+ Set measurable and achievable goals.Provide the resources necessary forothers to function effectively.

+ Stand by others who in striving tomeet common goals may make honestmistakes.

+ Accept responsibility.Share the leadership task by empow-ering others.Take the blame; share the fame.

SOME FINAL ADVICE

Rules provide structure and guidelines,but in most instances they should not befollowed slavishly. Prudent exceptions areprovided for in good rules and are neededat times. For instance, in an effort to befair, you may be tempted to treat everyfaculty member or student in the sameway. But people are different and so aretheir individual circumstances. Even ifthey were not, you may have the opportu-nity to help only one or a few individualsof a given sort. Should you fail to extendthat help for fear of not being able to as-sist all who are in similar circumstances?How often has it been said: "If I do it foryou, I will have to do it for everyone?"Such a response, at least at times, canbe totally inappropriate.

Insight into this apparent dilemma can begained by taking an example from a com-pletely different context: There are millionsof starving children in this world. Wouldany of us fail to feed one of them if he orshe came to us personally for help, forfear that we were being unfair to theothers whom we could not feed? Yet inan academic setting we often feel thatrules are sacrosanct. How many times dowe resist helping one individual because of

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a distorted view of what fairness to thegroup or adherence to a rule means?

An ethical leadership response to a spe-cific situation demands consideration ofthe human component and consequentaction. You may not be able to do it foreveryone, but you may be able to help theperson who comes to you in need of assis-tance. If you can't, be honest about itwithout making excuses. That's part ofethical cleaning!

To which Susan Gotsch (HartwickCollege) adds:

But even while focusing on the needs ofindividuals in this way, be sure not toignore issues of fairness and equity. Thestarving children may compare notes, sobe prepared to justify your decisions oryou may be accused (and maybe rightly)of favoritism.

And Gerald Lee Ratliff (Montana StateUniversity) remarks:

One of the first ethical concerns you willhave is to decide how much information toshare with department heads or facultyand in what context. Head's meetings andfaculty meetings are traditionally the mostvisible forum to share ideas, outline newinitiatives, clarify points of view and pro-mote general consensus. There is also aninherent risk, however, that in those infor-mal academic arenas you might be victim-ized by colleagues who apparently delightin seizing upon the public opportunity toquestion the content of your presentation,to challenge your point-of-view, or todebate the merits of a proposition underreview without detailed information toreinforce or to suppOrt their individualargument(s). Ethics in this arena demands

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that you disclose your primary sources,show potential relationships to currentprograms, and indicate long-range projec-tions that may affect areas of immediatefaculty concern. Ethics in the publicforum demands that you be as open,honest, and inclusive as the issues allow.You ought also to be an attentive listenerwho respects differences of opinion. Yourcommunicative posture should enrichfaculty comprehension and understandingby including well-chosen examples, spe-cific instances, and prescient symbols thathelp to amplify and to defme the issue(s)being explored.

One of your ethical concerns should haveto do with how best to resolve conflict.Conflict resolution demands that you havea broad-based, impartial perspective thatseparates fact from fancy in an activepursuit of the enduring truth which re-conciles apparent differences of opinionon a selected issue. A primary guidingprinciple of conflict resolution is a willing-ness to entertain differing points of viewand to arrive at an evenhanded, concilia-tory judgment that best addresses themutual interests of the parties concerned.Fair and open-minded deliberation anddecision-making are especially importantingredients in any Dean's administrativestrategy. Such qualities are the result ofhard work: careful research of the problemarea, detailed analysis of the potential im-plications of the problem area, and for-ward-thinking fmal recommendations thatanticipate precise goals and objectives.When honesty and integrity inform yourperspective on conflict resolution and alsoinform objective decision-making, yourpotential to be an effective and influentialadministrative leader is greatly enhanced.

(01.1161A1 RELATIONS

Len Clark, Earlham College

hat A Dean Is" can be an-swered by your college'sorganization chart, but ofcourse the heart of a dean'sprofessional identity consists

in the relationships the dean inherits, andestablishes, and nurtures.

RELATIONSHIPS WITHFACULTY COLLEAGUES

Veteran deans will tell you that the mostradical and yet most subtle change youwill experience in your relationships withothers involves faculty colleagues. If youare a dean new to an institution, this issomewhat less dramatic because youracquaintance with new faculty colleagueswill already be conditioned by their aware-ness of your role as dean. However, if youbecome a dean at the institution whereyou have been a faculty member, a cruelchange occurs, the more difficult becauseit is so quiet. You will be tempted to thinkthat the close friendships with 5 or 10 or

15 colleagues that have enriched your pro-fessional identity over the years can con-tinue without radical change. Indeed,those colleagues will encourage you tobelieve that.

The change occurs because you will beless conscious of your "power" than areothers. The sense (not at all necessarilymatched in practice) that you are confid-ing in some members rather than otherswill set the faculty up for relationships ofjealousy and lack of confidence in the abil-ity of some to get a fair hearing from thedean. Continuing in the poker group youbelonged to for years or the informal lunchgroup you've attended for a long time maynot be impossible, but you will need tocalculate the cost. Prepare to be broughtup short sooner or later when a previouslytrusting colleague says to you, "You're notmy colleague. You're the dean!"

The best protection against the difficultiesof changed faculty/colleague relations isto go into the deanship knowing (at least

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intellectually) that they will happen andhaving determined this is a price you arewilling to pay. It also helps to rememberthat there is not a sharp line between for-merly allegedly apolitical relationships andnew relationships defmed by the politics ofyour role. We are colleagues still, and wenever were friends who were unaware ofeach other's roles.

The final counsel on faculty relationshipsis that you should try hard to cultivatefriendships with others outside the col-lege community. The active cultivation ofsuch friendships is an important dean'ssurvival skill.

RELATIONSHIPS WITHOTHER ADMINISTRATORS

President. Of course, officially, your mostimportant relationship is with the presi-dent or provost to whom you report. Formost of us, this relationship begins in ahealthy way because that person haschosen you as a colleague, presumably forgood reasons! One of the clearest ways tomaintain the confidence of this relation-ship is to be extremely careful aboutconversations outside the president'sknowledge with members of the Board ofTrustees. It's a good policy simply never tohave conversations about business withBoard members without reporting theirsubstance to the president.

A second way to help nurture the rela-tionship with the president is to make ita point to ask for a "reality check" abouthow you are doing every three months orso. Presidents are no better than the restof us at providing systematic and frequentjob performance feedback, especially on

<4> points that may be awkward. Your willing-ness to open the context for such a dis-cussion is thus all the more important.

Be especially careful to avoid discussionswith faculty colleagues about the presi-dent. It will be especially tempting, and isespecially dangerous, to confide that youshare the faculty's position on an issueand will be trying to persuade the presi-dent, when you know the president maynot be able to accept the position. Arguevigorously with the president in private,but remember that those same pointsmade in public can easily appear to beundermining him or her.

Financial Vke President. This collegial re-lationship may be the most important ofall, because the two of you will jointly beresponsible for recommendations con-cerning faculty and staff compensationlevels, tuition levels, and the amount ofrisk taking constituted by a particularyear's budget. If the two of you do nothave a high degree of confidence in oneanother, you face continual difficulties ininterpreting the administration's stance,and the temptations of partisanship onbehalf of each person's constituency willbe difficult to resist. If the dean and thechief financial officer respect one anotherand can reach mutually acceptable posi-tions without public confrontation, thetwo of you can protect the institution intimes of presidential change or incapacity.

The most important condition for mutualtrust between the CFO and the dean isato develop a style of understanding oneanother that causes you not to need totake opposed positions in public. In mostcases, when such oppositions get articu-lated, you will look the hero, and the CFO

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the villain. No one can tolerate being putin that position very often.

Other deans and vice presidents. Theserelationships are also crucial to the healthof the institution. The chief peril in theserelations is the assumption, made byfaculty, that yours is the more importantposition. Yet the college requires thatseveral departments and areas functioneffectively together in order for institu-tional goals to be met. The most success-ful deans are seen as supportive by theirdean and vice presidential peers and areslow to assert seniority or authority.Close collegial relationsperhaps evenprofessional friendshipsamong suchadministrative peers can become impor-

tant sources of support, solace, andp encouragement.

The relationships cultivated by the deanare crucial to the dean's success and thatof the institution. The best counsel in allof them is to remember that everyonethinks you have more power than you

0, do, and that perceived power generatesfright and defensiveness. This will be true

* in the best deanships and the best man-aged institutions: it is an institutionalreality. Build relationships of confidenceby speaking softly, asserting authoritywith great infrequency, thanking your

O colleagues frequently, and praising their

K> good work whenever the occasion arises.

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ACCESS TO THE DEAN

George Allan, Dickinson College

1.1

ow should a dean approach thequestion of "access"? Obviouslysomeone can always make an ap-pointment to see you, but are thereground rules your secretary should

be instructed to use in making thoseappointments? Then there is the "just aquick question" ploy, the foot in the doorthat turns into an hour meeting. Andthere's telephone tag. And there's theproblem of being inundated with hundredsof e-mail messages. How should you cope,shape, and control the processes by whichothers seek to gain access to you?

THE HALF-OPEN DOOR

You need to beand you need to be per-ceived as beingavailable to faculty (andstudents and administrators and...). Youalso need to respond in timely fashion towhatever is asked of you by those whoseek you out. This is a problem becausethe time taken up figuring out, throughinteractions with others, what you need

to do leaves too little time to get it done.This is especially true because what needsdoing flows your way from formal initia-tives (committees, departments, presi-dents) as well as from your more informalinteractions with individuals. Indeed,there is an obvious inverse correlation(catch-22) here: the more you are opento others the more they ask of you, andhence the less time you have to do whatthey have asked you to do. Besides, youneed time to plan your own initiatives,time to let your ideas ferment and to testthem out through supposedly unproduc-tive (informal) interactions, time to imple-ment them in ways that are sometimesquite indirect and call for subtle constantfine tuning.

This is a demand and supply problem:the demand for your time is in excess ofthe supply you have of it. The solution,abstractly put, is obvious. On the demandside, reduce it by finding ways to avoidunnecessary meetings with others andby controlling the length of time each

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interaction requires. You need a sortingdevice to help you distinguish worthwhilefrom non-useful interactions and then totime those interactions accordingly: from"as long as it takes" to "go peddle yourpapers somewhere else." On the supplyside, increase your availability by manag-ing your time more cleverly and by del-egating the responses to others. Think ofassociate deans, department heads, andcomniittee chairs not just as lovable col-leagues but also as extensions of yourself:Kant said it was okay to treat others asmeans as long as you also treat them asends in themselves (use 'em but love 'em).

The preceding is easy to say in the ab-stract, difficult to translate into the rou-tine practices of everyday deanship. Butthat's what they pay you the big bucks todo, right?

One reminder, however. One aspect of aneducational institution is more importantthan its goals and the programs thatimplement those goals. This is its ethos,its style: the aesthetic and moral and in-terpretive framework within which yourgoals are formulated and pursued. One ofyour tasks as a dean is to nurture thisethos. Be sure that the way you find timefor listening to others, making plans, andcarrying them out also expresses thisethos. In a word, be sure that "how" youmake yourself available to others exempli-fies what it is to try and live by the idealswhich originated and ground yourinstitution's educational mandate.

SOME SPECIFIC COMMENTSAND SUGGESTIONS

Gil Atnip (Indiana University Southeast)

I have tried to maintain an open doorpractice, because I think it is importantfor faculty and staff to see me as acces-sible rather than as a remote "administra-tive other." Under that approach, the bestway to handle the "quick question" is tolet the person know you have limited timebecause of a meeting or whatever (assum-ing that is true) but that if the questioncan be handled quickly you will be happyto talk now. You can also put an end to aquick question session that turns into anhour with the same approach. On theother hand, I often learn some interestingthings in those sessions that make themworthwhile (usually those have nothing todo with the original pretext of the conver-sation). The bottom line is that to main-tain the openness that I want, I have hadto give up some control over my time; Ithink it has been worth it. In fact, I oftenthink I don't see enough faculty membersin my office.

My predecessor in this job told me thatthe main qualification was to have theattention span of a three-year-old. I havefound that he was right.

Harry L. Hamilton (Chapman University)

Inform your secretary of the length of timeyou will devote to the meeting and haveher interrupt you at that point with "anemergency."

Have two addresses, one "unlisted" forkey administrators to use in reaching you,the other for "the world" to use. Read the

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former, scan the latter for pithy infosuchas ACAD messages!!!!

For people who try to end-run the systemrepeatedly, insist that their business canget to you only through their superior,who acknowledges that he/she has beenunable to solve the problem. Other thanthat, just be obnoxious so no one wants tointeract with you!!! (But you still have toget your job done!!)

Peter Alexander (Saint Peter's College)

People vary in their ability to resumework after an interruption and in theirability to chase someone out of the officewhen time is pressing. One's policy shouldtake these things into account. I have nodifficulty with interruption of written workand can resume immediately withoutproblem. On the other hand, I can't copewith interruptions of budgetary work andtend to make errors when that sort ofwork is interrupted.

I have authorized my secretary to tellpeople that I will not see them or speakwith them unless they state a purpose fortheir call or visit. If the caller insists thatthe matter is confidential, she will tellthem that they must state the generalnature or category of the problem withoutrevealing any confidential details. All toooften it turns out that the problem can bedealt with by the secretary.

Lisa A. Rossbacher (SouthernPolytechnic State University)

Go meet faculty members in their offices,rather than having them come to yours.Although this isn't always possible or con-venient, it offers a number of advantages.

The scenery is varied. You control thelength of the meeting (it is far easier toexcuse yourself and leave than to figureout a way to get someone else out yourdoor). You see where and how faculty areworking, and you learn more about themby seeing their books and materials. Yousee the physical condition of academicfacilities. You are less likely to be inter-rupted by administrative colleagues. Youbreak down the barriers that exist forsome people in The Dean's Office (whichcan also be used to advantage, on occa-sion, as well). You see other faculty, staff,and students en route to and from themeeting (which requires allowing extratravel time!). And you are seen to be out-side of your office.

James L. Pence (St. Olaf College)

I began five years ago with a system Ilearned from my dean: a combination of1) established "staff conferences" withthe people who report directly to me;2) "open calendar" time initiated by others(for which I ask people to declare to mysecretary the purpose of the meeting);3) blocked out calendar time for unin-terrupted work, wandering around, etc.1) an 2) are going OK; 3) seems to erode(and I don't do enough to protect it). MikeMarty once told me that being dean meansthat you can't keep up with your writing,then you can't keep up with your reading,then you can't keep up with your think-ing Protecting time for reading, writ-ing, and thinking for me means blockedout calendar time

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Karl Reitz (Wilkinson College of A & S,Chapman University)

If I were to give away the resources I haveand empower others to accomplish what Ican accomplish, then there would be lessneed for others to try to go through me toget resources or power.

John Churchill (Hendrix College)

My best hunch is that devices for con-trolling access are far less important thanthe dean's ability to use ten and fifteenminute segments of time well, his or herability to hold multiple projects in viewand to keep moving them along as oppor-tunity presents itself to touch this one,then that one, next the other, and so on.A few years ago we had a visiting troupeof Chinese acrobats on campus. They didamazing thingsstacking chairs, jugglingknives, tumbling. But one act really seizedme. A guy came out and set up a series ofthin poles, atop each of which he set aplate spinning. He set up more and morepoles, with more and more plates, and asthe new ones went up, the old ones beganto wobble and he'd give the pole a twistand set things right and then a new polewith a new spinning plate would go up butthen three plates on old poles would startto wobble and they'd get tweaked and anew pole would go up and the audiencewould gasp as five old poles would start togo andquickin the nick of time he'dsave them and put up some more, and so <3)

on and on. It looked like my jobonlybetween poles he should have beeninterviewing candidates.

The moral is this: the job is intrinsicallyincoherent in its daily texture. The coher-ence has to come from somewhere besidesthe rhythm of the day's work.

Paul Formo (Dana College)

I agree with the several comments madewith regard to walking around and haveone small contribution (ginmrick) to addat this point. I am not sure where Ilearned it, but it is not an original ideathe "stand up meeting." It is a very usefulway of handling the "one quick question"and it works simply by not sitting down asthey come in and not inviting them to sitdown. One can be very friendly and cordialanyway, but it is amazing how discussingthe issue while standing shortens the timeon the topic.

Stephen Briggs (Rollins College)

My secretary uses a simple strategy toprotect my time for special projects, plan-ning, grant writing, and so on as well asfor returning memos, e-mail, and phonecalls. I get to work early and she schedulesno appointments until 10 a.m. I use thetime to deal with the mail and phone pilesfrom the previous day and (ideally) longerterm projects. She also assesses how farabove or below water I am and schedulesadditional work periods (2 to 3 hoursperiodically) so that I can catch up ordeal with an important matter.

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MANAGEMENT TREWS

Martha Crunkleton, Bates College

In a recent flurry of postings to theACAD discussion listserve, there weremany conunents about particular man-agement techniques and their effective-ness in Academia as well as general

comments about whether the very wordmanagement had any cash value in highereducation. Some thought that the worditself would send colleagues into a tizzybecause it was inherently evil!

Perhaps they are right. Whatever man-agement technique one subscribes to,some of the issues around being a deanhave more to do with self-managementthan with "managing" or "not appearingto manage" others.

What I have spent lots of time on as deanis the kind of thing that one fmds in theI Chingavoid mentally executing one'senemies; the mark of the great leader isthat the people say "we did this our-selves;" and, not every thought mustbe articulated--and in Pascalall of

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mankind's troubles come from our inabil-ity to sit in a small room by ourselves.

Listening 101 is the course I most oftenwish I could take. Perhaps a remedialcourse would be "Point of View: How toSpot Your Own and How To Learn to Re-spect Other's." From the moon, the Pariszoo and the Louvre appear to be side-by-side, I guess; in Paris, they are somewhatfarther apart.

Apart from the appropriate control of theself (that is, dismissing mental chatter andlearning to be skeptical about believing inthe phantasms created by Ego), the studyof time management and of conflict facili-tation would be helpful to new deans. Ihave done the latter, and it has helped meenormously. The former I have also stud-ied, so far to no apparent gain.

Here are some pragmatics about manage-ment that new deans may fmd helpful:

Have chairs meet regularly and ask thechairs to submit agenda items that youthen take up first in the meeting.

. Encourage departmental or programretreats; this is the one device I haveused at Bates that I can tell has helpeddepartments and programs the most.Ask the faculty to evaluate you, confi-dentially, without their names, once ayear.Announce good news about faculty andstudents every month at the facultymeeting.Try to avoid holding any meeting with-out an agenda, with time limits beingdistributed in advance. Time is the mostvaluable resource the faculty hasitshould not be abused with meetingsthat waste time.Within the bounds of copyright law,try to circulate to the faculty as manyarticles and essays as possible aboutwhat is going on elsewhere at compa-rable and noncomparable institutions.Try to circulate the most thoughtfulcriticisms of higher education (not allour critics are mean-spirited or wrong)to faculty members as well as proudletters from parents, alumni/alumnae,friends of the college.Try to leave blocks of time in yourcalendar to get the writing done andto deal with emergencies.

. Try to meet with people in their office,not yours.Go to as many athletic contests andartistic performances as possible so thatthose faculty members who are coach-ing, directing, and conducting knowthat you understand the demands onthe time and appreciate what they aredoing for your students.

o:o

Return all telephone_calls from trusteesand from foundation program officerswithin 30 minutes.When faculty members are angry, takethe time to listen and do not defendyourself.Understand that your secretary oradministrative assistant is 10 timesmore important to the working of thefaculty and the college than you willever be.Despite being overwhelmed with thefurious tedium of the urgent but unim-portant (sometimes, when I am listeningto colleagues go on and on about some-thing that most people I know outsidehigher education would consider petty,I have to forcibly restrain myself fromasking them what they think aboutBosnia, Rwanda, or the gutting of thepublic schools in the United States),try to remember every day the intrinsicvalue that the furious tedium matters,and that being a little helper to the fac-ulty as their dean matters.

I have taped in my desk drawer advice Igot from a book about President Truman. Iread these 17 words at least two dozentimes a day to stop my own mental chat-ter. Here they are:

V Work HardV Do Your BestV Speak the TruthV Assume No AirsV Trust in GodV Have No Fear

If I were to try to improve on what Presi-dent Truman said, I would add, "Laugh,"but that may be implicit in not assumingairs. Whatever advice you fmd helpful, Iurge you to place it where you can read itfrequently.

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So Now You ARE A DEAN: THE FIRST 100 DAYS

Douglas Steeples, Mercer University

The following remarks will apply bestto you if you assume your deanlyresponsibilities on or about July 1,when most administrative contractstake effect. The advantages of a sum-

mer start are many. Perhaps the greatestis that at most institutions summer is arelatively "slow" time, which will grant youconsiderable time to acquaint yourselfwith a new institutional environment andresponsibilities before the beginning of theacademic year. If you assume your posi-tion at the middle of, or at some otherpoint during, the academic year, you willneed to accomplish many of the thingsoutlined below while fulfilling your regularacademic-year duties. Even so, the outlineof activities delineated here can be modi-fied to fit almost any starting date. It canalso be adapted to fit local variations incircumstances.

* SETTING THE TONE OF<> YOUR ADMINISTRATION:<> BEGINNING THE GAME

The greatest challenge facing you at theoutset of your deanship or vice presidencywill be to gain as rapidly as possible acomprehensive view of your institution,your college or school, key colleagues, andchief policies and procedures. Of no lessimportance will be the steps you take toestablish the "tone" of your office. Willyou present yourself as one prepared forthe position? As knowledgeable about theleading issues and challenges with whichyou will have to deal? As authoritarian oropen? As a speaker only, or as one whocan listen and reflect as well as speakand decide? As one who appreciates theimportance of respecting lines of commu-nication and authority while understand-ing also the importance of being availablewhen appropriate? As an open-door or aclosed-door administrator? As one whorarely leaves the office, or as one who"walks around"?

During the first 100 days you will, con-sciously or not, establish the precedentsthat will create enduring perceptionsamong your colleagues of what they canexpect of you. You will also lay the foun-dations for the most important workingrelationships with which you will bebound. It is critically important, then,that you do everything possible to createthe conditions for success. It may nothurt, either, to remember that as one wiseold dean put it, academic administrationis a bit like a poker game, but with oneimportant difference: upon assuming yourposition as a new dean or chief academicofficer, you buy into the local game andreceive a stack of chips. But you almostnever win chips. Instead, you spend them.If you are careful, effective, and fortunate,you can spend them very slowly. Never-theless there will probably come a timewhen they are all spent, and it is time tofmd a new game.

There are some important things that youcan do to buy the largest possible initialstack of chips, and become prepared tospend them wisely, and slowly:

GETTING A "TAKE" ON YOURINSTITUTION: READING

Although you will have read through agreat deal of material in the course ofyour candidacy and the selection process,there are few better ways to spend yourtime at the outset of a deanship or aca-demic vice presidency than in readingcarefully through selected materials. Youmay never again have the time to do so.It will be important to review in detail atleast the following, in order to firm upyour understanding of the modes of

operation of the most pressing issues fac-ing, and the matters lately dealt with by,your school or college. At the very least,then, you will want to read with care:

The college bulletin/catalog, viewbook,and other admissions materials:

complete a "course count" as a meansof getting a curricular overview;complete a staffing diagram to giveyou a sense of how your humanresources are allocated;frame an understanding of whomthe institution seeks to recruit asstudents, and how.

+ The minutes for at least the most re-cently completed academic year, of thefaculty business meeting or that of thefaculty senate or equivalent.

+ The records or recommendations ofany committees on faculty recruitment,promotion, and tenure, together withthose of your predecessor.The records for the past year of anyother committees that work closelywith you.

+ The faculty handbook, especially thoseportions pertaining to the practices inplace for recruiting, promoting, andtenuring faculty colleagues, and thosepertaining to faculty responsibilities,and to processes for changing thecurriculum.

+ The most recently completed accredi-tation self-study report, and writtenresponses and recommendations fromyour regional accrediting body.

+ The budgets for your college or schoolat least for the current and the mostrecent year, and, if possible, three tofive years, in order to ascertain trends.Audited fmancial statements for yourcollege or school.

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Any written materials concerningbudget planning procedures and pro-cesses, and policies governing fiscalmanagement.

+ Any college, school, or (especially)presidential planning documents.

GETTING A "TAKE"MEETING PEOPLE

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You may be surprised to discover, if youare new at deaning, how quickly peoplefind you once you have arrived. It is notuncommon to discover that every depart-ment chair within a school or college willpossess, or contrive, some legitimate rea-son to call on you during your first weeksin the office. This is apt to be no less truein summer than at other points during theyear. You will fmd it very helpful to framea systematic approach to meeting peoplewho will be important for your, and yourschool's or college's, success. Long yearsof experience recommend prioritizing op-portunities to meet with people, in orderto begin to build working relationships.There is much to be said for meeting withthem on their own turf, in their own of-fices, at least initially. Doing so will sendan important message about your accessi-bility. It will also grant you a direct viewthat can be gained in no other way.

+ Confer first with your secretary andestablish a clear understanding abouthow you wish the office to operate. Doyou want to be interrupted by phonecalls while conversing with people(generally, noi)?Which box is for "in" and which for"out" mail? Should the secretaryprescreen your mail?

+ Will your door be open or closed, andwhen?

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Can the secretary make use of the sec-retarial network to keep you informed ofpotential problems?Does your secretary know what areashave been problematic for the previousoccupant of your office?From which sources or directions mayone expect difficulties?Confer with the person to whom youreport. Undoubtedly you will haveconversed during the search processabout your working relationship. It isimportant to follow up and clarify mu-tual expectations. Is a weekly writtenreport of your actions desired? Howoften should you debrief? Will the per-son to whom you report desire regularlyscheduled meetings, or does this personmanage time in such fashion as to feel(and be) free to call you in at any time,no matter what you are doing or withwhom you might be meeting? (This is adelicate issue, to be handled cautiously,but it is important.)Confer with your department chairs,one by one, and listen as they respondto an invitation from you to describetheir needs, hopes, problems, andso on.If there is a council of chairs thatmeets regularly, meet with it andthrough open conversation establishshared expectations about what it willdo, and how.If there is a standing committee of thefaculty that exists to advise you, meetwith it and listen with care as its mem-bers talk about how it works, what itsconcerns are. If there is not such abody, consider whether or not thereought to be, but keep your thoughts toyourself. Meet similarly with any othercommittees that will work closely with

you and discuss openly their sense ofconstitutional and customary practice,and establish a basic understandingabout your intended working relation-ship with them.Meet with the search committee, andagain listen as you give it an opportu-nity to review its hopes, expectations,and so on. It has a stake in your suc-cess, as do your other constituencies,but its stake is larger and more direct.Consider how to use it, informally, butwithin the framework of existing collegeor school structures.

Depending on the size of your faculty, youmay wish to announce and make arrange-ments to begin a series of office calls, oneby one, on your entire faculty, to becomeacquainted and establish your availabffity,as well as to gain a sense of who your col-leagues are. Some deans find it preferableto review personnel ffies before such visits;others, after. Wherever a program of visitsis possible, it will very likely prove to behighly productive.

Don't forget Lawrence Peter "Yogi" Berra'saxiom: "You can do a lot of observing justby watching." And Listen, Listen, Listen.

TEMPTATIONS TORESIST DURING THOSEFIRST 100 DAYS

If you can avoid the following during thefirst 100 days you will have establishedsome operating principles that will serveyou well throughout your term:

1. Do not redecorate your office. Attendto business, and let decorating hap-pen later.

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2. Do not refer to your former institutionby name, ever, if you can help it.

3. Do not fail to thank all who contributeto the work of your school or college.

4. Do not fail to acknowledge, publicly,the accomplishments of your facultycolleagues, regularly and often.

5. Do not allow paperwork to divert yourattention from your job, which is (a) toprovide the best possible education toyour students, (b) by securing and"caring for" the best possible faculty

6. Do not allow yourself to be drawn intothe practice of making hasty decisionswhere delay is possible, and do notmake decisions affecting peoplewithout first conversing with them.

7. Do not change messages to fitaudiences. Inconsistency is quicklyequated with dishonesty or worse.

8. Do not use e-mail or memorandawhere a phone call, or even better,a personal conversation, may bepossible.

9. Do not take yourself, or your office, tooseriously. When you err (and you will,if you are doing the job), own up to itat once, and retain an ability to laughat yourself.

10. Do not forget that your have becomea "larger" figure than you were in thepast. What was vigorous debate whenyou were a professor becomes intimi-dation when you assume a dean'smantle. What was professorial licenseto express your feelings becomes afrightening and unseemly display ofanger when you are a dean. Even forthose who were your intimates before.

11. Like it or not, do not forget that youhave become "one of them." No matterhow broad and intimate your previous

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array of faculty friendships, it cannever be the same again.

12. Do not miss the opportunity to givereports at the regular meetings of yourfaculty, faculty senate, or equivalent.This practice affords you a wonderfulopportunity to teach your faculty col-leagues, but only if you embrace thistask in a properly respectful spirit.

13. If you discover that there may bevalue in creating a periodic internalnews publication from your office, donot assign it a pretentious name. Thepathway to ditches containing thedecaying remains of former deansand chief academic officers is clut-tered with fragments of paper bearingnames such as "Deanogram No. 213."

14. Do not forget the saying that a dean,or a chief academic officer, is to fac-ulty as a fire hydrant is to a dog. Ordeaning is often defmed as an instanceof the incompetent attempting to leadthe ungovernable. Or as the equivalentof attempting to herd cats.... Remain,in short, realistic about the impossible.

Congratulations. You've now completedyour first 100 days. May your experiencenow let you successfully completemany more.

COMMENTS

Lloyd W. Chapin (Eckerd College)

I like Doug Steeples's advice to newdeansboth content and format. Onesuggestion regarding the reference to us-ing up one's chips. There is a certain grimtruth to this, but I think it should be bal-ancedas it is to some degree in the later"list"by pointing out that there are

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things one can do to replenish one'sreservoir of good will by such things asabiding by policies, expressing gratitudeoften, operating with integrity, gettingimportant things done that benefit theinstitution and the faculty as a whole.

One item to add to the advice list: Whenyou hear a complaint about someoneelse to which you feel an obligation torespond, always tell yourself that thereare at least two sides to every story andthat you need to learn as nearly as pos-sible the whole truth before renderingjudgment or taking action.

David Hoekema (Calvin College)

I offer a few mildly dissenting commentson Doug Steeples's advice for new deans,most of which seems to me very much ontarget:

2. Do not refer to your former institutionby name. Ever, if you can help it.

I understand the point here. Butthis needs to be taken with a grainof salt: why did they hire you if notin order to bring to pass at this onesome of the wonderful things youaccomplished at your former institu-tion? I think it's possible to makereference to other institutions' poli-cies without suggesting that you aretrying to force your new home intotheir mold.

8. Do not use e-mail or memorandawhere a phone call, or even better,a personal conversation, may bepossible.

Huh? This goes against the prin-ciple of managing time to keep fromgetting bogged down. Moreover, a

written memo has greater weight inmemory than an e-mail note, whichin turn has more than a conversa-tion: make these differences workfor you, not against you.

10. Do not forget that you have become a"larger" figure.... Even for those whowere your intimates before.

11. Like it or not, do not forget that youhave become "one of them."

I think these vary greatly with insti-tutional climate. Again, what isneeded are discretion and a keensense for how things are taken. Tak-ing this advice too seriously in somecontexts will only create an air ofaloofness. (And it sometimes seemsto me that the way Calvin's adminis-trative structure manages to avoidthis gulf and to encourage closeand congenial relationships be-tween deans and faculty Colleaguesis (1) to make most decanal appoint-ments by rotation from the facultyranks (I was the first academic deanto be hired from outside) and (2) togive deans so little power that itisn't worth the trouble of brown-nosing . . .).

14. Do not forget the saying that a dean,or a chief academic officer, is to facultyas a fire hydrant is to a dog....

OK, OK, but I grow weary of thesecynicisms. If the job isn't genuinelyrewarding, if you don't sense thatyou are really helping junior facultyshape their careers and helping allfaculty nurture intellectual andspiritual growth in students, if youdon't feel an important and valuedpart of the institutionthen dosomething else. The level of effortneeded to be an effective dean isn'tworth it if you are continually frus-tratedand if you feel you are get-ting nowhere, month after month,you may well be right. Academicadministration seems to be a careerthat often leads to interesting nextjobs for those who decided it isn'tquite right for them.

But if you want another proverb,one I prefer, and one whose source Icannot trace: "The job of the facultyis to think for the college; of thepresident, to speak for the college; ofthe dean, to keep the faculty fromspeaking and the president fromthinking." All right, there's a touchof cynicism there toomy apologies.It's Monday, after all.

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ACAtAMERICAN CONFERENCE

OF ACADEMIC DEANS

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[VALUATING DEANS

David Hoekema, Calvin College

periodic and thorough review of per-formance, with provisions for feedback to the person evaluated and forappropriate action, is an area whereacademic institutions exhibit consid-

erable inconsistency. For faculty members,the procedures for reappointment andtenure are nearly always spelled out indetail in the faculty handbook, and fewdepartment chairs or administratorstake these rules lightly. (None take themlightly, one could almost conjecture, morethan once.) For administrative staff, thereis less consistency, but anecdotal evidenceI have seen suggests that increased de-mands for accountability and efficiencyhave led to more frequent and more can-did performance reviews on many cam-puses. For department chairs and headsof programs in the academic domain,procedures may be looser, but at a mini-mum there is almost invariably a formalprocess for renewal every three to fiveyears that offers those who work underthe individual's supervision to tell the

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college how well or how badly the work isbeing done.

But pity yourself, poor dean! Seldom over-whelmed with displays of affection andappreciation either from the faculty orfrom the president or vice president towhom you report, you toil on in tirelessdedication but often in ignorance of howyour work is assessed. Even when youserve for a specific and renewable term ofoffice, the renewal process is often proforma. Responses to the query posted onthe ACAD list disclosed that relatively fewacademic deans feel they receive the levelor the kind of periodic assessment thatwould enable them to carry out their re-sponsibilities betteror, in extreme cases,to know when to pack their bags and leavetown quietly. But you should take comfortin the realization that, even if academicadministrators are seldom given regularperformance review, the crime ofdecanicide appears to be rare.

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In my own posting on this topic I wrote,"My sense is that colleges have tolerablygood procedures for chair and programhead evaluations, or at worst they knowwhat they ought to do but do it half-heartedly. Evaluations of those with in-stitution-wide responsibilities is at thesame time much more important andmuch more difficult to do well." A reviewof other responses supports this impres-sion. I excerpt several of them below.

What is it to conduct an evaluation of anacademic dean in a thorough and helpfulway? It is to have a process that balancesvarious areas of responsibility, that re-wards the righteous and punishes thewicked, and that also helps move the in-stitution forward in pursuit of its goals.I cannot honestly say that I have seensuch a process in operation in any insti-tution where I have worked. During theeight years that I headed a national disci-plinary association. I repeatedly asked thechair of the Board of Officers to conduct acomprehensive performance review, but itnever happened, and I wondered why. Thereasons, I concluded, must involve twofactors: a belief that most of my work wasbeing done so well that it was pointless todevote a lot of time to giving me a pat onthe back; and an impression that the restof my work was being botched so badlythat it must surely represent deep-seatedcharacter defects that it is wisest not todredge up and display for all to see.Perhaps the same two factors motivatethe comparative neglect of evaluationfor deans.

But before turning over the floor to col-leagues, I want to say a word about onecomprehensive performance review that Iwent through recently. Without wishing to

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wallow in self-pity, let me simply say thatit left me profoundly discouraged in waysthat I do not believe either those who sub-mitted comments or the person who col-lated and summarized them had intended.In the end some good came of the process,but it happened in spite of, not because of,the way it was structured. A major prob-lem, I believe, was the fact that commentswere anonymous all roundno signaturesthat would help the person who collectedthem place them in context. A wisercourse, I think, is to require signed com-ments and then let the person conductingthe evaluation collate, summarize, and"anonymize."

Since we have not changed our process, Iam undermining it by example as best Ican. Every time I submit a performanceevaluation, I send a copy to the subject,even if it contains pointed criticism. Theresponse has been surprise, sometimes abit of defensiveness, and then an eager-ness to talk more about how to solve theproblems. My administrative colleaguesseem to agree that it would be a fine thingif this were to become a common practice.Which is not to say that any of them isdumb enough to follow my example,however.

Good evaluation procedures do a lot morethan correct problems. They maintain asense of collaboration and common pur-pose, and they help shape and form aninstitutional ethos of respect and account-ability. They probably also reduce choles-terol and cure psoriasis.

Let me close with an observation fromanother realm. A close friend has under-gone regular evaluations as an associateat two law firms. A partner was assigned

to collect comments, most but not all, ofwhich were cc'd to to my friend. The part-ner reviewed them for her a couple ofweeks later, stated the criticisms candidly,but also conveyed an overall sense ofstrong support for her work which reas-sured her that she was in the right fu-mand on the right track in overall profes-sional development. At another firm,everything was anonymous and she re-ceived no copies. For months after theywere solicited, she heard nothing; fmallythe lawyer assigned to collate them re-turned her phone calls and arranged ameeting, at which she received positivebut not very specific feedback. The firstfirm, one surmises, will have a mucheasier time recruiting and retaining ex-cellent lawyers. As the Good Book says,go thou and do likewise, all ye who arepresidents, vice presidents, or deans.

But to you who are new deans, at institu-tions where evaluation procedures of "firstfirm"quality are not in place, don't rushin where angels fear to tread (that's notfrom the Good Book but it sounds like it,right?). Give some careful thought to whatyou think is needed, as a reform of exist-ing procedures or as something brightand spanking new. Then proceed to in-volve both your president and key faculty(e.g., your faculty personnel committee) inthe refinement of your idea and eventuallyin its implementation. Remember that thisevaluation procedure needs to be one de-signed not just for your needs but forthose of your successors, yea even untothe seventh generation.

And now for some comments from col-leagues on the ACAD list..I begin withthree models for dean evaluation proce-

dures, then move to some improvisationson those models.

MODEL PROCEDURE NO. 1

Tom Wiltshire (Culver-Stockton College)

Quoting from my faculty handbook, a sec-tion called "Policies And Procedures ForEvaluation of The Dean of The College":

The evaluation shall take place atthe end of March each year.

A special survey instrument devel-oped by the Committee on Facultyand the Dean of the College andapproved by the President shall beemployed in the evaluation process.

The chairperson of the Committeeon Faculty shall see to the distribu-tion of the survey to all facultymembers and the collection of thesurvey. Once the chair has collectedthe survey, it is to be shared withthe President of the College, whowill, in turn, share the survey withthe Dean of the College.

In the evaluation of the Dean of the Col-lege, additional feedback should be soughtfrom the professional staff, President'sCabinet, Division Chairpersons, and se-lected students.

MODEL PROCEDURE NO. 2

Peter Alexander (St. Peter's College)

A new process for evaluation of deans andother academic administrators was insti-tuted in this past year:

1. The person to be evaluated submits awritten, comprehensive self-evaluationto his/her superior.

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2. Administrator meets with superior toreview self-evaluation.

3. Superior writes a formal reaction to theself-evaluation.

4. Administrator writes a set of goals forthe coming year.

5. The intent is that the next evaluationcycle will use fulfillment of these goalsas the major premise of evaluation.

We haven't gotten to Step 5 as yet, so itis not possible to gauge the long-termefficiency of this process, although I'mpleased with what I've seen thus far.

MODEL PROCEDURE NO. 3

Susan Crockett (Syracuse University)

At Syracuse University, we have a systemof periodically (approximately every fiveyears) evaluating deans and senior admin-istrators. This is run from the office of theVice Chancellor of Academic Affairs (VCAA)for deans and the office of the Chancellorfor senior administrators. The dean oradministrator being evaluated submits alist of names (15-30) of people who areable to evaluate his or her work. The listcan include faculty, Board of Visitors,other administrators at the university,students, and professionals outside theuniversity. Then the VCAA or chancellormakes a list. The supervisor and personbeing evaluated agree on a list of evalua-tors. Then a letter is sent to each personasking for their evaluation and enclosingtwo documents, "Policy for the FormalEvaluation of Academic Administrators"and "Review of Senior Academic Adminis-trators." Each evaluator is told to addressthe VCAA or Chancellor, label the evalua-tion "Personal and Confidential," and istold that only paraphrases, "carefully

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structured to prevent identification ofthe source," will be shared with theindividuals.

Evaluators are asked to indicate theinterests, perspectives, or concerns thathave shaped their relationship with theindividual; to comment on accomplish-ments, opportunities, failures, or unsolvedproblems in institutional progress, admin-istrative achievements, and intellectualand professional achievements; and tocharacterize the individual's workingstyle, strengths and weaknesses inleadership, management skills, andcommunication skill.

The dean or senior administrator beingevaluated is asked to supply a writtenself-review in light of the expectations forthe office, the goals of the unit, and theactivities of the recent years.

Last, the VCAA or chancellor meets withthe individual to discuss the evaluations,self-assessment, and annual reports. To-gether they formulate goals for improve-ment if that is needed.

IMPROVISATION NO. 1

Martha Crunkleton (Bates College)

There is no procedure at Bates for evaluat-ing deans. Since I arrived here in 1991, Isend each year a copy of a simple evalua-tion form that I wrote to all members ofthe faculty and to all staff members whoreport to me for them to analyze myperformance anonymously. I read theseevaluations during the summer; after aperiod of contemplating resigning and/orsuicide, I then take from these evaluationsthe truly constructive advice they fre-quently provide. I have learned many

things from this process, some of which Iwill summarize here:

1. No one on the faculty knows what myjob is;

2. Many faculty members use the evalua-tion as a way to let off steam and ventand to display their rhetorical flair andathleticism;

3. Many faculty members offer genuinelyuseful criticism and advice to meanonymously that they would not/could not tell me to my face or in asigned letter;

4. Many faculty members, includingthose who are most critical of meand think I should not be dean, havepraised this process of requestingevaluations from them, especially inthe faculty committee that meets withthe Board of Trustees; and

5. Staff members seem to think I am do-ing a better job than faculty membersdo. My colleagues on the senior staff,as well as the president, do not think itis wise for me to do this but I persist.Depressing as it can be, it is helpful tome. It might be helpful to the peopleon the faculty and staffI'm nor sureabout that.

IMPROVISATION NO. 2

David Deal (Whitman College)

At Whitman we have no procedure inplace. A couple of years ago I invited tocampus a review team to review me andmy office. They spent two days on campusand talked to everyone in sight and thenwrote a report directly to the president.They also sent me a copy which I sharedwith the division chairs. The reviewteam consisted of the deans at Carleton,Pomona, and Grinnell. I found their review

extremely helpful since they all knew whatdeaning means.

0 IMPROVISATION NO. 3, WITHCYNICAL CODA

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Stephen Good (Drury College)

I am evaluated (my initiative) once everythree or four years. The last time, I hadthe evaluations turned in to the presi-dent's office and collated them. Then Ishared the results with our three electeddivision chairs (faculty) and asked themto help me interpret them. I did thispartly for their insights and wisdom,partly for the message to the faculty thatI was really listening and taking the evalu-ation seriously.

The evaluation was positive and affirming.After talking with the division chairs forsome time about the evaluation, I askedwhat suggestions they had to improve myevaluation. One of them said, `Time thenext evaluation right after the faculty getsa substantial raise." It was clear to themand to me that faculty concerns about theinstitution get reflected in the evaluationof the dean's performance (this wouldprobably be true for the president or anyother chief administrative officer).

VARIATIONS ON THE THEMEOF CYNICISM

Peter Facione (Santa Clara University)I have been deaning for 13 years andhave been "evaluated' by a formal processthree times. In each case, even when theresults have been very gratifying and af-firming, it has seemed to me that few, ifany, in the process as opinion-givers,data-interpreters, recommenders, or

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evaluators really know what deaning isabout. Mostly this is not a criticism, fornone of them has ever had to step upand dean.

The suggestion of getting an outside re-view team of other deans sounds like thebest idea I've heard in a long time. Such agroup could not only evaluate the dean,but evaluate the dean in the context of theparticular institutional setting (with allthat implies) and make recommendationsnot only to the vice president and presi-dent, but to the dean as well.

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O [Don't we know enough about humandynamics to realize that "evaluating thedean" conceived as an isolated evaluationof one person's performance is nearly im-possible? At times it seems that the sameperson might be a wonderful success atone institution and a dreadful failure inanother.]

EXERCISE FOR THE READER

O How would you evaluate this handbooksection on evaluating the dean? (Hint: be-gin by appointing a three-member ad hoccommittee.)

TEACHING AND RESEARCH

Virginia Coombs, Oklahoma City University

Is it realistic for you to continue toteach or sustain an active researchprogram after becoming dean? Whatthings should you consider in decidinghow best to answer this perplexing

question?

In assessing the possibilities of continuingto teach and sustain an active researchprogram, you must assess what your ulti-mate professional goals are: returning tothe faculty after a period of administrativeservice or developing a career in academicadministration. You must also take intoconsideration the context in which youradministrative work occurs, i.e., whetheryou are the chief academic officer for theinstitution or whether you report to a pro-vost or vice president.

Most colleagues support the concept thatthe role of the dean is most successfullycanied out if one has come from the fac-ulty ranks. As a member of a faculty, thedean is more in tune with the daily de-mands of teaching, advising, professional

development, and campus service. Deanswho lose touch with these faculty interestsmay not be as effective in promoting fac-ulty welfare with the other members of theadministration. The responses from theACAD Deans Discussion list suggest thatcontinued involvement in teaching andresearch is a matter of degree and highlydependent on institutional context.

If, as some colleagues maintain, you are"on loan" from the faculty for the periodduring which you serve as dean, the termsof that "loan agreement" should clearlystate the expectations with regard toteaching and research activities. Someut by no means allof the questionswhich need to be settled up front are:

1. Is teaching considered an integral partof your position or as an overload, i.e.,to be accomplished around the fringesof administrative work?

2. What are the expectations for con-tinuing research? Are there funds foryou to attend at least one professional

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disciplinary conference each year?Is there the possibility of you havinga sabbatical for research after theappropriate period of service?

3. How will your "faculty duties" beassessed and evaluated in the contextof your administrative position?

4. If you have come from outside theinstitution without tenure, is tenurepossible? What procedures will beused to determine tenure?

You must assess for yourself whether thisset of conditions will permit full participa-tion in the administration as well as par-ticipation as a faculty member. Indeed, onmany campuses this is exactly the modelused for the position of associate dean.Where the "on loan" model applies to thedean, the institution must be comfortablewith the philosophy that academic admin-istration can be accomplished by rotatingindividuals through the dean's office.

Many colleagues see the value in youmaintaining some regular contact withthe classroom. After all, it is here that youencounter the reason your institution ex-iststhe students. Having regular class-room contact with the students in yourcollege or university provides you with amuch better sense of how its educationalprograms are working. You can maintainthis contact if you regularly teach a coursein your own discipline, participate in in-terdisciplinary courses, team teach withother faculty members, or make guest ap-pearances in classes. These activities willhelp to keep your teaching skills activeand demonstrate to both students andfaculty members that the dean plays a rolein the classroom scene. In addition to theusefulness of teaching, there is this intrin-sic value: you entered higher education,

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after all, committed to teaching andscholarly pursuits, and to interaction withstudents.

Maintaining an active research programappears to be not as easily achievable asregular participation in the classroom.Many deans suggest that, in addition toconducting research in the discipline inwhich one received graduate training, youshould do research on topics in highereducation administration. These are thetopicsbudget, enrollment management,program assessment, etc.that consumeyour daily administrative work and so pro-vide the basis for an expertise that shouldfmd scholarly expression.

There are no easy answers to this questionof maintaining an active teaching and re-search program while carrying an admin-istrative workload. Here are the responsesfrom some of your colleagues:

Rich Millman (Whittier College)

If you plan to make a career in deaning,and possibly presidenting, then some re-search/teaching tapering off makes sense.If you really want to return to the facultysome day (or it is too early to make a deci-sion), then stay with some teaching (onecourse a year is max) and stay current.

David H. Goldenberg (TheSage Colleges)

I hope the day never comes when I thinkof deaning as the profession and I have toftle away my leanings toward the life ofteaching and research....So much is lostwhen we lose touch with those for whomour endeavors are meant to touch,namely, students.

John Piper (Lycoming College)

I came from the facultyhistory. One ofmy conditions in accepting the job wasthat I teach one course per semester....As for research, I left two unfmishedmanuscripts, one needing "simple" revi-sion and one needing about two chapters.I have made little progress.... I believe inthe model of the dean on loan from thefaculty.... My role is to hire, evaluate,mentor, fire, etc., teachers (professors).I am not sure there is a substitute forexperience in the classroom and withcolleagues to prepare to do this.

Peter Facione (Santa Clara University)... I've come to see cleaning as a profession,one that includes a great deal of teach-ingmostly of chairs and sometimes offaculty. But it is a profession that derivesfrom the faculty role and should remainattached to its roots.

Peter Alexander (St. Peter's College)My personal preference is for the "facultymember on special assignment" model,but our assistant vice president insists onthe "deaning as a profession" model, andyou can well guess who wins this de-bate! ... Preferences aside, I find myselfconstrained by the circumstances of hav-ing 23 departments and programs report-ing to mea circumstance which leads meto spend about 55 hours per week in myoffice and which leaves little time forscholarly activity.

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Ronald Dotterer (SalisburyState University)If you are going to be an administrator,you need to want to, and not be apolo-getic for your managerial abilities or yourcapacity to balance a budget or set astrategic goal and get there.... I think it isvery important to understand the contextin which you will work as an administra-tor and to be very frank about the leader-ship styles of those who head aninstitution, whether they are compatiblewith your own, and what the decisionmaking processes are on the campuswhere you are planning to work.

Bari Watkins (Morningside College)Serving on the faculty is necessary train-ing to be a dean. But that's not at all thesame as believing that all deans should orwill go back to teaching as the "on loan"model suggests.

David Hoekema (Calvin College)

I don't think there's any general answerto whether to think of administration as aseparate profession or a stage in the life ofa disciplinary vocation.... But since thequestion was how to advise a prospectiveadministrator, I have to give credit to myUniversity of Delaware dean, MaryRichards, for some of the sagest advicedispensed to me when I was consideringCalvin's offer. "It's a wonderful opportu-nity, David, and of course you should doit," she advised. "But do keep in mind thatnone of the problems that you have to dealwith have solutions. All the problems thathave solutions are fixed long before theyget to you. You get all the ones for whichthere isn't any possible solution."

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RUTIN WITH OTHER DEANS

Lisa A. Rossbacher, Southern Polytechnic State University

Afaculty member at a large, privateuniversity in California recentlyobserved that "the dean of his aca-demic division was so bad that eventhe other deans were starting to

notice." In contrast to this particular viewof deans being slow to recognize incompe-tence (and perhaps slower still to criticize),most deans are quick to see problems andidentify solutions. Fellow deans can helpyou by providing perspective, giving ad-vice, and warning you about strategiesthat mightand might notwork. Devel-oping relationships with deans at otherinstitutions, particularly those withsimilar missions and sizes, can be aninvaluable support.

Some regional consortia have regularmeetings of the deans; the Central Penn-sylvania Consortium (Dickinson, Franklinand Marshall, and Gettysburg Colleges) isone example of this. Other, larger, groupsmeet less frequently: a dozen schools inthe northeastern U.S. have annual meet-ings of the academic deans. State univer-

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sity systems sometimes have regulargatherings of deans of colleges and schoolswith similar interests (arts, science, edu-cation, etc.). Some schools use their mem-bership in a particular athletic conferenceas a mechanism for gathering the aca-demic deans. And some deans have infor-mal lunches or dinners with colleagueswho live or work nearby to talk about theissues they are facing.

Several national organizations support thework of deans and the development of col-legial relationships among deans. One ofthese is ACAD, an organization that meetsannually in conjunction with the Associa-tion of American Colleges and Universities.Another such group is sponsored by theCouncil of Independent Colleges (CIC).Both groups sponsor workshops for newdeans as well.

Electronic relationships with other deanscan also be helpful. Two electronic dis-cussion groups, in particular, are focusedon the issues facing academic deans. The

ACAD "Deans' List" has about 300 deanswho participate in discussions about awide variety of issues ranging from per-sonnel procedures to faculty developmentto specific advice for new deans (thishandbook is an outgrowth of the discus-sions on this listserve). The CIC alsosponsors a similar list with several hun-dred members. Although these opportu-nities are publicized to the members ofthese organizations, they are currentlyavailable to all interested deans. Theselists are an excellent way to learn aboutwhat other schools are doing, what solu-tions other deans have found to problemsthat you share, and what variety exists inthe challenges that face institutions. Afurther benefit of these electronic discus-sion groups is in finding colleagues whohave wrestled with particular issues; fol-lowing up with a phone call directly tosomeone who has posted an interestingidea on an electronic list can be veryhelpful. For more information about theACAD "Deans' List," send a query toreilly@aacu.nw.dc.us. For more infor-mation about the CIC list, contact theCIC office at (202) 466-7230.

Something about which deans rarelyspeak, but which underlies their profes-sional relationships, is the expectation ofconfidentiality. In the process of sharinginformation, deans sometimes reveal sen-sitive data about their institutions. Thecode of honor among deans is that thisinformation is never used against anotherinstitution. You should never, for example,publicize enrollment drops at a neighbor-ing institution, or share faculty salarieswithout permission. With permission,

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however, information from other collegescan be very helpful in illustrating a pointon your campus. In situations whereinstitutions compete on the athletic fieldand for students and faculty, the spirit ofcompetition can threaten to spill over intothe relationships between academic ad-ministrators. You should resist this vigor-ously, in the interest of helping everyonedo the best job he or she can.

Relationships with fellow deans can alsobe helpful in preserving your mentalhealth. This aspect of the relationship ismore personal and social than profes-sional, but it can be very important. Withcolleague deans, you can laugh about situ-ations that would befuddle or offend some-one who did not deal with them daily. Youcan learn about time management andstress management. You can find peoplewhose ideas and ethics you admire.

As you develop relationships with otherdeans, you can also fmd mentors, al-though such a discovery is usually a for-tunate combination of timing, chemistry,and luck, rather than part of a premedi-tated plan. Josef Martin (a pseudonym)wrote in his book To Rise Above Principle:The Memoirs of an Unreconstructed Dean(University of Illinois Press, 1988): "I'm notentirely alone in believing that mentoringis what learners do for themselves by ob-serving and by thinking, not what anyoneelse can do for someone who wants tolearn." How you can learn, however, in-cludes talking with, observing, and think-ing through issues with other deans whoface challenges similar to our own.

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WHAT To READ

Samuel M. Hines, Jr., College of Charleston

What dozen books should a personnewly appointed to an academicadministration position read beforeassuming office? Answer: read thebest current work in your disci-

pline. It's very easy to get out of touch,and very helpful for your sanity as well asyour intellectual cardiovascular fitness toknow what is going on. Be highly selective,but keep reading.

For every book on management, academicor otherwise, follow immediately with anantidote of real writing, such as good fic-tion, classic or contemporary. Of courseit's impossible to fmd the time, but fmd itanyway. One dean fmds books on tapefrom the public library a valuable adjunctto an hour at the gym, both to improvethe mind and to drown out the offensivegarbage music the gym provides. Thisdean thinks he/she set a record last yearfor successive renewals of one set of tapes(the whole of the Divine Comedy) and willset another one this year by the timeAnna Karenina is finished.

There are some publishers who have par-ticularly strong lists in higher education.The offerings are uneven to be sure, butthey are constantly adding titles to theirlists. It is worth checking their lists regu-larly. Jossey-Bass, ACE/Macmillan/Oryx,Johns Hopkins, and Anker Publishers areamong the best. Of course, some of thepublications of the higher educationassociations are excellent.

If you are going to be the new dean at aschool new to you, read the history of thecollege you are about to serve. I was for-tunate to have two such histories to read(one published in 1959 and one in 1980)which were a great help in getting a senseof the place.

Whatever you read, you need to take carenot to let your reading be shaped by thefalse and dangerous idea that there issuch a thing in the field as professionalexpertise, techniques that someone couldbe taught. But here are some suggestions

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anywayfrom various deans. Most of theannotations are mine.

Administration, Management

Below, Patrick J., George L. Morrisey,Betty L. Acomb. The Executive Guide toStrategic Planning (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987).

Useful overview of all aspects ofstrategic planning. If you're a newdean and want to introduce strate-gic as well as routine planning pro-cesses in your college, this would beof real value.

Berquist, William H. The Four Cultures ofthe Academy (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,1992).

One of the best ways for a dean toget into the increasingly vast litera-ture on organization culture. Can beused to stimulate useful discussionswith chairs.

Bogue, E. Grady. Leadership by Design;Strengthening Integrity in Higher Educa-tion (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1994).

Perhaps a summary of the book'schapter titles will show whatweightyand importantareas hetraffics in: The Call of Honor, TheDignity Test, The Habit of Curiosity,The Case for Candor, The Touch ofCompassion, The Question of Cour-age, The Expectation of Excellence,The Servant Exemplar. Thus, Boguepresents a leader (dean, provost) assomeone who is characterized as aperson of honor, dignity, candor,and compassion. The dean is aperson who has both courage and

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curiosity and who is motivated byexcellence. Most importantly toBogue, the dean is a person whorealizes that to lead one must seehimself as a servant. It is well worthreading.

Gibson, Gerald W. Good StartA Guide-book for New Faculty in Liberal ArtsColleges (Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing,1992).

An excellent book on faculty devel-opment and academic culture in theliberal arts college. A must read fornew faculty in those institutions.

Parkinson, C. Northcote. Parkinson'sLaw and Other Studies in Administration(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1957).

The classic commentary on theproblems of bureaucratic red-tapeand bungling. Still useful reading foranyone in administration. Goodsource of humorous anecdotes.

Roberts, Wess. Leadership Secrets of Attilathe Hun (New York: Warner Books, 1985).

This sounds terrible, but it is verycleverly done and for the carefulreader, it is replete with importantlessons. Also a source of humorousexamples; it is both playful anddeadly serious!

Seldin, Peter. How Administrators CanImprove Teaching (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1990).

Lots of excellent ideas here fordeans and chairs about how tomake your verbal commitment tothe primacy of teaching a reality inpractice.

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Tucker, Allan, Chairing the AcademicDepartment, 3rd edition (Phoenix, AZ:ACE/Oryx Press, 1993).

This has been the standard work onthe department chair position andthe newest edition is a completetreatment of the subject.

Tucker, Allan, and Robert A. Bryan. TheAcademic Dean: Dove, Dragon, and Diplo-mat (New York: ACE/MacMillan, 1988).

I have found this book usefulandentertaining.

Walker, Donald E. The EffectiveAdministrator: A Practical Approach toProblem Solving, Decision Making, andCampus Leadership (San Francisco:Jossey Bass, 1986).

Walker's approach is commonsensical and humorous; his pithyone-liners also show an understand-ing of the breadth of the field andadequate humility.

Wheatley, Margaret J. Leadership and theNew Science: Learning about Organizationfrom an Orderly Universe (San Francisco:Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, 1994).

This is a very different sort of man-agement treatiseif you are inter-ested in complexity, chaos, andself-organizing systems, it providesa very readable treatment of thesenewest developments in science andchaos theory. Good bibliography.

Wren, J. Thomas, ed. The Leader's Com-panion: Insights on Leadership Throughthe Ages (New York: The Free Press, 1995).

This new collection of over 500pages contains some real classicsthat bear re-reading as well as lots

of up-to-date items. Range of topicsrelated to leadership is broad. Goodindexes and list of references. I'musing it in my graduate MPA courseon Leadership and Decision Making.

Higher Education

Elster, John. Choices Over Time (NewYork: Russell Sage Foundation, 1992).

This author's exploration of thenature of rationality in a series ofbooks is among the most originaland challenging. See also: SourGrapes: Studies in the Subversion ofRationality (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1983) and Ulyssesand the Sirens: Studies in Rational-ity and Irrationality (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1979).

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Kimball, Bruce. Orators and Philosophers(expanded ed: College Board: 1995 ).

A history of the liberal arts in theWest from the ancient Greeks tothe present, told in terms of iteratedversions of the tension betweenteaching (orators) and research(philosophers).

Newman, Hemy. The Idea of a University(Oxford, England: The Clarendon Press,1976).

The most famous of the defenses ofeducation as the cultivation of in-telligent judgment, and the college/university as needing an ethical(indeed, a religious) foundation.

Oakley, Francis. Community of Learning:The American College and the Liberal ArtsTradition (Oxford, England: OxfordUniveristy Press, 1992).

This is not a "how-to" primer fordeans but rather a broadly historicaland deeply thoughtful assessment ofthe purposes of higher education inlight of current concerns about "cur-ricular coherence, multiculturalism,and the alleged politicization of un-dergraduate studies."

Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Idea of theUniversity (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1992).

An update of Cardinal Newman'sclassic of the same title, this eruditebook is a testimonial to the tradi-tional values of the university.

Taylor, Charles. Multiculturalism andThe Politics of Recognition (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1992).

This small volume contains animportant essay by the renownedHegel scholar, Charles Taylor,entitled The Politics of Recognition,followed by commentaries. Muchhas been written about multicul-turalism, but this sophisticatedanalysis of the politics of recognition

. is, for my money, the best piece I'veread. The intro by Amy Guttman isalso excellent.

Whitehead, Alfred North. The Aims of Edu-cation (New York: Macmillan Co, 1949).

The locus classicus for mostquotes about "the nature of edu-cation." Essays written 1913-1927about British education, but theyusually sound as though they werewritten last week in response tolast month's higher educationcontroversy.

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Serial Publications

Academe Today [on line]ChangeChronicle of Higher EducationEducational RecordLiberal StudiesLingua FrancaASHE-ERIC Higher Education Research

ReportsMetropolitan Universities: An International

Forum

One of the interesting newcomersis the journal published by theCoalition of Urban and MetropolitanUniversities. They've had some in-teresting special issues.

Classics

Aurelius, Marcus. MeditationsMachiavelli, Nicolo. The PrinceSun Tzu, the Art of WarTao Te Ching ("Governing the empire is

like cooking a small fish").

Good Novels and Entertainments

Brace, Gerald. The Department (Chicago:University of Chicago Press, 1968).

A humane rendering of the teaching,administrating, and scholarly life ata large private university near Bos-ton (not Harvard). Simply to appre-ciate the level of sensitivity of thefirst-person narrator would bereason enough for most new deansto read this text.

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Kluge, P.F. Alma Mater: A College Home-coming (Reading, MA: Addison-WesleyPublishing Company, 1993).

This book affords a wonderful lookat Kenyon College by an alum whois also a creative writer. I found itdelightful and useful in offering per-spective on the entire college or uni-versity scene. It also has the virtueof being well written (although I canimagine that some folks at KenyonCollege were not all that pleasedwith it).

Lodge, David Changing Places (New York:Penguin, 1975); Small World (New York:Penguin, 1984); Nice Work (New York:Penguin, 1988).

A trilogy about the foibles of theacademic life.

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<> Smiley, Jane. Moo (New York: FawcettColumbine, 1995).

An unnamed midwestern universitysuspiciously similar to Smiley'shome campus, Iowa State Univer-sity: "Chairman X of the Horn-cultural Dept harbors a secretfantasy to kill the dean...."

Reed, Ishmail. Japanese by Spring (NewYork: Penguin, 1993).

A black junior professor at over-whelmingly white Jack LondonCollege lusts after tenure and itsglorious perks.

Also contributing to this list:

Thomas Trebon (St. Norbert College)

George Allan (Dickinson College)

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MANAGING STRESS

Lloyd W. Chapin, Eckerd College

ifo be an academic dean is inevitablyto know stress. You know stress asone seeking to leadoften in the faceof inertia, doubt, misunderstanding,or even hostility. You know stress as

one called upon to be a mediatorsome-times between administrative and facultycolleagues, sometimes between faculty,sometimes between faculty and students,and sometimes between the campus com-munity and other constituenciestrust-ees, alumni, parents, and the media. Youalso know stress as one who must, per-haps more frequently and more painfullythan anyone else in the institution, be thebearer of disappointing newsabout bud-gets, about personnel, about programs.And all this within a context in which youare usually oppressed with the sense thatthere is never enough time to do thingswell. The academic deanship can be pro-foundly rewardingas many of us willgladly testifybut there is definitely aprice to pay in terms of stress.

How can you manage the stress? Thesuggestions that follow do not grow out ofdeep psychological research or extensivesurveys. However, they do grow out of along career of academic deaningalmost30 years spread over three institutionsso at least they have stood the test offirst-hand, rather intense and prolongedexperience.

1. Maintain realistic expectations for yourinstitution and yourself. Bold visions,major changes, fundamental reformthese can be powerful, inspiring moti-vators, but remember that such thingsusually become real only gradually, astep-at-a-time. Focus on makingprogress, not revolution.

2. Recognize and affirm the value of dif-ferent, even conflicting, points of view.Remind yourself of the value of dialogi-cal, even dialectical, thinking. Evenyour most persistently hostile criticscan provide you with useful informa-tion or a fresh perspective.

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3. Take your time responding to personsand problems that you fmd puzzling orirritating. Very often your initial re-sponse is not the best one. A night'ssleep, a week's wait, a month's delaywill often result in clearer understand-ing and a more productive idea. Re-member that anger is never yourfriend, always your enemy. Those forwhom you are "the Dean" count onyou to be, at the least, dispassionate.

4. Everyone gets frustrated, and thisleads to another piece of advice: fmdways to ventilate your passions invis-ibly. I have given many a ferociousspeech and delivered many a deva-stating putdown to the shaving mirrorand the lawn mower. I also sharemuch with my understanding and in-fmitely discreet wife. To each his own,but you need a sounding board.

5. Engage in significant and clearly differ-ent activities that you fmd personallyrewarding. Henry Rosovsky, Harvard'sfamous dean of faculty, has observed,correctly I think, that one can nevershed the mantle of deaneven in themost relaxed, informal settingsbut Ibelieve one can fmd times and placeseither alone or with friends to do re-freshing and pleasant things that donot involve deaning: gardening, golf ortennis, reading for pleasure, listeningto music, walking or jogging, volunteerservice, church work, traveling, recre-ational activities with family. Becausethe intellectual, social, emotional, andtime demands of cleaning are heavy, itis relatively easy, but ultimately coun-terproductive, for a dean to becometotally absorbed in professional re-

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sponsibilities. Do not do it. Takethought and time to cultivate the soul.

6. Carry out your responsibilities withintegrity. People count on the dean tobe dispassionate; they also count onthe dean to deal honestly and straight-forwardly, to abide by institutionalpolicies, to be fair and consistent.Aside from the important moral con-siderations that ought to underliesuch conduct, an important key tomanaging stress is retaining the sensethat however misunderstood or criti-cized, one's actions and decisions willbear up under public scrutiny.

7. Distinguish major long-term objectivesfrom immediate short-term ones, andbe sure to make time to work on theformer. In a dean's office, the im-mediate demands of callers, corre-spondence and committees can drainyour time, your intellectual and emo-tional resources, and your energy. Ifthey do, your frustration and amcietywill grow. Schedule your time, usuallywith the help of your secretary, so thatyou can devote thought to conceptual-izing, strategizing, and writing that areusually necessary to make progress onthose tasks that have major institu-tional significance. There is nothingquite so satisfyingand calmingasthe sense of achievement that comesfrom completing a major project thathas the potential to make a differencefor the long term.

8. Even as you make time to pursue long-term objectives, it is also important foryour piece of mind not to get too farbehind on immediate specific thingsresponding to queries, sending thank

you notes, monitoring expenditures,reading reports. Managing stress isoften a matter of managing your timeeffectivelybalancing the long-termwith the short-term.

9. Stay in touch with fellow deans. One ofthe best stress relievers is realizing

that the problems that test yourpatience, your faith, and your sanityare usually shared by your counter-parts elsewhere. Sometimes they canhelp you come up with solutions, butthey are always a source of intelligentsympathy.

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AMERRAN CONFERENCEOF ACADEMIC DEANS

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(URRICULUM EVALUATION: DEPARTMENT REVIEWS

Peter Alexander, St. Peter's College

(olleges and universities are largelyself-governing institutions. In theinterest of fulfilling the public trust,it behooves such institutions to re-examine their operations at regular

intervals with a view toward adapting tochange, optimizing their processes, pre-paring for the future, and identifying andcorrecting problems that may exist. Peri-odic review of the curricula and operationsof academic departments is central to in-stitutional self-analysis and generally fallswithin the purview of the academic dean.

It is essential that you approach any de-partmental review process as a collegial,collaborative, and constructive processwith an emphasis on self-study andforward-looking planning. Faculty mayfear that a review is surreptitiously aimedat cutting a department's staff or re-sources. Setting a clearly positive toneis necessary if you are to avoid defensiveresponses which may limit the usefuloutcomes of a review.

<>'

Generally, you should arrange for de-partmental reviews to occur on a cyclicalbasis, with several departments being re-viewed each year. The duration of a fullcycle of reviews ranges from 2 years to10 years at various institutions, with thelonger cycles being prevalent. Interdiscipli-nary programs and honors programs areoften included in review cycles, as aresupport services when these report to thesame officer as the instructional depart-ments. The protocol for review may needto be modified in the latter case.

Departmental review generally entails thegathering of a good deal of descriptive in-formation and data. Summaries of facultyteaching and scholarly activities are astandard item. The results of teachingevaluations by current students and ofsatisfaction surveys from alumni may beincluded. Data on enrollments, class sizes,credits offered, frequency of offerings alsomay be included. If at all possible, youshould have such data provided by the

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administration. Relieving faculty of theneed to do compilations of data will allowthem to focus on the planning aspects ofthe review process. Additionally, havingthe review data in a consistent format pro-vided by the administration will facilitatecomparison of results across departments.

Figure 1 gives a model for departmentalreview that reflects the practices at anumber of colleges of arts and sciences.In beginning such a process, it is impor-tant for you to provide a clear statementof procedures along with a timetable spe-cifying a completion date for each phaseof the process. This review protocol shouldinclude a specific set of questions to beanswered and/or planning objectives tobe met by the department. The items forreview generally touch upon all or most ofthe following areas: departmental curri-culum, offerings for the core curriculumor general education program, teachingeffectiveness, scholarly productivity,advisement, resources available to thedepartment, and the outcomes of thedepartment's programs.

Be sure that the review process includesbringing in one or more external evalua-tors. Their perspective is essential to abalanced assessment of a department'sactivities. Various institutions stipulatefrom one to three consultants for a review.It is often specified that reviewers shouldbe faculty from institutions of similarcharacter. Professional associations mayalso serve as sources for consultants. Ex-ternal reviewers should receive, in advanceof their visit, all of the materials generatedin the earlier phase of the review process,including data, descriptive material (bothdepartmental and institutional), and thedepartment's preliminary report. During

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the consultant(s) site visit, there shouldbe opportunities to meet with all of thedepartment members, with yourself (andperhaps other administrators), and with asampling of the department's students.The report of the consultant(s) should beprovided both to the department and your-self (and to the administrative officer otherthan yourself, if there is one, who wasresponsible for conducting the review).

You should give the department an oppor-tunity to provide a written reaction to theexternal report, either as an independentdocument or by way of inclusion in thefinal report. The final departmental report,the report of the consultant(s), and sup-porting documents should be lodged withyour office and made available to the cur-riculum committee. In consultation withthis committeear, better, in collabora-tion with ityou should prepare a con-structive response to these submissions.Such a response may include a follow-upmeeting with the department, plans forimplementation of recommendations inthe fmal report, and establishment offollow-up procedures.

Finally, review processes evolve. Aftercompleting a full cycle of reviews, an insti-tution should do a critique of the results,reorganizing the procedures or refocusingthe questions for the next cycle.

The questions below were posted to theACAD e-mail discussion list. What followsthe questions are the responses of a fewindividual academic officers:

What is the best model for conducting peri-odic departmental curriculum reviews?

1. Why perform periodic reviews?2. How often should reviews occur?

Review officer meets with department

Departmental self-study Data collectionby faculty Descriptive information about

Department & InstitutionAlumni SurveyStudent survey

External Tonsultant

SiteD/isit

Consultara's Report

Departmental Respon4 to Consultant's report

Dean and/or Reyiew Committee

Implementatiorfi and Follow-up

3. What should be the role in the reviewof a department played by: the depart-ment members, the department chair,the curriculum committee, the dean,the president?

4. Should outside evaluators be used,and if so, -how should they be selectedand what should be their mandate?

5. What are the key questions to ask inany review?

6. What form should the final resultstake? Report by whom (outside eval-uators, the department)? To whom(curriculum committee, dean/president)?

7. What about formal follow-upprocedures?

8. What other factors are crucial (neces-sary?) to the undertaking, process,and completion of a review?

Keith Boone (Denison University)

We do periodic reviews to make suredepartments think through their depart-mental issues on a regular basis (majorand gen. ed. curriculum, support issues,student involvement, etc., but not person-nel issues), and so that they get the ben-efit of feedback from both external andinternal reviewers.

The entire department plays a role inwriting the self-evaluation, and it is thechair's responsibility to coordinate theself-evaluation. The external team is veryimportant in the process, since they bringa range of perspectives and can supplya comparative perspective. The externalteam reads the department's self-evalua-tion and other documents, then visitsthe campus for two days to conductinterviews with a wide range of people,from the president to faculty to majorsto non-majors.

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The external team produces a written re-port within a month after its visit. Then aninternal team produces a written report,based on the self-evaluation, externalreport, and its own interviews. Then thedepartment responds in writing to all theforegoing. Finally, the department chairmeets with the president, academic deans,and the chair of the internal review teamfor a post-mortem and recommendations.

We evaluate three departments a year ona 10-year cycle. We have just fmishedthe first round and will make one majorchange: elimination of the internal reviewteam. We judged that the costs of thiscommittee, in terms of faculty time andenergyand because of repetition in theprocesswere not worth the benefits. Sonow the Academic Affairs Committee willassume the role of an internal reviewer,but in a much truncated way.

The external review team has been madeup of one faculty from a liberal arts collegesimilar to Denison, one faculty from adoctoral-granting institution, and onealum who majored in the department. Wehave found that careful selection of thisteamparticularly the faculty who chairsitis critical, both in terms of the ease ofthe process and the quality of the result.

Karl Reitz (Chapman University)

We do program reviews every six years.In the review we expect the departmentto assemble a number of statistics (i.e.,enrollment patterns, full-time and part-time faculty, their specialties, the numberof majors, etc.), address a number ofquestions, and develop a strategic plan forthe next five years. After the departmenthas developed a report with the requisite

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information, they invite an outside re-viewer to come to campus and spend a dayinterviewing various groups. The reviewerthen writes a report to which the depart-ment responds. The whole document thengoes to the undergraduate academic com-mittee and/or the graduate committee.These committees have available a numberof actions. Mostly they make recommen-dations to the department and the ad-ministration. However, they may mandatecertain changes in the program or majorincluding their elimination.

In my opinion, the process has beenmostly valuable. A great deal depends onthe department's attitude. If they view thereview as a chance to review what theyhave been doing and get a little outsidefeedback then the process will serve avaluable function. If they view it as anopportunity to congratulate themselvesand pressure the administration intogiving them more resources, then the pro-cess will be somewhat frustrating to thedepartment. In some cases, it has been avery valuable catalyst for positive change.

The main problem that departments havewith the process is that they find it diffi-cult to devote the time to doing a good jobwhen they are already over-burdened. Intrying to alleviate that difficulty, I haveworked at developing a system in whichmost of the data that they need is gath-ered for them in a standard format. Thenall they need to do is to react to the dataand plan for the future. I think this willmake the task a little less onerous. Weare looking at other ways to make thereview a positive experience.

Peter Alexander (Saint Peter's College)Any cuniculum should be reviewed regu-larly: (a) to be sure it is current, and (b) tocheck for proper "fit" to the resources em-bodied in the currently available faculty,and © to see that it continues to meet theneeds of students. While most would rec-ognize these or other reasons for review,there is also a tendency to postpone thissort of task, and thus, the need for sched-uled periodic review. Ten years ago, weinstituted a cyclical academic review pro-cess in which every instructional depart-ment and program was to be reviewedonce every five years with four or fivedepartments evaluated in a given year.At the completion of the first five-yearcycle, we modified the process such thatwe now have a five-year "major" cycle fol-lowed by a five-year "minor" cycle. Themajor cycle entails a great deal of work,requires external evaluators, alumni satis-faction suarveys, and a great deal of bothretrospective and prospective evaluationon a large number of criteria. The minorcycle dispenses with external evaluatorsif there are no pressing problems in a de-partment, and dispenses with alumni sur-veys, and some other forms of evaluation.The minor cycle emphasizes planning a bitmore than retrospective analysis. We havereached the point of completing one majorand one minor cycle in 10 years and prob-ably will continue this alternation into theforeseeable future (at least 10 minutes!)

We award a course release to the personin each department who will author thereview document and do most of thephysical work of retaining evaluators,compiling data, etc. Some departmentschoose to have the chair do this, whileothers select another individual,a usually

because the chair is overburdened. Allmembers of a department are given theopportunity to contribute to and to reviewthe fmal document. The dean meets withthe department midway through the re-view to check progress and to offer guid-ance. The review document is submitted toa review committee, which mainly checksprocedure, completeness, etc., and pre-pares a concise summary in a prescribedformat. The report and the summary arethen sent to the dean and to the AVP. TheDean, the chair of the review committee,and the AVP confer. The AVP writes theinstitutional reaction to the review.

As noted above, we require outside evalua-tors at least once in 10 years, and in prob-lem cases, once in 5 years. We expectevaluators to be senior faculty in paralleldepartments at similar institutions andmutually agreeable to both the members Curriculumof the department and the administration.(They also have to be willing to work forthe paltry fees we offer!)

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The key questions that are addressed inthe review are:

1 What courses has the departmentbeen offering and how have enroll-ments fared? Are changes neededbecause of enrollment trends orbecause of changes in the disciplineor in the faculty roster?

2. What kind and how much scholarlyactivity has there been? What re-sources are needed to sustain/enhance this activity?

3. Is the staffmg level in the departmentappropriate?

4. What is the teaching effectiveness ofthe department?

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5. What procedures does the departmentuse to deliver effective advisement toits students. (I hope to strengthen thisarea of questioning in the next roundbecause some departments seem tohave no higher thought than "Weanswer their questions.")

6. What are the outcomes of thedepartment's offerings, i.e., satisfac-tion and success of its alumni.

We expect a narrative report incorporatingresponses to all questions from the depart-ment and, separately, from the externalevaluator where required. The departmentmay also submit a reaction to the externalevaluator's report. Our basic follow-upprocedure is as above: report to reviewcommittee, report and summary to deanand AVP. The summary in prescribedformat prepared by review committee (oractually, by its chair) is very useful be-cause it provides a table that cross-refer-ences items in the department's reportwith external reports and puts things in aconstant, streamlined format that, allowsready comparison of the results for differ-ent departments. After conferring with thedean and committee, the AVP writes theformal institutional response. The singlegreatest problem in follow up is the possi-bility of being unable to respond positivelyto a well-justified call for more resources.When this occurs, as it sometimes must, ithas a very chilling effect on the quality ofthe subsequent review.

The person selected by a department tospearhead a review is the crucial factor indetermining the success of the process.Choose the wrong person and you'll get alate, incomplete, and shallow report, ac-companied by the claim that the outsideevaluator 'just doesn't understand our

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department." The next most crucial factorin long-term success is constructive ad-ministrative follow up to the results of thereview process.

Paul K. Pormo (Dana College)

I will play the contrarian with regard tocurricular reviews and suggest that atsome institutions, periodic review may wellbe far more counterproductive than pro-ductive. If one holds the view, as I do, thatcurricular reviews ought to be undertakenfor the primary purpose of improving whatstudents gain from the program and notjust to quantify and compare for the vari-ous constituencies that demand it, theprocess for review must be such that itdoes that with minimal disruption to thedelivery of the curriculum. In very smallschools such as Dana College, a formalsystem which answers the questions abovewould take more faculty time and morefunds to implement than would be produc-tive. If we were to "discover" new funds tosupport such a venture, I submit that put-ting them to direct use of departmentswould be more productive in the long run.

Mter 12+ years as an academic adminis-trator at three different institutions ofvarious sizes and types, I have noticedthat curricular reform is triggered "na-turally" by the hiring of new faculty, byperiodic accreditation visits (special andregional), and by on-going tinkering torevamping of general education require-ments (is anyone ever finished with gen.ed. revision?) so that any other periodicreview may well be less necessary forimprovement than we think. If there is aneed to "downsize," some form of reviewwhich gives structure and credibility tothe fmal decisions is necessary. Some

would argue, as I used to, that having aformal structure in place before that needarises would be preferable to having tocreate one under stress. I am now not sosure that the on-going stress of continu-ous systematic reviews is much, if any,better. I certainly can understand thatlarger institutions may need to have peri-odic reviews to accomplish all that isneeded. But review for review's sake isquestionable at best.

Susan Figge (College of Wooster)

Wooster began a new calendar and formatfor departmental curricular reviews twoyears ago. Previously all departments hadbeen reviewed within a two-year timeframe. The Educational Policy Committee,chaired by the Dean of the Faculty, nowguides three or four reviews each year in a10-year cycle. We have structured thesereviews as an internal self-study, stressingthe opportunity they offer departments toaddress emerging curricular issues, ratherthan as a process designed for administra-tors and outside evaluators to make judg-ments about departmental staffmg orother resources.

Central to the self-study are questionsformulated by the department and theEducational Policy Committee about thedepartment's goals for student learning indifferent categories of courses and aboutthe rationale and coherence of its major.Further considerations include thedepartment's curricular connections toother departments, to the college's cur-riculum as a whole, to graduate and pro-fessional school admission requirements,and to general disciplinary trends. As partof the review, departments are expected toinvite two external consultants and to

survey alumni of the last 10 years aboutthe role of the major in their subsequentcareers.

All members of the department meet withthe Educational Policy Committee, the vicepresident, and the president at the begin-ning and end of the review process, first toset the agenda for the review and then tofollow up on the department's fmal report.In between these meetings the departmentcarries out its own discussions, surveysalumni, and organizes the consultants'visit. The same process is followed forinterdepartmental programs (e.g., BlackStudies, International Relations, Women'sStudies), each of which has a curricu-lum committee and some of which havefaculty lines.

We are now well into our third year ofthese curricular reviews and have encoun-tered some unintended, but perhaps pre-dictable, results. In spite of reassurances,departments have worried about the pos-sible use of the review as an evaluation ofprograms and personnel that could leadto staffmg cuts or administrative pressureto restructure the curriculum. In addition,the review has provided an occasion fordepartments to express accumulated dis-satisfactions, and final departmental re-ports, usually citing the consultants'astonishment that so small a departmentshould be expected to support such alarge program, have tended to concludewith pleas for additional staff and reducedteaching loads. Also the consultants' visithas sometimes dominated the review pro-cess and become the primary focus of thefinal report.

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While we want to take all departmentalexpressions of distress seriously, theEducational Policy Committee and I alsoexpect in the future to emphasize moreclearly with departments and consultantsthat the review is not an evaluation by anoutside team but rather a self-study, withthe consultants serving as advisers to thedepartment during one part of the reviewprocess, and that the responses to theself-study, including proposals for cuni-cular revision, should be based on currentdepartmental resources.

At the same time the reviews have clearlygiven most departments the opportunity tobe affirmed, inspired, and challenged bycolleagues from beyond the College. Sev-eral reviews have been followed by thedepartment's creative curricular redesignefforts, representing new perspectives onthe needs and concerns of students, oneffective ways to use resources, and onrecent changes in disciplinary knowledgeand pedagog. The reviews have broughtsome departments back into contact withdepartmental alumni. They have given theEducational Policy Committee a chance toappreciate the scope and rationale of a

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department's offerings, the nature of itsculture, and the talents and activities ofits faculty in a context other than person-nel decisions, administrative restructuringefforts, or position requests. Each reviewhas yielded useful new questions for sub-sequent reviews.

In summary I would say that even thoughthe review process is occupying an in-creasing share of the Educational PolicyCommittee's work load, it is taking shapeas an important tool for departmentalcurricular renewal and for our long-termcurricular planning.

Additional reading on this subject may befound in:

Kells, H.R., Self-Study Processes: A Guideto Self-Evaluation in Higher Education,4th Ed., American Council on Educa-tion/Oryx Press, Phoenix, Arizona,1995.

, Program Review and EducationalQuality in the Major, Association ofAmerican Colleges, Washington, D.C.,1992.

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(URRICULUM EVALUATION: OTHER PROGRAM REVIEWS

Carol A. Lucey, SU1VY College of Technology at Alfred

There are a variety of other agenciesthat can provide assistance to you asyou review your academic programs.In some cases, program accreditationrequires periodic review by such

agencies. These might include regulatoryand oversight entities in some states (e.g.,in New York, the State Education De-partment) or specific curriculum reviewentities for certain disciplines (e.g., theNational League of Nursing (NLN) and theAccreditation Board for Engineering andTechnology (ABET)).

Additionally, your own advisory Board fora specific curriculum might be a source ofexternal reviewers. All program reviews,however, should be initiated by the depart-ment. The appropriate model for usingexternal support is not unlike the modelused by the various regional accreditingagencies such as Middle States and NorthCentral. You start with a period of intro-spection guided by a departmental com-mittee. This group conducts the review bygathering data necessary to answer a

specific set of questions. The committeenegotiates a date for a campus visit withthe external review team. The completestudy of the program, including appro-priate appendices of data and surveyinformation, should then be sent to allexternal reviewers well ahead of the cam-pus visit date.

INFORMATION FORTHE STUDY

The question set which the departmentreview team uses to complete the studyought to be standardized for all your pro-grams to whatever extent that is possible.These questions are generally data-spe-cific. Some questions that usually appearon a program review checkoff list includethe following:+ Provide enrollment trend data for the

last years (generally, since last re-view). These data should include demo-graphic detail such as the mix ofwomen, minorities, and nontraditional

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students if diversity is an issue on yourcampus. Also, if there may have been achange in the level of preparation ofincoming students during this time, thedemographic data should detail this.Provide budgetary information for thesame time period. Budget informationshould be broken down into categoriessuch as personnel, supplies and ex-penses, equipment, contracts, travel,staff development.Provide data on retention and gradua-tion rates and any other indicators ofstudent success, such as placement ofstudents after graduation.Provide data, such as survey and focusinformation on student satisfaction.Provide updated course informationincluding outlines, sample syllabi,graded assignments and gradedtestsfor all required courses andlaboratories.Provide information on teaching faculty,including up-to-date curricula vitae andlists of publications.Provide detailed information on libraryholdings, available computer services,and other instructional support ser-vices, as appropriate.Provide up-to-date biographical informa-tion on all members of your curriculumadvisory group.

CONCERNS WITHEXTERNAL REVIEWS

The following lips should illuminate theprocess of an external review:+ Review teams made up largely of faculty

from similar colleges to your own oftensee their role as supporting their col-leagues' need for college resources.When the external team tells you that

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you need to add three new faculty tothe department and spend more on labequipment, maintain some healthyskepticism. A more serious conclusionwould be one in which a particular areaof expertise is mentioned as missingfrom your staff, or a particular piece ofequipment or course outline is labeledas dated.Your arrangement with the chair of theexternal review panel should include aspecific deadline by which you canexpect to receive their report. Thereshould also be an opportunity for youto react to any criticisms. Some agen-cies permit a private exit session withthe review team and the responsibleacademic officer. Try to arrange this,if possible.Once the review is complete, make sureto use your results! Use the results ofa favorable program review in yourcollege's plan for publicity, development,and enrollment management. Con-versely, if a program review includesserious program criticisms, that infor-mation should be incorporated into thecollege's strategic plan. A successfulprogram should address three criteria:1) relation to the college's mission, 2)quality, and 3) fmancial viability. Theinformation from your external reviewshould give you insight into (2). If a pro-gram is fmancially viable and fits yourcollege mission, but does not measureup under review, plan to spend somemoney. If there are quality issues of anykind raised by your review process, andthe program also fails to meet your re-quirements for criteria (1) and (3), youprobably need to reallocate resourceselsewhere.

REVISING THE (URRICULUM

Kathleen Schatzberg, Cape Cod Community College

The ways institutions revise theircurricula vary so widely that it isdifficult to make detailed recommen-dations on the procedures that oughtto be used. Moreover, these institu-

tional processes are often rooted in his-torical practice with implicit rather thanexplicit rules. Yet the process is so funda-mental to the success of the institutionthat as dean you must do whatever is nec-essary to make it visible, accessible, androutinized. It is essential that the processof curriculum revision be committed topaper in some publication such as a fac-ulty handbook, a procedures manual, orperhaps the bylaws of the faculty senate.

The process must also be efficient. Col-leges are notoriously slow to act. Althoughsuch measured response often permitscritical reflection that supports high qual-ity results, the current pace of change inmany fields and disciplines demands thatwe act quickly to revise curricula or risklosing our students to other institutionsthat are more rapidly responsive to

change. If the process of curriculum revi-sion, from proposal to implementation,takes more than one academic year, theinstitution should examine and re-design Curriculum

the process, perhaps creating a "fasttrack" for certain kinds of curriculum re-vision. If a call for fundamental changesin the process of curriculum revisionarises from a single department or divi-sion, other faculty may reject it as self-serving. So you must provide leadershipin examining the efficiency and effective-ness of the curriculum revision processand in linking changes to the benefits forstudents and the entire institution.

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Changes in a discipline, developments inpedagogy, or the employment field forwhich students are being prepared maybe the most common stimuli for curricu-lum revision. You need to encourage andsupport this kind of curriculum revisionas frequently as faculty identify a need,although the institutional process shouldinclude a means by which faculty arerequired to demonstrate the validity or

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urgency of the need. Changes in the disci-pline most often mean an expansion of thebody of knowledge, and the curriculumrevision suggested may be to as simple asexpanding a three-credit course to four. Inresponding to what are usually very per-suasive arguments in support of expand-ing a course, you need to remind facultythat every course would be better if itincluded more material and more hoursof instruction. The underlying questionthat must be answered here is: where intheir programs will students take one lesscredit if this course is expanded? In someinstitutions, faculty will take each otherto task in answering such questions, butin some institutions the dean must playthat role.

A second factor that may prompt cunicu-lum revision is a change in enrollmentpatterns. In these cases, you need to asksome hard questions about whether revis-ing the curriculum represents the mosteffective response. Other proposals forcurriculum revision may arise from thescholarly interests of the faculty. Again,proposals for new electives should he ex-pected to include a plan for how the newcourses fit with the overall offerings of thedepartment and the institution.

An explicit cycle of revision on which fac-ulty and administration agree is an excep-tionally effective structure because it setsan institutional standard of expectations.The cycle may be tied to institutional ac-creditation schedules but need not beoverly rigid. A typical cycle establishes acalendar by which all programs are duefor review every three or four years. How-ever, it should allow for variability by de-partment and for more frequent reviewwhen needed. Current technology provides

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the tools necessary to automate such aprocess. For example, course outline tem-plates and curriculum revision proposalforms can both be made available in elec-tronic format, a capability that shouldprovide major benefits in efficiency.

The form and elements of the courseoutline itself may be matters of lengthyinstitutional tradition, but it is valuableto re-examine them from time to time.Institutions that do not use a standardformat with specific elements as a mini-mum requirement should consider adopt-ing one. It is also useful to distinguishamong three levels of course description:the catalogue description, the commoncourse outline, and the syllabus.

The catalogue description typically in-cludes the course prefix and number, itstitle, the number of credits, the composi-tion of lecture, lab, or other class meetingsinvolved, and a paragraph-long descriptionof the course content. In addition, it in-cludes statements on necessary prere-quisites and how frequently the courseis offered.

The terms "course outline" and "syllabus"have varying definitions from institutionto institution, but I will use the term"common course outline" to mean adescription of the course that is moredetailed than the catalogue descriptionbut describes the course regardless ofwho teaches it. In this sense, the courseoutline will include all of the elements ofthe catalogue description, with the addi-tion of a detailed outline of the content.Institutional sensibilities about the para-meters of academic freedom will dictatewhether any additional information (suchas instructional practices or evaluation

methods) should be part of a courseoutline. The course outline also shouldinclude special information such as addi-tional fees, directives on hazardous ma-terials, and so on.

The syllabus, as the term is used here,provides an even more detailed descriptionof the course, including instructor-specificinformation. Included here would be all ofthe elements of the course outline, plusthe required textbooks and other requiredor recommended readings; a calendar ofassignments, exams, due dates for papers,and so on; statements on the instructor'smethods of evaluation, grading proceduresand, if relevant, attendance policies, andthe instructor's office location, officehours, telephone and fax numbers, andincreasingly, e-mail address. Many insti-tutions will also require or suggest a state-ment of academic integrity that referencesthe institution's policy on academic hon-esty. A curriculum revision proposalshould be accompanied by all the infor-mation the curriculum committee willneed to evaluate the proposal. It is criticalfor the author of a proposal (or the au-thor's department) to consult with anyother department of the institution thatwill be affected if this proposal is ap-proved. Other elements might includeproposed class size, evidence of the needfor the revision, an analysis of potentialimpact on enrollments, details on theneed for additional resources or specialfacilities, and the like.

In many institutions, faculty in a givendepartment take complete responsibilityfor developing and revising the curricu-lum. In such cases, your responsibilitymay be limited to providing for neededresources; .insuring that schedules of

institutional revision are published andthat faculty adhere to them; and com-municating proposed changes to otheraffected departments and approvedchanges to the offices and staff respon-sible for recruitment, advising, and pub-lications. In other institutions, the deanplays a substantial role in reviewing,negotiating, and approving curriculumchanges. In these institutions, you mustseek expert advice or personally committo acquiring sufficient knowledge of all thefields you supervise to make informed rec-ommendations and decisions. In the caseof exceptionally controversial curriculumrevision proposals, you may also want toseek advice from external evaluators orconsultants.

You should be sure that the flow of cur-riculum revision proposals is of manage-able proportion, but sometimes external Curriculummandates or major institutional transfor-mations demand massive, comprehensivecurriculum revision. Conversion from aquarter to a semester academic calendaris an example. Although the institutionmay be able to space a conversion overtwo, three, or even more years, it is still arevision of such enormous scale that theneed for structured timetables and plan-ning cannot be overemphasized. For thesekinds of curriculum revision, the advice ofinstitutions that have undergone similarrevisions will be invaluable.

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These details of curriculum revision mayseem routine or even mundane to you.Indeed, this discussion has sidesteppedentirely the issue of the territorial andpolitical battles over curriculum for whichacademia is famous. If there are rules fordealing with these aspects of curriculumrevision, they are embedded in the skills of

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negotiation and mediation, and you would 0 Most academic administrators are them-be well-advised to seek professional devel- 0 selves former teachers who found thatopment opportunities to hone these skills. * they possessed certain organizationalLet me note also that a curriculum pro- talents that led them to take on adminis-0posal may seem to demand a response of trative roles. Most of us, at one time orapproval or rejection, but another choice * another, pine for the classroom and theis to do nothing, at least for a time. Such * immediacy of the teaching-learninga hiatus may provide the context in which * moment. That vast body of collectiveopponents find common ground or a * work known as the curriculum, however,seemingly irresolvable conflict fmds its 0 forms the very heart of what the institu-resolution. 0 tion offers students, and the successful

0 management of its revision can become

* one of the most satisfying aspects of aca-demic leadership.*

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THE POLITICS OF GIME

Charles D. Masiello, Pace University

INTRODUCTION

The world is changing at an ever in-creasing rate. To be competitive intoday's environment, universitiesmust examine how to manageresources, increase productivity,

reduce costs, and get work done. Suchan analysis almost always results in therealization that change is necessary. Butchange is also difficult, and the questioninvariably becomes how to achieve it.

Change is pervasive; indeed, to be aliveimplies change. Yet anyone who hasworked at a university knows that thereis probably no other environment that ismore resistant to transformation. Thisshould come as no surprise given thelong-established, rich, and complex tradi-tions of the academy, where people aretrained to be independent thinkers whoare reticent to accept insight or directionfrom others without proof of its value.

There is also the competition among rivalinterest groups or individuals for powerand leadershippolitics. Nowhere is itstronger than at a university. So much so Curriculum

that it is said that when Woodrow Wilsonleft the presidency of Princeton Universityto enter government in Washington, hecommented that he had learned the art ofpolitics from the professionals and wasnow going to Washington to practice withthe amateurs. His wife is reported to havesaid that she was glad that Woodrow wasleaving the world of politics to enter gov-ernment. Such stories, while amusing,reveal the long recognized difficulties increating substantive transformation in anacademic setting.

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How, then, can you help bring about thechanges that you view as essential to thewell-being of your institution and thefurtherance of its mission in an environ-ment where the mere mention of changegenerates ripples of anxiety and resis-tance? Volumes have been written on this

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subject, and detailed resources are readilyavailable. I shall try, in what follows, toprovide a brief introduction to the subjectwith a view toward stimulating discussion.

THREE BASIC RULES

Three simple, but effective, suggestionswith which to begin: Listen intently, com-municate effectively, and behave ethically.

Listening will enable you to understandthe culture or cultures within which youwill have to work to bring about the de-sired results. For our purpose, "listening"also includes doing a substantial amountof institutional analysis, including an as-sessment of how information is conveyedand how performance is evaluated. Suchanalyses provide valuable insights andestablish a baseline from which to work.Effective conununication is a powerfultool. Use it!

Having developed a clear vision of whatneeds to be accomplished, don't keep it toyourself or assume that people will effort-lessly acquire your vision. Communicate itclearly, compellingly, and often. A case forchange that is persuasive and clearly ar-ticulated will likely be accepted by some,probably after considerable discussionduring which much can be learned. Theseindividuals can become allies and spon-sors of change.

Finally, be candid and ethical. Besidesbeing the right thing to do, treatingpeople honestly and fairly will engendertrust, and trust is essential to gainingthe support you will need to implementyour vision.

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STRATEGIES FOR SUCCESS

Keep in mind that you are the one respon-sible for nurturing a culture that valuesand embraces change. This is key to thelong-term future success of your institu-tion since continuous creativity andchange are essential in the quest for qual-ity and relevance. In the short term, youare responsible for communicating avision of the future, modifying it basedon new insights and feedback that youreceive, encouraging teamwork while clar-ifying lines of authority, setting expecta-tions, establishing principles, policies, andprocedures that guide work, and develop-ing accountability standards. These mayseem like daunting tasks, but you areassisted in these responsibilities by manyothers, including faculty and your ownstaff. Ultimately, however, these items areyour responsibility. Remember change ortransformation requires an assessment ofcurrent conditions, the creation of an ef-fective integrated organizational design, adetailed realizable implementation plan,and a supportive performance measure-ment system.

Nothing will build confidence in your lead-ership like success. So if your vision callsfor deep, complex, and widespread changethat will require substantial time toachieve, consider the following along theway. Identify some easy targetsprojectsthat require no more than a few months tobring to fruition, that do not need largeinfusions of resources, and that are win-win situations for all. For more complexventures, introduce pilot projects that aresmaller in scope, but nevertheless are partof your integrated plan. Such projectsenable you to test the waters by providingvaluable feedback and opportunities for

modification, increasing the chances ofultimate success. Some pilots may fail;accept that fact and learn from the experi-ence. Finally, if you have a success story,be certain to tell it.

Success usually does not depend onpeople doing more work, although theremay be instances in which this is neces-sary. More often successful change de-pends on people doing work differently.Habits die hard, and you may have toexpend considerable energy in convincingpeople to alter their work processes. Con-sider whether three signatures are reallynecessary on that authorization form.Would one foster both efficiency and ac-countability, and at the same time flattenthe organization by distributing responsi-bility and empowering others? Time wast-ers must be eliminated! People may notbe able to do more, but they can do thingsdifferently if empowered. Of course, thisassumes trust and confidence in thosewith whom you work. An appropriateperformance measurement system can behelpful here. Challenge those who workfor and with you to be the best they canbe, help them to achieve this mutuallybeneficial goal, and hold them accountablefor it. Remember, however, that job-related training and staff development,appropriate information, and adequateresources are essential to an effective andefficient operation. To do a good job, col-leagues need this kind of help and it isyour responsibility to provide it.

Be certain also to provide recognition andsupport for those individuals and teamsthat function well and establish conse-quences for those that do not. Encouragecontinuous learning, creativity, flexibility,and initiativebut always in the context of

accountability and a reward system thatmakes sense in terms of institutionalgoals. Make it clear that you expect everyperson to fmd ways of cutting costs andimproving services, to be willing to takerisks, to accept responsibility, to createnew ways of working, and to recognizethe need for teamwork and continuouspersonal, unit, and institutional im-provement. Be aware of the factors thatmotivate people to do a good job. Theseinclude: interesting work, appreciation/recognition, and being part of a sup-portive team.

There are many reasons why people donot recognize the need for change. Tunnelvision can prevent them from seeing thesignificance of events. Also, if they arevested in a situation, they may uncon-sciously distort information that theyreceive. If they see themselves as being Curriculumpersonally disadvantaged by change, theywill likely resist it. Then too, competingcultures, not the least of which are ad-ministration and faculty, exist at everyinstitution. Consequently, opinions asto approach will vary widely. Unclear orcontested goals also dampen efforts.Such impediments to change should beacknowledged and discussed in an effortto diminish them. Denial of a problemor resistance to change usually signalsthat a compelling case for change hasnot been made.

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Change is more readily achieved if there isshared understanding among the leader-ship of a university that substantive alter-ations are needed for success. Confusionat the top leads to failure. Administratorsmust identity those items that requirechange and be clear about expected re-sults. A clear vision of the future is a

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prerequisite for change. Attention mustbe paid to making the organization moreamenable and responsive to change on anon-going basis. It is essential to develop anorganizational culture that values andpromotes innovation, initiative, creativity,candid communication, teamwork, andshared decision-making. Accurate andcomplete data are essential to buildingconsensus on the need for change. Clearidentification and communication of prob-lems are extremely important. Many mem-bers of the community may not be awareof the problems. Communicate informa-tion about problems clearly and directly toall. Remember that change is expedited bybuilding widespread awareness of prob-lems and their underlying causes. Teamscan be useful in identifying issues, stimu-lating creative thinking, and building aunited effort. However, teams are notlikely to be useful if their members per-ceive that solutions will endanger theiremployment. Finally, once the decision tochange is made, it must be supported bythe entire leadership of the university.

SUMMARY GUIDELINESFOR CHANGE

Get the lay of the land by examiningcurrent cultures and conditions.Challenge the status quo and encour-age change.Foster a culture that values and expectschange.Identify problems and determine under-lying causes.Communicate problem areas.Establish a baseline grounded inrelevant data against which to measuresuccess.Set realistic priorities.

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Assess your ability to provide neededresources.Develop teams to address the issues.Give clear charges, and keep units ontrack by asking probing questions.Insist on creative thinking and compre-hensive solutions.Articulate a clear vision and an appro-priate implementation plan.Establish and communicate meas-urable goals, operating policies andprocedures.Make clear who is in charge.Explain at each stage why things arebeing done.Realize that ethical behavior and trustare essential.Walk the talk.Start with win-win projects.

+ Use pilot projects to test new waters,to gain insights, and to work outproblems.Allow corrections along the way.Provide mechanisms for performanceand system appraisal.Insure that expectations and rewardsare in sync.Communicate accomplishments sothat the beneficial results of changeare evident.

+ Celebrate change and positivecontributions.View change as presenting opportu-nities rather than perils.

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SOME REACTIONS FROMOTHER DEANS

What would you add to this list developedby Charles Masielloor subtract from itor insist on having clarified?

John G. Heilman (Auburn University)

The concept of "change" is used here inthe broadest possible sense. The discus-sion therefore ends up as a list of pointersabout management in general. Is manage-ment the same as "effecting change?"

You might focus on the kinds of changethat should be on the table. One way todo this is to take the first idea, relating togetting the lay of the land, and put it interms of specifying the area or kind ofchange one is looking at, identifying stake-holder groups, and finding out where theyare with respect to the change "opportu-nity" at issue.

Bari J. Watkins (Morningside College)

I might add: Use risk-free brainstormingsessions to develop new ideas. Rewardeven minor efforts to change with praiseand personal contact.

Genie Gerdes (Bucknell University)

I like your list but would suggest someadditions and one deletion. These arisefrom my perspective in relation to a facultythat is anything but passive, that abhorstop-down administration, and that inno-vates constantly.

I've added a new #1. Change should bein a direction; I think that there has to besome consensus on that direction. Second,for a faculty like ours, I would change theorder of the first elements of the list toavoid the suggestion that change forchange's sake is the goalsometimesour problem is holding to a path we havecarefully selected for long enough to seethe effect. I'd use this order:1. Identify institutional priorities and

strategic strengths.

4:p 2. Get the lay of the land by examiningcurrent cultures/conditions.

3. Foster a culture that values andexpects change.

4a. Identify problems and determineunderlying causes.

5a. Communicate problem areas.6a. Challenge the status quo and en-

courage change.

I'd add an alternative path following #3:4b. Listen well to faculty-initiated sugges-

tions for change.5b. Be explicit about evaluating those pro-

posed changes in terms of institutionalpriorities and help the proposers dothe reality testing necessary tostrengthen the proposal.

6b Support those changes that enhancethe priorities in #1, and be perceivedas supportive.

Sometimes at Bucknell the administra-tion is perceived as getting in the way ofgood ideas (of playing the parental role ofsaying "What if...?" "There isn't enoughmoney" etc.) It's important to convey thattruly good ideas (those that advance thepriorities) are supported, even if they camefrom the faculty rather than from us. Thisb list of supporting or even enhancinggrassroots change could be expandedmore fully.

Given our faculty's sense of the importanceof consensual leadership, I'd also removeyour principle, "Make clear who is incharge." The old community organizer ap-proach of stimulating change without hav-ing the change attributed to you, andthereby broadening ownership, might bemore appropriate for many of our facul-ties. At Bucknell, most of our committees

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are a somewhat confusing mix of facultymembers and the administrators to whomthe committee recommends. Although theadministrators often provide informationin a way that is very effective in determin-ing the committee directions, the facultymembers know they have the ability toinfluence the relevant administrators andin the end they usually own the decisionsand present them to their faculty col-leagues. The division of responsibility isnot very clear, and for us it works betterthat way.

Dorothy M. Feigl (Saint Mary's College)

I would challenge the assumption, incor-porated in several places on the list, thatchange per se is a good. Change may begood and necessary, but "Challenge thestatus quo and encourage change" is

0 too absolute a statement and implies0 that those arguing for tradition are

wrong, period.

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I do see the dean as an agent of changeand serving in that role to counter aca-deme's strong inclination to the statusquo...effectively the dean should be at-tempting to maintain a healthy, balanceddynamic that recognizes value in both tra-.dition and change. (Which also means thatthe dean may have to, on occasion, askthe question: where is the evidence thatthis change will actually benefit students?The new computer-based technologiesoffer a particular challenge in this regard,not simply because one is often dealingwith both Luddites and true-believers,but also because the stakes are so highin terms of the commitment of resources.)

OUTCOMES ASSESSMENT

Lloyd W. Chapin, Eckerd College

One would think that systematicallyassessing the educational effectiveness of academic programs wouldbe a natural part of any college oruniversity's operations, but in fact it

is a relatively recent development and isusually implemented reluctantlyat leastinitiallyby most faculties and deans. Thereasons for this resistance are the fearthat assessment will be used to justifynegative personnel decisions, that it willbe more costly in time, energy, and moneythan it is worth, andthe most frequentlyvoiced complaintthat it cannot escapebeing simplistic, reductionist, and yieldinsignificant results. Although each ofthese concerns has some legitimacy, thebenefits of outcomes assessment greatlyoutweigh the risks. The process can in-duce greater clarity about educational ob-jectives; shed light on curricular strengthsand weaknesses; improve teaching; in-crease the faculty's sense of responsibilityfor the curriculum as a whole; buildcredibility with important external

constituencies such as parents, fundingagencies, and accrediting agencies; and, ifundertaken in the right way, be inherentlyvery interesting intellectually.

Keys to the development of a successfuloutcomes assessment program are:

1. A planning process that is open andwidely participatory with faculty hav-ing the primary responsibility to for-mulate policy, program objectives,and assessment strategies.

2. Initial and continuing clarity aboutthe ultimate goal, which is programimprovement, not the evaluation ofindividuals.

3. Starting gradually with projects thatcan be completed quickly and yieldinteresting, usable information.

4. Not trying to assess everything at onceand all the time, but rather establigh-ing a schedule in which each programcomes up for review every three tofive years.

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5. Clarity about the scope of the assess- * 9. Identifying to whom, and in what for-ment effort. For academic deans this * mats, data and their interpretationstypically means a system that includes are to be reported, and providing anreviewing the various components of opportunity for the participants inthe academic program and possibly the programs being assessed to review the*various aspects of student services data before they are passed on to a*that contribute directly to student third party.learning. 10. Providing adequate and competent

6. Identifying measurable educational 0 staff support. The person(s) opera-objectives (that is, student learning <:;,* tonally responsible for gathering andoutcomes) for each academic program interpreting data should enjoy highto be assessed, for example, measur- '::) credibility with the faculty.able competencies for majors and 0 11. "Closing the loop," that is to say, beinggeneral education; measurable devel- sure that there is a clearly defined pro-*opmental objectives for student affairs. cess for using the results of outcomes*7. The inclusion of external means of assessment to improve the academic*evaluation, for example standardized program. This usually involves a fac-tests, questionnaires, evaluators from * ulty committee with responsibility foroutside the institution. (Grades given * curriculum development reviewing the

68 to students do not constitute outcomes <) assessment reports and making rec-assessment). * omrnendations as appropriate.

Resource 8. Policies insuring the accuracy, and theHandbookfor appropriate retention of data.

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THE ACCREDITATION SELF-STUDY

Walter C. Swap, Tufts University

This is not meant to be an all-inclusive guide to accreditation.Rather, I offer what I hope will behelpful suggestions for preparing forand carrying out the self-study that

leads up to accreditation.

All accrediting agencies require a self-study. All include standards, althoughthese may vary from agency to agency.Colleges and universities beginning theprocess may elect a minimalist approach,dealing directly with each of the stan-dards; or they may decide to use theaccreditation process as an opportunityto develop full strategic plans for thefuture. This often means going beyondthe required standards and developingone's own. Finally, if the institution hasrecently completed an extensive strategicplan, this can often be used as the basisfor the self-study. Most accrediting Boardswill welcome the opportunity to discussthis with you.

You will be informed about two years inadvance that you will be visited. Beforethat, you can always write to get the stan-dards. (The Southern accrediting agency,for one, is on the web.) The accreditingagency will send you a list of what it wants

Here, now, are the "helpful hints."1. The president needs to acknowledge

that the accreditation process is im-portant, and should urge those whowill actually be doing the work for ac-creditation that the institution shoulddo a good job. Top-down encourage-ment is important.

2. The person charged with shepherdingthe process should be very well orga-nized. At Tufts, the director of Insti-tutional Planning, who was used todealing with large databases, did agreat job. The "shepherd" needs toconstruct a timetable, working back-wards from the future site visit to thepresent, a two-year interval! Remem-ber always to overestimate the amount

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of time each step in the processwill take!

3. Unless the minimalist approach isbeing used, you will need wide buy-inand involvement from the entire com-munity. This begins with the formationof a steering committee of appropriateadministrators and faculty who spanthe different areas of the institution.The steering committee appoints thecommittees that will write the reportsfor each standard, and reads and editsthese reports.

4. The committees formed for eachstandard should have a chair who isreliable and attentive to details. The"shepherd" must rely on the chairs tomeet deadlines and to respond to criti-cisms. An ideal committee will be com-posed of administrators and facultyand, when appropriate, students, staff,alumni, and trustees. Each group willneed clerical support, and this must bebudgeted. If possible, the "shepherd"should arrange for someone from hisor her staff to be on each committee,to serve as an informal liaison. Com-mittees should be encouraged to holdopen hearings to listen to the concernsof university constituents.

5. There will be a page limit (e.g., 100single-spaced pages in the Northeast),so committees need to stay withinfairly rigid limits (depending on howmany committees there are). Staggerthe dates when the committee reportsneed to be submitted to the steeringcommittee, with the more straightfor-ward ones due first. Insist on elec-tronic versions in a consistent wordprocessing program. Naturally, thereshould be backup copies.

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9.

10.

A great deal of supplementary ma-terials will be required: faculty CVs,course syllabi, course catalogs, etc.Someone must be given the responsi-bility for collecting all of these fromdepartments and administrativeoffices.

Be sure to leave sufficient time to editthe fmal version, about three monthsfrom receipt of committee reports tothe final draft. Consider hiring a pro-fessional editor to create the proverbial"seamless document."When the final, edited draft is com-plete, send a copy to each committeeto review for accuracy. This should bedone no less than one month prior tothe date for the fmal report. The self-study should be mailed six weeksbefore the site visit.Rooms that will be required by thevisiting team should be booked veryearly. Taking no chances, we reservedthe most popular rooms 2 years inadvance. You will need to have a workroom, complete with computer, tele-phone, and office supplies. Arrange forfile cabinets to be installed to housethe materials. The work room needs tobe secure, with good locks. This room,or one adjacent to it, will house thevarious supplementary materials anddocuments.Travel arrangements need to be madewell in advance. (Your institution paysfor these.) The chair of the team willprobably need a suite for meetingspace. Visit the hotel to ensure it isappropriate. If your institution hasmore than one campus, you will needto arrange shuttle service. Office sup-plies should be waiting for the team at

the hotel. Check on any dietaryrestrictions.

11. Inform everybody at your institutionwhom the team might want to meet tokeep their schedules as open as pos-sible during the visit. It would be em-barrassing if the very professor theymost want to see is out of town.

12. If you are going to have any openmeetings (or if the team requests oneor more), don't rely on people's intrin-sic interest and desire to talk. Recruit

a sufficient number of faculty, stu-dents, etc. to ensure a good audience.

13. Develop a matrix of where each teammember will be at all times, with tele-phone numbers or office extensions.The shepherd should have a cellularphone at all times.

14. Have a really big party and congratu-late yourselves on a job well done andanother 10 years of accreditation.

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HIRING NEW FACULTY

Linda H. Mantel, Willamette University

participation in the hiring of new fac-ulty is one of your most importantresponsibilities, one in which yourlegacy to the institution as dean willbe most visible. Depending upon

the custom and governance of your collegeor university, you will either have a sig-nificant voice in this process or will havenear-final decision-making authority.The outline below suggests the importantsteps you should take in order to bringabout a successful search for a tenure-track position.

SETTING UP A SEARCH

Normally, when you have authorized areplacement or an additional position fora department or a program, the depart-ment involved prepares a draft of a posi-tion description. A search committee isthen appointed, through the normal gov-ernance process, and this committeehones the description into its fmal formas an advertisement. Before the position

is advertised, you should approve the ad.The ad is then placed in one or a numberof appropriate outlets, nowadays this in-cludes both print and electronic media. Inaddition, if the position is in any way un-usual by virtue of field or level of expertisesought, the chair of the committee willoften contact colleagues at other institu-tions to assure that a wide net is cast.

If support for searches is housed in theDean's Office, this process will includeacknowledgment of receipt of applicationsand letters, maintaining files, arrangingfor interviews at meetings, and organizingon-campus visits. If the institution prac-tices affirmative action, records may needto be kept of the nature of the applicantpool. When the search is completed, can-didates should receive a letter informingthem of the outcome of the search.

Since a dean normally interviews all can-didates who are invited to campus, it isuseful for you to meet with the searchcommittee as soon as the process begins

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and before the closing date for the ad. Itis important that you have a clear ideaof what the search committee is seeking.What are the characteristics of eachcandidate that will weigh heavily in thecommittee's recommendations to thedean? Here are some useful questions toaddress these issues:

1. What will be the role of this new per-son in the curriculum of the depart-ment or program? If the person is areplacement for another colleague,does the department want the sameexpertise? If it is a new position, whatwill it add to the program? With whomoutside the department will the newcolleague be expected to interact? Willthey need to take part in an inter-disciplinary course or program?

2. What are the most important charac-teristics of applicants that make theminto candidates? How important is acompleted Ph.D.? How important issolo teaching experience? What aboutpost-doctoral research? Does a candi-date need to have a book in press orpublished? Is experience in a large orin a small school an advantage or adisadvantage?

3. Are there any problematic aspects tothis search? Are there inside candi-dates, perhaps visiting faculty? Howwill they be treated with respect tointerviews at national meetings and oncampus? Is it likely that the pool willbe unusually large or unusually small?

4. Who reads the files? How many read-ers determine whether an applicantbecomes a candidate? At what point dooutsiders (that is, faculty who are notpart of the department) read files?

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Discussion of these questions with theentire committee is useful not only foryou, but also for participating facultymembers and students who may nothave been a part of the departmentaldecision-making process. It is also im-portant, at the first meeting of the searchcommittee, to review AA/EO guidelines,making sure the committee is clear aboutavoiding illegal questions, and that thecommittee chair knows how to documentthe search properly.

SELECTING THECANDIDATES

Once the applicant pool has been win-nowed down to a preliminary list, facultywill often interview 12-20 candidates at anational meeting. If committee membersdo not plan to attend such a meeting, it isrecommended strongly that they contactseveral references for each person by tele-phone before preparing a short list, andthat they also talk to the candidates. Tele-phone interviews can be effective at thisstage of the search. These screening pro-cesses usually result in a list of 5 to 10candidates who look most promising. Youshould meet with the chair of the commit-tee again at this point to look over the filesto insure that the pool is as broad anddeep as possible, and that the committee'sjudgement on the top candidates is justi-fied. Normally, three or four candidatesare invited to campus for a visit.

For those institutions seeking to increasethe diversity of faculty, searches that in-clude candidates from under-representedminorities in the field are important. Thenormal institutional search process willoften fail to include such persons. For

instance, if the only applicants deemedworthy of candidacy come from Princeton,Yale, Chicago, or Columbia, the pool isunlikely to be diverse. The number ofunder-represented minorities is small insome fields and more sizeable in others.A knowledge of the field, of the graduateprograms that attract under-representedstudents, and of the faculty who trainthem, is essential in order to fmd suitableapplicants who can then become candi-dates. Personal contact through a goodnetwork is the most efficacious way tohear about such candidates. Faculty (anddeans) attending national meetings shouldkeep their antennae out for promisingyoung scholars.

MAKING THE APPOINTMENT

A dean usually is allotted 45 to 60 min-utes to meet with each candidate. Oftena breakfast is a convenient time to meet.You should reread the candidate's ffie andreview what was learned at the meetingwith the search committee. The interviewshould provide a sense of the candidate asa teacher, a scholar, and a person; whattheir academic goals are, how they inter-act with students, what they enjoy abouttheir work, how they relate to their pro-fessional field. You might talk about theadvantages and disadvantages of largeand small schools; about the institution'sculture and ethos; and about the expec-tations that students and faculty havefor themselves and each other. How willthe candidate fit into the institution? Ex-cept in fields close to your own, facultyshould be the judge of the candidate'sscholarship.

When all the interviews for a particularsearch have been completed, you mightwish to send a letter or speak to the chairof the committee, providing your assess-ment of the candidates. The search com-mittee will review information from facultyand students and prepare a recommen-dation for the appointments committeeand yourself.

Regardless of an institution's governanceprocedure in terms of deciding upon acandidate to be offered a position, you willnormally play a central role in determiningthe initial rank and salary and the avail-ability of funds for start-up. Dependingupon the institution's practice, startingsalaries may be set college-wide or nego-tiable according to particular disciplines.A useful carrot for ABD's is to make anoffer in the spring at a given rank (Instruc-tor) and salary level and let the candidate Personnelknow that if the degree is completed beforethe start of the school year, he or she willimmediately be advanced to a higher rank(assistant professor) and salary level. Inmost cases, you will have some flexibilityin negotiating starting salary. For candi-dates with post-doctoral experience, astarting salary above the entry level is tobe expected. In addition, the tenure clockshould be made clear at the time the offeris made, and the schedule for pre-tenurereviews should be outlined.

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A generous start-up package often makesthe difference between an acceptance anda refusal of an offer. Common start-upitems may include computers, renovationsof office or laboratory space, office fur-niture, laboratory equipment, studentassistance for scholarship or research.Institutional resources and equity are

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the prime determinants of an appropriate 0 and contacts for the spouse of a can-offer. If a candidate comes with a research 0 didate. Conversely, if an attractive ar-grant from another institution, negotiation rangement for a spouse accompanies awith the granting agency and the original competing offer and yours does not, youinstitution must often be carried out. may lose the candidate.

A successful search often requires fillingSUMMARYthe employment needs of two people, the

candidate and his/her spouse. Although O A successful tenure-track search requiresyou are not permitted to ask a candidate O careful thought, planning, stock-taking,about family status, the subject is often O and feedback among yourself, the faculty,brought up by the candidate during the

<> and the candidates throughout the pro-interview or at another time during thesearch visit. In general, the more you

cess. Surprises should be minimized. Boththe candidate and the institution should

know about factors impinging upon ahave a clear idea of each other's expecta-

desirable candidate, the more realistic tions, and the successful candidate shouldthe offer you can make. Knowledge of the be prepared to meet these expectationsacademic and professional market in the <> from the beginning of the appointment.area can be very helpful in providing leads

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EVALUATE PROBATIOMRI FACULTY

Linda H. Mantel, Willamette University

THE PROCESS

E0valuation of new faculty before ten-ure is a complex process, requiringthe attention of faculty colleagues inthe candidate's department, thoseutside the department who interact

with the candidate, students, and yourselfas dean.

A candidate who begins a teaching careerwithout significant post-doctoral researchor independent teaching experience usu-ally has a probationary period of five or sixyears, with permanent tenure beginningthe sixth or seventh year. Institutions arehighly variable with respect to the fre-quency of pre-tenure evaluations, withsignificant processes occurring yearly,every other year, or only once before ten-ure. One important role you can play dur-ing the hiring process is to discuss withthe candidate how long the tenure clockwill be, based on his or her prior experi-ence, and when evaluatidns will occurduring that time.

In those cases where faculty are includedin a bargaining unit, the contract maystipulate frequency of evaluation, topics tobe covered, and methods of providing feed- Personnelback to the faculty member. The role ofthe department chair and the dean in theprocess of evaluation and reporting mayalso be stipulated.

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One way to oversee faculty developmentbefore tenure is to appoint a two- orthree-person consultative committee foreach new faculty member. This cm-* mittee will be responsible for observingthe teaching of their candidate, for pro-

* viding specific feedback on teaching visits,* and for meeting each year with the candi-G date to summarize and comment on activi-

ties in the areas of teaching, scholarship,and service.

Depending upon the governance structure0 of the institution, various faculty bodies

and the dean normally review candidatesbefore tenure. At the end of the process,you should provide a written summary of

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the review to the candidate, with a state-ment in writing that includes descrip-tions of the candidate's strengths andweaknesses, along with suggestions forimprovement. These can be useful docu-ments for charting progress over the yearsuntil the time of tenure. Be sure a copy ofyour summary goes to the faculty mem-ber's department chair and that a copy isput in a personnel file that will be avail-able to the various groups that will playa role in subsequent evaluations.

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CRITERIA OF EVALUATION

Orientation of new faculty should includea presentation by yourself, perhaps withthe assistance of the faculty chair of thetenure and evaluation committee, on theliming and criteria for evaluation andadvancement. Some important topics tocover include the following: What doesthis institution believe to be most impor-tant? Will there be formal evaluation ofteaching by students? by other faculty?by the department chair? What are theexpectations for scholarship in the earlyyears of an appointment? What will theteaching expectations be? How can a newfaculty member receive assistance withteaching or scholarship? Is conimitteework expected? How important is ad-vising students?

If a faculty member's responsibilities arelikely to increase for the second year (e.g.,by the addition of committee work or ad-vising), it is useful for you to have anothersession for new faculty at the end of thefirst year, to prepare them for their newresponsibilities and to review the evalua-tion process. By this time, they will have aframework within which to ask questions,

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and they will be better able to focus onthese topics than they were during theblur of faculty orientation.

Peer evaluation of teaching is a necessarycomponent of faculty development. Thereare many possible models by which newfaculty can exchange class visits withmore senior colleagues. The more suchvisits are routine, the better the informa-tion to be gained. As stated above, imme-diate and thorough feedback on teaching,with examples of problems and sugges-tions for improvement, makes the systemworthwhile. Inclusion of syllabi in theevaluation file provides the opportunity forfaculty colleagues who have not observedthe candidate to make some judgementson the quality of the course being taught.

Student evaluation of teaching, by meansof questionnaires and solicitation of let-ters, is the norm in most institutions. Theweight that these evaluations carry ishighly variable, particularly over the ca-reer of the faculty member. All deans tellstories of irate parents saying about asenior faculty member: "How can you letthat person continue to teach?" A usefulquestionnaire will take into account thevariety of students enrolled in the courseand the role of the course in their pro-gram. Frequent review of the contents ofthe questionnaire by an appropriate fac-ulty body will help to provide a level ofcomfort in its use.

Letters from students, particularly thosewho have been academic advisees or whohave done independent study with thefaculty member, are also important addi-tions to the teaching portfolio.

Institutions and departments vary in their * questions. This will provide junior faculty

expectation for scholarship and service. * with a good idea of where to focus their

Candidates for tenure-track positions timeon teaching, on developing newoften ask whether they need to "have a syllabi, on scholarship or lab research,book" or "get an NSF grant" in order to be on joining committees. They should not beconsidered favorably for tenure. You and expected to do everything at the same levelthe department chair should be as forth- of intensity, and careful direction can helpright as possible in answering these to prevent burnout.

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EVALUATING AND COMPENSATING TRURO FACULTY

David E. Leary, University of Richmond

Before discussing the evaluation oftenured faculty and the issue ofmerit-based salary increases, thereare a few common-sense principlesto keep in mind: (1) every academic

community has its own history, priorities,and practices; (2) there is no single way todo anything; and (3) something may workwell in one community and cause terriblehavoc in another.

With these caveats, it is still difficult toimagine an academic community that doesnot need and could not profit from somekind of regular faculty evaluation process,even for tenured faculty. Furthermore,although it is somewhat easier to imaginea community that might not wish to havesuperior performance rewarded by merit-based salary increases, I will assume thatmost communities, on the principle of fair-ness, would want to offer some form ofrecognition for superior performance,whether or not such performance isjudged on a group or individual basis.

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Practices regarding the review of tenuredfaculty seem to fall into three distinctcategories:

1. Annual Review. The rationale for anannual review process is that the per-formance of all faculty, whether ten-ured or not, should be reviewed eachyear with an eye to incremental year-to-year improvement. Even thoughfundamental change may take placeover longer periods of time, annualreviews provide an opportunity forencouraging, fine-tuning, and keepingthe faculty member, the chairperson,and yourself aware of ongoing aspira-tions and achievements as well as cur-rent obstacles and needs. Although anannual review (like any review) can bea negative experience for some faculty,ideally it should keep the individualfocused on tangible development andhelp those responsible for salary in-creases recognize and reward actual,documented accomplishments rather

than reward reputations based on pastperformance, whether good or bad.

2. Periodic Review. The rationale for aprocess involving less frequent (butregularly scheduled) reviews for ten-ured facultyfor instance, a reviewevery second, third, or fifth yearisthat tenured faculty have proven theirbasic capabilities and their ability tofulfill their basic responsibilities, andthey will now grow and perform betterif they are given greater latitude interms of reporting and oversight. Inlarger institutions, it may also be thecase that the cost of annual reviews(in terms of the faculty member's,chairperson's, and dean's time) is per-ceived to exceed the probable benefit.Although the underlying purpose ofperiodic reviews is the same as forannual reviews, the unit of analysisis larger, thus allowing for naturalfluctuations of annual teaching, schol-arship, and service "outcomes." Gen-erally, in a periodic review system, theexpected rate of annual salary increaseis determined each time the tenuredfaculty member is reviewed, though

. there are sometimes opportunities formodification if some significant changeoccurs between reviews.

3. Crisis Review. The rationale for acrisis review (sometimes called a "post-tenure review") is that a faculty mem-ber should be subjected to careful,thorough scrutiny if his/her perfor-mance has been found or is suspectedto have fallen below an acceptable levelfor an appreciable period of time. Suchreviews may result in a demand forsome specific kinds of improvementover one, two, or three years. Gener-ally, there is a mandated follow-up

review at the end of this period, and insome institutions, a second unsatisfac-tory review of this sort may result inthe loss of tenure and position. Al-though this kind of review may takeplace in an institution that has an an-nual or periodic review process, it islisted here as a separate type becauseit may also occur within institutionsthat do not have a regular facultyevaluation process. Frankly, it is diffi-cult to understand how a system with-out regular annual or periodic reviewsis beneficial to faculty, much less totheir students and their larger aca-demic community. If annual or peri-odic reviews are taken seriously by allparties, the need for crisis reviews as ameans of amelioration or terminationshould be rare. 83

Good arguments may be made for either Personnel

annual or periodic reviews, and as notedat the start, the "right" approach for anygiven institution must be determined inrelation to its own local culture and situa-tion. However, looking at evaluation as anecessary and useful part of the largerprocess of faculty development, it seemsreasonable to conclude that each institu-tion should review faculty performanceas often as it is practicable to do so,given the other demands upon all thoseinvolved. There is no reason that an an-nual review cannot take into account thelonger period of time that is needed forsignificant change and accomplishments,nor should it be impossible for chairper-sons and deans to modulate judgmentsabout a single year within the context of alonger period of time. However, if reviewsare done less frequently than each year,chairpersons and deans should be certain

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to stay in touch with faculty, both to knowhow they are doing and to offer encourage-ment and other forms of support. As per-sons and professionals, faculty tend tocare as much about attention and praiseas about salaries and being left to theirown devices.

The question of merit pay increases iscomplicated, and there are many variantsin how merit pay is distributed. I feel war-ranted only to make one observation andto give a brief description of the admittedlyidiosyncratic approach that I take. Theobservation is that some faculty love tohate whatever salary system they are sub-jected to. Like many other people, they feelthat they should be earning more, so thesystem must be at fault. But when ap-proached about actually changing thesystem they love to hate, these same fac-ulty are not always confident that thingswould be better in a new system. Thepoint is simply that occasional grumblingabout income seems to be a well-ingrainedpractice among faculty, not necessarilyrelated to the level of their salaries or thefairness of a particular salary compensa-tion program.

My approach is to devote at least half ofthe annual salary increase pool to across-the-board increases for all faculty (exceptthose few who have clearly failed to con-tribute in any meaningful way to thecommon cause), not as a "cost-of-living"increase, but as a form of merit pay. Thatis, I believe that since the vast majority of"my" faculty do a fairly good job, theyshould all receive an increase on thisaccount; those who haven't done a goodjob in any recognizable way should receiveno increase at all. With the other half ofthe pool, then, merit "over and above" the

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norm can be rewarded. Again, I tend togive at least some of this extra merit payto virtually every faculty member, butsome get a good deal more than others.Another feature of this system is that itgives faculty with higher salaries moremoney from the across-the-board in-creases (which are given in percentages),thus providing recognition for years ofservice and good performance (since thosewho have served longer and better tend tohave the higher salaries). But the over-and-above merit increases are given inset-dollar amounts rather than percent-ages, so that the 30-year tenured facultymember judged to be at the top level ofmerit receives the exact same additionalmerit dollars as the first-year untenuredfaculty member who earned the samerating. This approach results, over all, insenior faculty receiving more actual dol-lars, but junior faculty receiving a higherpercentage increase. What this means isthat, over time, although the salaries ofthe good senior faculty continue to riseslowly from the pack, the entire packtends to rise in concert, thus avoidingthe creation of a radically salary-dividedfaculty. This works well in terms of overallequity and satisfaction, with exceptionsrepresenting the principle enunciatedabove, namely, that some people willnever like the system to which they aresubjected.

One fmal comment. Like most otherdeans, you will want to foster a genuinesense of academic community, a real co-hesion among colleagues working togetherfor common purposes. Differential salaryincreases can serve as wedges rather thanas rewards. However, I have found that anopen, public discussion of whether or not

the community believes it is fair to recog-nize those who teach better, do betterscholarly work, and contribute more tothe governance of the institution, espe-cially when many of these individualsclearly work harder and longer than thosewho do not perform as well as they do,leads easily to the conclusion that thereshould be some form of recognition ofmerit in the annual salary increase pro-cess. However, I am certain that part ofthe reason this works fairly well at myown institution is that our faculty salariesare good and the annual increase pool is

always large enough to allow a reasonableincrease even for those whose performancehas been good but not exceptional.

My recommendation, then, is that allfaculty should have good salaries andall deans should get a large annual salaryincrease pool! But whatever you do withthe pool you actually receive, it is safe toassume that it will be appreciated moreif your faculty think that your decisionsare fair, based on impartial evidence, andconsonant with publicly stated institu-tional values.

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EVALUATING DEPARTMENT (HAIRS

Elizabeth Scarborough, Indiana University, South Bend

The dean's evaluation of departmentchairs is an ongoing challengeandopportunitythat includes both informal and formal elements. The pro-cess is a challenge because perfor-

mance evaluation of close colleagues is atask that requires great sensitivity. Fewpersons, especially those new to the job,seem to undertake it with great enthusi-asm or confidence. Nevertheless, carefullycrafted and conducted systematic evalua-tions provide the opportunity to shape afaculty member's behavior by identifyingconduct that deserves praise or requireschange. Perhaps your greatest challenge isto create a cultural context in which bothpartiesevaluators and evaluatedviewevaluation not merely as an institutionalrequirement but as a regularized opportu-nity for assessing progress toward achiev-ing mutual goals.

Informally, you "evaluate" chairs quiteregularly, by making judgments about howthey are doing and providing them withinformal feedback, guidance, and com-

mendation. Chair A develops a pattern ofalways coming in just after the announceddeadline for providing a report, every re-port; Chair B writes faculty evaluationsthat are exorbitantly flattering for all,while confiding that the assistant profes-sor on tenure probationary status reallyisn't doing very well in the classroom, but"I don't want to discourage him with anegative review"; Chair C devises a cleverand original way of distributing facultyworkload so that the schedule of the de-partment is not negatively affected whenone member needs extra time for a specialresearch project; Chair D passes on to thedean an unusually large number of unre-solved student complaints concerning thegrading practices of a senior professor.Week by week, if not day by day, you areprovided examples of the work perfor-mance of department chairs and therebyyou compile, perhaps without awareness,an "implicit" evaluation of each.

"Evaluation," however, usually refers to aformal process that may take the form of

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an annual report followed by an annualevaluation, which may serve as the basisfor merit pay increases, or a more exten-sive evaluation conducted as the basis fora reappointment decision. My present in-stitution requires annual reports (i.e.,evaluations) for each faculty member upto the level of the chief academic officer.Upon encountering this system and thegreat variety presented to me in the firstround of reports, I found it helpful to pro-vide some direction for the preparation ofthe "administrative" portion of the chairs'reports, asking them to organize theirreports under five headings: ProgramManagement, Personnel Management,Fiscal Management, Planning and Devel-opment, and Affirmative Action. [The firstfour topics thanks to Allan Tucker andRobert Bryan in The Academic Dean:Dove, Dragon, and Diplomat, (ACE, 1988);recomrnended!see Section II-D of thisHandbook]. This helped focus our at-tention upon the major tasks underreview, despite the repugnance withwhich academics regard that alienterm "management."

A danger with annual evaluations con-ducted in such a set format (for faculty aswell as chairs) is that they may becomehollow exercises: everyone gets a heartypat on the back (and let's keep our fmgerscrossed for the next year!). Another dangeris that both dean and chair may wait untilthe time of annual evaluation to deal withissues that should be addressed in a moretimely way, on the "informal" schedulementioned above. Taking the annualevaluation seriously as a vehicle for as-sessing the department and the chair'sleadership and creating a climate in whichdifficulties can be identified and dealt with

as they arise are necessary to make gooduse of the annual evaluation. A matter ofimportance concerns how your evaluationis conveyed to the chair, whether in a face-to-face meeting or by written means. Mypreference is for an appointment followedby the written report, which becomes amatter of record in the personnel file.That may be less comfortable than theimpersonal memo, but it does permit aninterchange that may lead to focusedproblem solving.

Evaluation at the time of consideration forreappointment as chair is likely to involvedepartment faculty in the formal process.Whether the chair is elected or appointed,the reappointment decision requires col-league input. You might use standardized,computer-scored, and normed evaluationinstruments. Or you might rely on a reportforwarded by the department as a whole Personnelafter group discussion. Alternatively, youmight call for individual faculty responsesto be sent in writing or discussed in per-son, using either focused questions or anopen-ended format. Having had experiencewith all of these, I would say the efficacyof each depends on the institution anddepartmental expectations. The value offaculty consultation depends on threeessential elements. Faculty must be as-sured that their individual judgments willbe held in confidence, even when youshare with the chair the results of theprocess. They must believe that you areindeed open to hearing from the facultyrather than bringing to the process yourown prejudgement of the outcome. Andthey must be confident that informationprovided will be taken seriously and usedconstructively.

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Constructive use of evaluation results re-quires that clear expectations precede theevaluation itself and that the focus of theevaluation remains on tasks that havebeen identified and understood by bothyou and the chair. Regular joint goal-setting is one way of accomplishing this.Open communicationthe courage andwillingness to face up to problems as theyoccuris also important. There shouldbe no big surprises, positive or negative,at the time of the evaluation's delivery.Rather the evaluation conference shouldbe a time of formal acknowledgment andplarming for what needs to be accom-plished in the future.

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I fmd it wryly amusing, even as I shakemy head, when I read occasionally in theadvice literature: "If... , then you mustreplace the chair immediately." Due todepartment size and composition, thevarying abilities and motivations facultybring to their work, governance policy andpractice, and other factors (you fill in yourconstraints!), the simple removal and re-placement of an ineffective chair just isnot possible for many of us. Rather, wemust work patiently and skillfully, eachwithin our own culture, knowing thatmuch of our own effectiveness dependson that of the department chairs. Carefulattention to the evaluation process canfacilitate our efforts.

RETIREMENT ARRANGEMENTS FOR FACULTY

Elizabeth Scarborough, Indiana University, South Bend

6iven the demographics of the pro-fessorate, you should anticipate arecord number of faculty retirements in the next decade. This de-spite the fact that professors appear

to be setting a contrarian trend andchoosing later rather than earlier retire-ment dates. "In 1993, only 84% of TIAA/CREF's participants had started to collectannuity income by age 70" (Robert K.Otterbourg, Retire and Thrive, New York:Kip linger Books, 1995, p.1'7). For manyfaculty, retirement opens up opportunitiesto spend more time doing just what theylove to do: rcading, writing, traveling,thinking. For others, however, retirementthreatens the loss of cherished experi-ences (e.g. interacting with students andcolleagues), of resources for doing theirresearch (lab facilities and subject pools),of the familiar routine of a regular sched-ule (meeting classes and attending facultymeetings). For the former, retirement isanticipated with eagerness; for the latter,dread and denial may dominate. For some,

retirement signifies "emancipation fromthe department"; for others, a loss of sta-tus or even selfhood. For all, retirement isa major life event, with implications that Personnel

span economic, psychological, social,medicaland yes, existentialconcerns.

What roles should you as dean play in thisdrama? Provide information, encourageplanning and a realistic assessment ofone's situation, ease the transition, honorpast contributions and maintain commit-ment, press the issue a bit where neces-sary: these are some of the actions a deanmight consider.

When I realized that many of our facultyeven those most active in faculty affairsdid not understand the very generousretirement benefits that our universityprovides at age 64, much less that SocialSecurity requirements may be very impor-tant for them, I began the practice of send-ing out an explanatory letter each spring,to all aged 60 and above. This letter givesinformation on how to check on their

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benefits with the university and SocialSecurity Administration as well as the re-quirements and procedures necessary toactivate our plan. I note that the retire-ment plan can be activated very quicklyonce one meets certain requirements, butthat departmental planning for replace-ment is greatly aided if we have lead time!At another institution, the Human Re-sources Office offered a series of six weeklytwo-hour sessions, open to faculty aged60+, who were invited to attend with theirspouses. Sessions focused on fmancial,health, occupational, recreational, resi-dential, and relational considerationsarundown on "what to expect and how toprepare and handle it." Each of thesepractices elicits both appreciative com-ments and, more importantly, conversa-tions about retirement and its timing.

Whereas some faculty need the securityblanket of a continuing institutional affili-ation (though often for a shorter periodof time than they think!), others maintainreciprocal and facilitating associations,and some take to the road quickly andhappily sever all ties. Institutions differ,of course, on what services they can con-tinue to provide retirees. At my universityretirees receive reduced parking fee, use oflibrary facilities, a computer account thatprovides access to the Internet, full mem-bership in the Academic Senate and eligi-bility to serve on committees, invitationsto participate in all official universityfunctions (with academic garb providedif needed), and free or reduced admissionto fee-bearing events. The departmentsdetermine whether to provide lab facilities,office space, clerical services, and copyingprivileges to retired faculty. In addition,retired faculty are invited once a year toa luncheon hosted by the chancellor.

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Another institution (from which I tookearly retirement at age 56 before comingto my present job) supports a very activeorganization for retired faculty and pro-fessional staff, with quarterly get-togethers, a regular newsletter, andoccasional service activities that supportboth the college and the community.Retired faculty can represent a valuableasset for various institutional functions;providing for their continued contactswith the institution and each other is oneway of honoring their past service andvaluable contributions.

One of the most difficult tasks for the ad-ministrator is to help a reluctant facultymember recognize when it is "time to go"and to do so without incurring liability forage discrimination. Here's where your

skills" really come into play! MaryRichards's short article has suggestionsfor that ("Counseling Faculty Memberabout Retirement" in The DepartmentChair, Spring 1992, pp.1 and 15). Asummary of her key points: 1) informyourself about the types of incentivesthe institution may offer; 2) use regularfaculty development reviews; 3) learnthe extracurricular interests of faculty;4) identify what would be an attractiveretirement package for a given person;5) choose a neutral person to do the nego-tiations; and 6) be positive. In my recentexperience, one faculty member neededaccurate information and reassuranceabout his benefits. Another endured threeyears of unsatisfactory annual evaluationsand no salary raises before making hisdecision. Yet another case involved gentlyconfronting a 69-year-old with statementsfrom mature and knowledgeable studentsthat strongly suggested he was experienc-

ing mini-seizures in class and really could 0 touches on key points and has helpfulnot continue to meet his responsibilities. <> information and useful references.

Certainly it is important to inform yourself Schoenfeld (p. 52) cites an article byabout the issues related to retirement de- < Donald Dudley, medical director of thecisions. A stumbling block for one of my 0 Washington Institute of Neurosciences,faculty was that he had heard about the 0 Seattle ("Coping with retirement: Stressraising of the "full retirement" age for So- 0 and life change" in Journal of the Collegecial Security and thought he had to delay and University Personnel Association,because of that. But he was born in 1931 Summer 1991, pp.1-4), in which Dudleyand was relieved to learn that the new states: "The transition from being arules apply only to those born 1939 and worker to being a retiree is one of thelater. Clay Schoenfeld's primer, Retirement most difficult and major life changes most901: A Comprehensive Seminar for Senior of us will ever face.... People become in-Faculty and Staff (Magna, 1993), may 0 creasingly stressed as they try to adapt tohelp. It is poorly produced and would have 0 a new situation." With that in mind, goodbenefited from some copy editing, but it 0 luck to us all!

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NULTY DEVELOPMENT

David E. Leary, University of Richmond

The quality of a college or university isdetermined, most crucially, by thequality of its faculty. Hence, there isno more important duty for you toperform as a dean than to assure the

best possible hiring, mentoring, support-ing, tenuring, and promoting of faculty.In brief, nothing is more important for thesuccess of your institutionand thus foryour own successthan faculty develop-ment. Whatever else you may be obligedto do, you should be most accountablefor facilitating the teaching, research, andservice efforts of your faculty. It is thefaculty who teach, the faculty who doresearch, the faculty who engage in otherkinds of creative and collegial activity. Ifyou can help them teach better, accom-plish more meaningful research, and par-ticipate more effectivelyand even moreenjoyablyin the local academic commu-nity, you will have done well.

In order to facilitate faculty development,you should do at least three things:

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+ Help establish clear expectations forfaculty,

+ Provide support and encouragement forfaculty, and

+ Implement appropriate forms of recog-nition and reward for faculty.

For many reasons, it is important thatthere be clear expectations for facultyperformance, and that these be articulatedin a collegial manner (with faculty partici-pation) in light of the strategic mission,objectives, and initiatives of the faculty'sdepartment, school, and institution. (It isalso important that these same expecta-tions be kept in mind in the faculty hiringprocess: there is no use hiring one sort ofperson and then spending all your timetrying to "develop" him or her into anotherkind of person.) Once expectations areclear, you should do whatever you can toprovide appropriate support and encour-agement. Although these will sometimestake the form of explicit recognitions andrewards (e.g., teaching awards and salaryincreases), they can and should also take

many other forms, as illustrated below.The basic point, however, is that support,encouragement, recognition, and rewardsshould all be given in relation to the mis-sion, objectives, and initiatives of thefaculty members' departments, school,and institution. Sending mixed messagesabout what is salient to professional andinstitutional development can only detractfrom the achievement of an academiccommunity's goals.

Faculty development is too often conceivedas faculty remediation. No one can denythat there are times when you will need todeal with faculty whose performance hasfallen below a reasonable standard. It isimportant, in such instances, to have bothmanner and means for prompting betterperformance, ideally through encourage-ment and support but if necessarythrough command and threat. My ownexperience suggests that it is best to avoidhaving a faculty member feel embarrassedor threatened, if this is at all possible.

With first offenses and complaints, unlessthey are of an egregious nature, I havefound it useful to send a memo to the fac-ulty member, with a copy to his/her chair,saying "I have heard that.... I have noidea if this is true or not, and I have nodesire to have a response from you aboutthis. I assume you will have a differentperspective on this matter. I just wantyou to know the perception has beenpassed along to me, and I ask you todiscuss it with your chairperson. If I hearnothing along this line again, you will hearnothing further from me and there will beno other reflection of this communication."This has often brought about the desiredchange, without creating a defensivenessor subsequent awkwardness on the part of

the faculty member. In some cases, youmust be prepared to go further, but thecharacteristics of further action are gen-erally particular to the individual case, sothere isn't much to say about them, exceptthat you should be both as objective andas sensitive as possible in dealing withsuch matters.

The more typical case for faculty devel-opment involves faculty who are alreadygood, or at least adequate, in their perfor-mance. The objective is not remediationbut improvement, for the sake of the indi-vidual, the institution, and its students.Faculty improvement schemes within thiscontext should be proactive rather thanreactive, and they should be seen byfaculty as being supportive rather thanmanipulative. In short, they should repre-sent something offered for faculty ratherthan something done to them.

Having established this basic principle,there is no limit to the number of creativeand useful programs that you can sup-port. The goal of such programs is "creat-ing a culture of growth and development"among the faculty, a culture which canand will rub off on students. Faculty tooneed to learn; faculty too need to do inde-pendent research; faculty too need to con-tribute to the welfare of their localcommunitythis should be the messagethat students get, explicitly and implicitly,from faculty development programs. In-deed, some of these programs might beextended to students themselves.

Some of the faculty-development programssponsored at my institution are:

a year-long orientation program for newfaculty;

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a variety of voluntary faculty readinggroups;a faculty seminar for those preparing toteach in a common core course;a faculty seminar abroad;a lunchtime forum series for the sharingof ongoing research;a faculty newsletter;a faculty electronic-exchange network;a proactive annual review system,including a special pretenure evalu-ation program;a series of teaching-related workshopsand luncheon discussions, whichsupplement the other programs andresources offered through theUniversity's Teaching Center;a voluntary program of classroom visita-tion and discussion of teaching;a generous program of support forteaching innovations, research, andprofessional travel.

None of these programs is very astonish-ing or unusual. All of themand moreare going on at other institutions. Thepoint-is for you to design and implementsuch activities within the context of anoverall faculty development strategy, andfor the faculty to see the various programsas part of a total web of opportunities forfaculty to get to know one another better,to share teaching and research interests,and to stimulate and challenge each other.

(Just by knowing one another better,whether through faculty parties or a fac-ulty picture book, faculty are much morelikely to establish meaningful connectionsand productive collaborations, all on theirown.) Properly conceptualized and orga-nized, even committee work can serve afaculty development purpose, especially ifit is distributed broadly and fairly enoughto protect individuals from undue burdensand distractions. Committees to developnew curricula or to address pressing prob-lems are particularly good vehicles for fac-ulty development, if faculty are given theright sorts of roles and responsibilities.Travel to visit other institutions wheregood things are happening, or to attendrelevant conferences, can also be helpfulin this context. Every proactive dean willhave stories about faculty who have beenspurred to greater achievement by gettinginvolved in some important institutionalinitiative.

There is no need to elaborate additionalspecific examples. You will have to designand support programs that take intoaccount your own institution's mission,objectives, an initiatives, not to mentionits relative strengths and weaknesses.The point is simply that faculty develop-ment is the name of the game for anydean who wishes to build a better educa-tional institution.

hoLTY LOADS, SPECIAL (OMPENTION

Philip Glotzbach, University of Redlands

Every college or university needs a fairand consistent policy for assigningfaculty work load, and that policyshould be clearly stated in theinstitution's faculty handbook or

faculty personnel manual. This policyshould be sufficiently flexible to accom-modate variations in faculty work fromdiscipline to discipline, at different mo-ments in a faculty member's career, andin response to different institutionalneeds. It also should enable you as deanto make principled exceptions to standardpractice in response to unique situations.Beware of crafting a policy that is so for-mula-driven or rigid that it complicatesor even precludes the administrativedecision-making that often is needed tohandle special cases.

DEFINING THE STANDARDFACULTY WORK LOAD

For obvious reasons, most discussions offaculty load begin with teaching, and yourhandbook should indicate clearly how a

standard teaching load is configured atyour institution. Your policy needs to takeinto account your faculty/student ratio,curricular-based staffing needs, the per- Personnelcentage of courses your institution willcover with adjunct faculty, your academiccalendar, types of courses (e.g., arecourses the same size such as 4 credits,or is there considerable variation?), anddifferences in kinds of teaching (e.g., labo-ratory sessions versus lecture classes)across departments. A teaching load canbe specified in terms of courses or credithours. For example, your policy couldtake these considerations into account byspecifying a standard teaching load as sixcourses per year, distributed across twosemesters and a January inter-session, orby defming it as 24 semester units peracademic year.

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Your work-load policy needs to accom-modate both standard and nonstandardforms of teaching: not only large and smallclasses but also private music lessons,supervision of students in clinical settings,

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directing a major play or opera, and su-pervision of science labs. If your institu-tion allows large classes (and even "large"will be a relative term), your policy needsto indicate at what point (if any) a facultymember will receive the help of a teachingassistant or grader and whether a classover a certain size might count in place oftwo smaller ones. Alternatively, can fac-ulty at your institution fulfdl their teach-ing obligations by offering only smallcourses, or do you also require them toserve a minimum number of studentsper quarter, semester, or academic year?For purposes of determining load, areco-taught courses counted the same asregular courses, or is the teaching "credit"per faculty member reduced?

The complexity of such questions makesit difficult, if not impossible, to set anysimple policy (or formula) for achievingequity of faculty load across an entire in-stitution. For example, if you require acertain number of courses (or courseequivalents), some faculty will necessarilyteach more students per unit of time thanothers (e.g., creative writing faculty offer-ing intensive writing workshops, whichshould be no larger than 15, will usuallyteach fewer students per semester orquarter than faculty in psychology whoseload includes some larger introductorysections). Some courses carry heavierexpectations for grading papers, as con-trasted with courses that emphasize ex-ams. So you need to approach theseissues with a judicious sense of facultywork that starts with reasonable disciplin-ary expectations. Broader cunicular needsplay an important role as well. For ex-ample, a physics department in a smallliberal arts college will typically serve a

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much smaller number of majors than willa comparably-sized sociology or philoso-phy department. But small upper-divisioncourses for physics majors can be bal-anced by expecting the department tomake a vigorous contribution to the gen-eral education curriculum through lower-division courses for nonscience majors,first-year seminars, etc.

As a rule of thumb, you should be involvedprimarily in working with the appropriatefaculty committee(s) to establish the mostgeneral level of policy. Next you shouldwork with your department chairs to en-sure that as much as possible the moredetailed work of configuring individualfaculty teaching loads occurs within thedepartment (with the high bid being thatthis is a collaborative process in which alldepartment members participate). It willprobably be necessary to approve somespecial arrangements that various depart-ments need to make to accommodate theirindividual situations (e.g., to agree to anequivalency between a set amount of clini-cal supervision or a set number of hoursof private music lessons and a course).Once approved, such arrangements shouldbe administered departmentally. You defi-nitely do not want to be in the business ofpersonally negotiating all faculty loadseach quarter or semester. Even so, you oryour associate dean should review (orspot-check) faculty teaching loads regu-larly, a part of the normal review of thecourse schedules proposed by individualdepartments. Well-run departments witheffective, well-trained department chairswill make this review a simple matter; ob-viously, more troubled departments ordepartments with less effective chairs willrequire closer attention from your office.

Make sure that you go over the generalfaculty load policy as well as your expec-tations for particular departments withnew department chairs at the time oftheir appointment.

Beyond teaching assignments narrowlyconceived, an institution's faculty work-load policy should clarify the additionalexpectations that apply. You might notwant to stipulate a minimum number ofoffice hours per week, but you probably dowant to state the expectation that facultyset and keep office hours (and also makethemselves available to students by ap-pointment). Every college or university hasan expectation for continuing faculty de-velopmentresearch or creative activityand that should be described. Finally, youneed to be clear about your expectationsfor service. There is general work in everydepartment, academic program, college,and university, and faculty need to con-tribute their fair share. Individual facultymembers will do this in different ways,according to their abilities and interests,and accordingly this part of the facultywork load should be described in as flex-ible a way as possible. Moreover, facultywill take on different load profiles at dif-ferent times depending upon their focusin a given year (e.g., developing a newcourse, starting up or completing a re-search project, or assuming a particularlyheavy service load), and your load policyneeds to acknowledge and indeed, en-courage such healthy variation.

NORMAL VARIATIONS

Your institution's policy regarding astandard teaching load should accom-modate such normal and recurring work

as independent studies, overseeing seniorprojects and honors theses, directing stu-dent research in science, and so on. Manyof these tasks are best regarded as a regu-lar part of a full-time teaching faculty load(e.g., offering a reasonable number of in-dependent studies, sitting on a reasonablenumber of honors committees). However,"excessive" responsibilities should befactored into load (e.g., the assignmentof overseeing all the senior projects of asubstantial-sized program in a given yearmight automatically count as a course).Once again, how these matters arehandled will vary by institution. But thereshould be a sense across departments in agiven college or university that, in general,teaching load is distributed equitably.

ACCOMMODATINGEXCEPTIONS

No matter how well your general policy forallocating faculty load is conceived andadministered, from time to time the deanor associate dean will be called upon tosanction exceptions and adjudicate diffi-cult or complex cases. You need to bringto such negotiations a clear understandingof your general policy, a well-articulatedset of principles that guide you in makingexceptions, and your own sense of fair-ness. Never conclude an individual ne-gotiation without checking with theappropriate department chair or beforesatisfying yourself that the accommoda-tion you are contemplating in one case isconsistent with decisions you have made(or would want to make in the future) inother similar situations. It is always goodto take a request under advisement andrender a fmal decision on a later occasion,after having consulted appropriately and

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given full consideration to the broaderimplications of that individual case.

Both faculty and administrators some-times think first of the two obvious waysto accommodate exceptions to the normalload that involve extraordinary work (e.g.,chairing a particularly demanding gover-nance committee, trying to complete aresearch project in a given semester): re-leased time from teaching or overload pay.I discuss these options below, but I wouldurge you to consider a third alternativebefore resorting to the two most obviousones. This third option is to begin with acomprehensive view of a standard loadteaching, research/creative activity, andserviceand look first for trade-offs in thenon-teaching portion. For example, a fac-ulty member who needs to complete abook manuscript to meet a publisher'sdeadline might be released from normal(departmental and institutional) serviceexpectations for a quarter or semester oreven for a year. Assuming that service is aserious expectation for all faculty (and itshould be), release from service expecta-tions can be just as significant as releasefrom a course. Likewise, a faculty memberwho assumes a burdensome administra-tive task (e.g., chairing a contentious de-partment) can be released from researchexpectations for a limited period of time,with such a release noted by the dean inan official memo to file that will be in-cluded in the faculty member's next re-view. Obviously such an option may notbe appropriate for a faculty member whosenext review deals with tenure or promo-tion, but in other cases it can work. Oftenit is the best teachers who are called uponto perform other spetial tasks. Removingthem from the classroom may not be as

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attractive an institutional option as thealternatives noted here. Furthermore, itis not in any institution's best interest tocreate a climate of expectationor worse,a sense of entitlementthat faculty will beregularly released from teaching obliga-tions to perform necessary faculty work.

Nevertheless, there are times when thepreceding options will not work and youhave to consider granting release fromteaching. Your general work-load policyshould outline a set of basic options. It isbetter to write that policy as a descriptionof practice than to establish hard and fastrules. So you should look first at currentpractice and determine whether it is rea-sonably consistent (e.g., every chair of adepartment above a certain minimum sizereceives one course release per year) orwhether current practice is a structure ofspecial deals that have been cut at differ-ent times, with different departments orfaculty, and perhaps even by different ad-ministrators. One heuristic you can use inexamining current practice is to ask howcomfortable you would be in defending itpublicly, in detail. Could you articulate theprinciples that warranted a course releasein one case but not in another? If not,then you have some conceptual work todo. If you have good principles, then writethem down, both for your own use and asa help to your successor.

Sometimes a course release just is not anoption (e.g., if the problem is that a de-partment needs an extra course and it isnot possible to bring in someone from out-side to teach it), and in such cases youmay need to consider additional compen-sation. Occasionally, it is possible to tradepresent service for future concessions(e.g., if you teach the extra course this

semester, I'll give you a course releasenext fall). On other occasions it will benecessary to provide additional salary ora stipend. Once again, it is important tohave a policy that is fair, as consistent aspossible, and that makes distinctions thatcan be justified by principle.

Most schools have a standard per-courserate of compensation for adjunct faculty.That rate should be used as well to setcompensation for full-time faculty forteaching an additional course. Such apractice is preferableand far cheaperto the institutionto offering someone apercentage of her or his annual salary.You certainly do not want to establish asystem that gives people an incentive toteach overloads. So make the compensa-tion fair but not extravagant. If you believeyou need to offer monetary compensationfor other kinds of extraordinary work (e.g.,taking on a second major committee as-signment or a substantial administrativeproject that cannot be postponed), thentry to equate the effort involved with thatrequired to teach an "average" course.Is the extra assignment approximatelyequivalent to one-half or the full amountof the work required to teach a course? If

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you can answer this question (even if onlyto your own satisfaction), then once againyou can relate the compensation to youradjunct faculty scale. The point is to placesuch questions in relation to other prac-tices to avoid as much as possible havingto make ad hoc, arbitrary judgments.

CONCLUSION

The overall goal in developing and admin-istering a faculty work-load policy is tohelp your faculty distribute their responsi-bilities in ways that not only are equitablebut also are perceived to be equitable. Soyou need a consistent policy, and youshould be able to break your own rules(occasionally) in the service of fairness.Just be sure that you can articulate toothers, if challenged, the principles onwhich your exceptions are based. Inthe end, the highest praise faculty cangive your policy is their indifferenceregarding the rules as obvious, taking forgranted that you will apply them in a fairand evenhanded manner, and assumingthat any exception you make must begrounded in a good reason.

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INCENTIVE PRORAMS

Peter A. Facione, Santa Clara University

Individual faculty and academic depart-ments have plenty to do. Often theirgoals, either as individuals concernedwith their teaching and scholarship, oras departments concerned with their

major programs and internal issues, donot permit the projects, programs, andpriorities of the dean's office to percolateto the top of the list. While threats of lostresources and appeals to high principlesmay be part of the complex set of motiva-tors you might consider using, and whileyou may even suggest that the individual'sand the department's best long-term inter-ests are served if they would give greatertime and effort to a given project, thesestrategies often are insufficient, at least inthemselves. But, on occasion, the judi-cious use of positive incentives can lubri-cate the wheels of institutional loyalty andreorient the focus of individuals and ofdepartments toward those priorities andprojects that are less focused on theirindividual interests and goals and morefocused on the needs of the college orthe university.

INDIVIDUAL INCENTIVES

Perhaps the most important commodityto busy faculty is time. Thus release fromteaching responsibilities is often what theyseek. Sometimes faculty receive coursereleases to compensate for administrativeservices as program directors or chairs.Often faculty ask for a course release towork on an onerous task force, to com-plete a worthy and urgent creative orscholarly project, or to engage in time-consuming curricular, advising, or ac-creditation, or assessment projects. Theseoptions appear at least superficially attrac-tive to the budget conscious dean, for thecost appears to be limited to the salary ofthe replacement instructor, if any. Usuallyin dollars this is a disproportionately smallfraction of the cost of the full-time facultymember who is released. There are, how-ever, other potential costs to be consid-ered. Where the practice of using coursereleases flourishes, one fmds significantnumbers of sections in the general edu-cation program and, at times in the

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undergraduate major as well, taught bytransient junior faculty whose institu-tional commitment and expertise often donot match that of the faculty member whowas released. This can lead to seriousproblems with student academic advising,student retention, program integrity, anda host of personnel issues relating to therecruitment, training, supervision, andevaluation of temporary faculty.

Nationally, the percentage of sectionstaught by part-time and temporary facultyhas increased steadily over several years,what with budget reductions, an increasein the significance of publication as anecessary condition for tenure and pro-motion, and the practice of motivatingthe best faculty to work on college anduniversity projects through using coursereleases. Seeing this, some deans havebegun to offer stipends or paid overloadsinstead of course releases. Often the dollarcost of the stipend equals, or may evenexceed, the lowest level replacement costpaid to hire a part-time adjunct facultymember. But, in view of the other costs,the stipend may turn out in some casesto be a better deal for the college and theuniversity. Then too, there are situationswhere a full course release is not war-ranted, but some modest incentive wouldbe usefui. Since stipends can come in verydifferent sizes, it is easier for you to relatethe size of the stipend to market condi-tions in order to motivate the person youwant to take the job. Some deans use sti-pends in combination with course releaseswhen the work is both time consumingand not directly related to the facultymember's own teaching and scholarship.Often department chairs receive somecombination of both stipend and courserelease, for example.

Incentives to part-time faculty are oftenneglected, but can be quite useful tools.Most of us associate salary with teachingload for part-time faculty. The pay percourse program at most institutions isquite simple: one course and the pay is X,two courses and the pay is twice X. Someinstitutions offer slightly higher pay topeople based on their years of service oron the equivalent academic rank if theywere full time. This variation is oftenfound in summer programs and in con-tinuing education, where even the college'sregular full time faculty are eligible to earnextra pay. An interesting and useful varia-tion on this is found in some summer pro-grams where faculty are also offeredhigher salaries depending on course en-rollments. Under this incentive program,those who offer to teach more popularcourses, usually those courses that are Personnel

needed to fulfill general education or ma-jor requirements in large enrollment areas,are issued contracts with a sliding scalebased on enrollment as of a certain date.

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The extent of a person's part-time contracthas an impact on what fringe benefits areavailable. For example, at half-time work acontract written for six months or longermay trigger a health benefits package.Maybe at 75% time a tuition remissionprogram, if there is one, becomes anadded benefit. Perhaps at some otherpoint a retirement program or a life insur-ance program becomes part of the mix.Different institutions have different poli-cies in this regard. Some benefits, such ashousing assistance, might be restrictedonly to tenured or tenure track faculty.Some benefits are mandated by state andfederal employment rules. It is essential

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for responsible budgeting that you shouldlearn the percentage of benefits costs as-sociated with the time base and length ofservice for which contracts are issued.

At times you or the fiscal officer mightthink only of the fmancial bottom line,believing that by saving a few percentagepoints of benefits costs the institution iscoming out ahead. But from both anethical and a professional perspective itis wise to be mindful that persons whoaccept temporary contracts are highlyeducated people who can usually becounted on to be quite responsible in theexecution of their teaching duties. Manyof us started in this profession in exactlythat way, as temporary and part-timeadjunct instructors. This is not a reasonto continue or to expand exploitation, butan invitation to remember the troubles ofour early careers and eliminate the abuseof part-lime adjunct faculty. One clear wayis to offer higher pay per course. But itmay be better to offer contracts that runfor the whole academic year and whichinclude enough teaching to trigger accessto key institutional benefits programs,such as health insurance. Health insur-ance coverage can also be very useful asan incentive to persons, even if the per-course salary is not as high as paid bythe college down the road. The loyaltypurchased by such a program can oftenbe more valuable to the students and thecollege than the relatively small dollar costof adding more faculty to the health ben-efits group policy.

Another incentive option is to use some ofthe more talented part-time academic yearfaculty to do those very projects for whichone was trying earlier to motivate full-timetenured and tenure-track faculty. Here an

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added stipend to a part-time faculty mem-ber to undertake an assessment project, toserve as an academic advisor, to run thelearning lab, to oversee the student media,etc. can be a mutually beneficial strategy.

The concept of incentives to individualfaculty, particularly the sliding contractidea, can be extended. For example, as aresponse to the call for more full-timefaculty to teach in the freshman andsophomore general education program,you might browbeat department chairsto change the teaching schedules of long-time tenured faculty. This might achievea small victory in a department or two,but the prospects of massive change inthe face of long-standing departmentalcultures that relegate teaching "servicecourses" to the bottom of the prestige pileis unlikely. An alternative is to use positiveincentives. You might, for example, offersliding contracts to new full-time personsnot on the tenure track. The offer of hiremight indicate that for a given salary theperson will teach X courses, but for ahigher salary X+1 courses, and for a stillhigher salary X+2 courses. This is, in ef-fect, to offer a paid overload option atpoint of hire. With continuing faculty thisoption can be introduced as well. Onemight, for example, offer to increase thebase pay of continuing faculty for theiragreement to a permanent change in theirteaching responsibilities which would thenincrease by some proportionate number ofcourses. Again, this can be seen as anagreement to a permanent paid overloador as an agreement to amend the termsand conditions of employment for anidentifiable sub-group of faculty throughthe processes of individual negotiation orcollective negotiation.

DEPARTMENTAL INCENTIVES

Nothing works better than more money,except perhaps more positions and morespace. But you usually will not be pro-vided with the resources to quench thethirst of even one department, to saynothing of the eager and persistent de-mands of many departments. A great dealof good will, more careful understanding,and mutual support can be achieved by afull and honest sharing of budget and re-source information, and by the develop-ment of fair and open procedures orprotocols for the internal allocation anduse of resources within the college. Yet,without some carrots, what are you to doin the face of apathy and indifference toinstitutional mandates and the needs ofthe college as a whole? One option is tocreate incentive programs internal to thecollege, if not the university, to motivatedepartments in a positive way.

Return Year-End Budget Surplus. One of themost frustrating things about fiscal yearbudgeting is that at the end of the fiscalyear a department loses what it does notspend. Beside the flurry of purchase or-ders this generates, the department isbeing rewarded for exactly the wrongbehavior. In fact, shortsighted admini-strators have often thought that under-spending was a sign of overly generousallocations! The more cynical chairs, par-ticularly those who feel that the collegeowes them a larger budget anyway, willthink little of overspending, perhapsknowing that the dean will have to coverthe difference. This pattern can be turnedaround quickly by the practice of carryingforward budget surpluses and budget defi-cits from one fiscal year to the next. Yes,most budgets have rules against this.

Often called the "current unrestrictedfund" or "fiscal year budget," accountingprocedures as well as good managementpractices, call for first and second levelunits to return unused money at the endof the fiscal year. To implement a programof 100% returns, the administrator at thenext level up must keep separate track ofend-of-year budget shortfalls and budgetsurpluses. Then, at the start of the newfiscal year, out of a different fund whichdoes carry from year to yearand thereare many, such as discretionary accounts,gift accounts, capital project accounts, oroverhead accountsthe budget adminis-trator simply supplements those depart-ments that ended the previous fiscal yearin the black by the amount that they werein the black. An easy augmentation to thisapproach is reducing the new fiscal year's 103

budget of those units that ended in thered. A useful variation is not to supple-ment or debit the operating budgets ofdepartments but instead to create gift ac-counts for each department. This way youcan reward those departments that end inthe black by transferring, in the equivalentamount, from your own gift account totheirs. Obviously, before starting thisprogram at your institutions, you shouldcheck very carefully with your fiscalofficers to learn the rules of budgetingthat apply to your situationthose thatcome from good accounting practice aswell as those that might come from whatthe Board, president, or vice presidentwill permit.

Tuition Revenue Sharing. To motivate par-ticipation in a program, such as the sum-mer program or continuing education, youmight craft a revenue sharing policy thatreturns some fraction of the gross (or net)tuition to the department. This is a useful

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way to motivate departments and depart-ment chairs to seek good courses andgood instructors for these programs. It isalso a useful way to recognize that thereare costs to the departments and to thechairs for supporting these programs. Themost obvious costs might be those associ-ated with staff time and course supplies.But there can be other costs, such as thetime spent to fmd good faculty to teachthe courses that the summer programdirector might wish to have offered, orthe time needed to address student com-plaints or advising needs arising from thesummer or continuing education program.Revenue sharing from tuition paid, parti-cularly if it goes beyond simply the trivialcosts of supplies and direct expenses,can go a long way toward amelioratingthese issues.

Revenue Sharing, Attractive Venues. Somedepartments are able to generate rev-enues, or not, given the availability ofexternal funding in their disciplines or thespecial nature of their academic facilities.Theaters, museums, concert halls, andathletic fields and facilities, for example,can be valuable revenue generators duringthe summer months and during thoserelatively rare times in the academic yearwhen not being used for student-relatedevents and performances. Revenue isavailable from renting the facility as wellas from ticket and concessions sales. Alltoo often, however, there is no incentive tothe academic department that controls thevenue. Without something to show fortheir effort, departments are unwilling toput themselves through the trouble andexpense associated with preparing con-tracts and securing the equipment thatwill make the venue suitable for larger

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scale rental and revenue producing acti-vities. At the same time, the same depart-ment often fmds itself in need of expensiveequipment upgrades and capital improve-ments. A program of revenue sharingthat covers the added staffmg costs andoperating expenses and that providesadditional funds to the department toupgrade equipment and make physicalimprovements can turn a negative situa-tion into a very positive one. This is oneexample where less to the university'sbottom line this year can end up beingmore for the department and the univer-sity in the long run.

Overhead from Grants and Fund Raising.Institutions usually have a well discussed,and hotly contested, policy on how grantoverhead and fund-raising revenue is to beshared among the president's office andthe vice presidents, and, at times, thedeans. Frequently the percentage returnedto the departmentor to the individualinvestigator in the case of grant over-headis too small to be a serious incen-tive. Ibis, however, may not be the wisestpolicy from the point of view of buildingcapacity in the long run. You might, forexample, negotiate for 100% return ofgrant overhead to the college and thencreate a program internal to the collegethat gives incentives to the departmentand faculty members who received thegrant, and perhaps also uses some ofthe remaining overhead to support othergrant-writing activities in the departmentand college. A dean might negotiate for apercentage of fund-raising revenue, par-ticularly when college faculty and studentsare used to staff telephone solicitationcampaigns, as a way of supporting thosedepartments that provide the faculty and

students for those efforts. It is one thingfor us to call on the good will of studentsand faculty occasionally, it is anotherto call on their good will and then offerin return some sharing of the fruits ofthat labor.

Departments often ask for the allocationof new faculty positions to support thedevelopment of their academic majors.Even with all the quantitative and quali-tative data that we now have, it is difficultto decide which of several departments toreward with a tenure-track hiring oppor-tunity. And even that does not guaranteethat the broader needs of the general edu-cation program or faculty diversity will bemet. However, a program of designatingpositions for support of particular aca-demic goals can be a very positive in-ducement to departments. One example,crafted in support of the general educationprogram, provides for departments tomake proposals with regard to how, if

awarded a new tenure-track position, theywould offer in return six more sections ofgeneral education courses taught by ten-ured or tenure-track faculty. Obviously,the new hire would not be expected toteach all, or maybe any, of those six sec-tions. But the department, which wouldthen have the faculty line to supportadding six sections to its course offerings,would be expected to adjust teaching as-signments of whomever it wished, pro-vided that the net gain to the generaleducation program was six more sectionstaught by tenured or tenure-track faculty.Once filled, that position remains with thedepartment, along with the added respon-sibility for those six sections, until it isvacated. Then the position reverts backto the general education program and canbecome, once again, the subject for newproposals from the same and otherdepartments.

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AFFIRMATIVE AGIN/EQUAL OPPORTUNIff

Bari Watkins, Morningside College

Affinnative action programs makespecial efforts to benefit persons inlegally protected classes in order tocompensate for past discrimination.Protected classes include race, color,

national origin, religion, sex, age, and dis-ability. Except by local ordinance, sexualorientation is not a protected category.In the past, affirmative action programscould be court ordered or adopted volun-tarily. Equal opportunity regulations, bycontrast, simply seek to prohibit discrimi-nation against such persons.

In the mid-1990s, legal issues concerningaffirmative action programs are undergo-ing the most dramatic changes seen indecades. Equal opportunity regulationsare not engendering major criticism ormodification.

The information presented here is meantto provide you with general guidance.Major institutional decisions focused onaffirmative action should always be madewith advice of counsel.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION

Voluntary affirmative action (AA) programs(in admissions and hiring) are heavily de-bated. Some believe that non-beneficiariesare disadvantaged by such programs; oth-ers argue that those intended as beneficia-ries are stigmatized by affirmative action.

Until 1978, the Supreme Court supportedcollege and university AA programs thatmet a compelling government interest,which was defined as addressing past localdiscrimination or attracting a diverse stu-dent body. In the famous 1978 decision,Regents of the University of California v.Bakke, the court found that numericalquotas were unconstitutional except inremediation of immediate past discrimina-tion, but an institution could legitimatelyuse race as a "plus factor," or "one ele-ment in a range of factors a universitymay properly consider" in an attempt tocreate diversity in the student body. Fourjustices were opposed to any approval ofaffirmative action programs; four others

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wanted to continue allowing the use ofrace to remedy the effects of past discrimi-nation, even if there was no recent historyof discrimination at the institution doingthe remediating. Justice Lewis Powellalone, in an attempt to build a consensus,proposed the "plus factor" notion to createa narrow bridge between the two groups;none of his colleagues explicitly acceptedthis compromise. Thus the fragile con-struction of a sole justice had held to-gether a legal balance until recent years.During that time, most colleges and uni-versities carefully eschewed using an ex-plicit racial quota and instead adopted the"plus factor" criterion in admissions andhiring decisions.

The Powell compromise began to unravelin 1995. In May, the Supreme Court re-fused to review a lower court ruling thatinvalidated a scholarship program limitedto black students at the University ofMaryland at College Park. The Universityasked for a review on the grounds thatmany other schools offered similar race-specific scholarships. By refusing to re-view, the Supreme Court left the decisionlegally binding in the Fourth Circuit(Maryland, North Carolina, South Caro-lina, Virginia, and West Virginia). Schoolsin those states should probably avoid ad-vertising race-specific opportunities. Thedecision could also be cited as precedentin lawsuits elsewhere in the country, butit does not have the force of law. [ScottJaschik, "No' on Black Scholarships,"Chronicle of Higher Education, June 2,1995, p. A25].

In June of the same year, the SupremeCourt ruled 5-4 that federal programs orpolices based on race or ethnicity mustmeet a legal test of "strict scrutiny"

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(Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Pena). Thatmeans that the program would have todemonstrate a "compelling governmentinterest" in its work and be "narrowlytailored" to meet its specific goals. Thisdecision did not directly affect college oruniversity programs, but it did cover awide variety of programs run by federalagencies, some of which award grants tominority students and faculty members orset aside research dollars for traditionallyblack colleges. The Congressional Re-search Office identified about 40 suchprograms in a 1995 study. [Scott Jaschik,"Blow to Affirmative Action," Chronicle ofHigher Education, June 23, 1995, pp.A21-A23].

The Hopwood decision of March, 1996 hasdrawn the most attention for dismantlingaffirmative action in college and universityadmissions. In this case, four white appli-cants sued the University of Texas Schoolof Law because they were denied admis-sion; they alleged violation of their rightsunder the equal protection clause of the14th Amendment. The institution, whichused an elaborate admissions system, didin fact treat blacks and Mexican Ameri-cans differently from other categories ofapplicants.

The U.S. District Court for the FifthDistrict found that the law school hadviolated equal protection, but refused toprohibit the law school from using race inadmissions decisions. On March 29, 1996the US Court of Appeals reversed the lowercourt decision, ruling that race could notbe used to decide which applicants to ad-mit. Under the "strict scrutiny" standardmandated by Adarand, the court foundthat consideration of race or ethnicity forthe purpose of achieving a diverse student

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body was not a compelling justification forrace-based discrimination in admissions.Thus the school of law, "is prohibited fromconsidering race in any manner in its ad-missions process" [Hopwood v. State ofTexas. 78 F3d 9321.

The Supreme Court declined to review theHopwood decision, therefore allowing itto stand as law in the fifth district: Texas,Louisiana, and Mississippi. Colleges anduniversities in those states should showgreat prudence concerning their existingpolicies and practices. ACAD deans shouldcertainly confer with each other as well aswith counsel on this important matter.Absent a Supreme Court review, Hopwooddoes not apply in other judicial districts,but the decision could well be used as apart of a lawsuit in other areas.

To date, California is the only state withlegislation outlawing affirmative actionprograms. The California Civil RightsInitiative (CCRI, passed in November of1996 as Proposition 209 and upheld inthe courts on appeal) amends the stateconstitution to read: "The state shall notdiscriminate against, or grant preferentialtreatment to, any individual or group onthe basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, ornational origin in the operation of publicemployment, public education, or publiccontracting." To date, major research uni-versities in California, medical schools,and law schools report marked declinesin minority enrollment.

In summary, the University of Marylanddecision means that institutions in thefourth circuit (Maryland, North Carolina,South Carolina, Virginia, and West Vir-ginia) may not offer scholarships directedsolely at members of a racial or ethnic

group. The decision may be used in thefuture in law suits in other areas. TheHopwood decision means that institutionsin the fifth district (Texas, Louisiana, andMississippi) may not consider race "in anymanner" in admissions decisions. Thatdecision, too, may be used in futurelawsuits in other districts. The CCRI inCalifornia outlaws affirmative action pro-grams in the state through a constitu-tional change. These difficult and rapidlychanging circumstances demand cautionfrom academic institutions.

EQUAL OPPORTUNITYGUIDELINES

There are two major goals for equalopportunity efforts: to avoid actual dis-crimination against persons in protectedclasses, and to avoid the appearance ofsuch discrimination. A wise dean hascommented that you don't want to bevulnerable to charges of making the rightchoice for the wrong reasonthat is, tofail to appoint someone for sound reasonsbut leave yourself open to the charge ofhaving made that decision on the basisof an impermissible factor like race, age,or gender.

By now, virtually every institution in theUnited States has developed guidelinesand mandated practices to avoid discri-mination and the appearance of discrimi-nation. Some have created scripts forinterviews, others videotape interviews orrequire interview witnesses. Most are lessstringent. You should make sure that allprocedures at your institution are re-viewed regularly and followed carefully.

In addition, however, you need also towork with faculty on how to handle the

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less structured portions of interviews: din-ners with search committees, rides fromthe airport, etc. It is in those settings thatquestionable behavior can most easilyhappen. Remind faculty that they maynot inquire about a candidate's family,personal life, or similar matters untiland unless the candidate introduces in-formation voluntarily. Even then, it isnot good to pursue such areas very ex-tensively. Faculty should be reminded thatwe are all accustomed in ordinary life topursue conversations with new acquain-tances by inquiring about exactly the ar-eas they should avoid in interviews. Ittakes a special effort, for example, not touse a question about children as an open-ing gambit in a social conversation.

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<> Many people confuse equal opportunityp regulations with AA programs and thus

assume that recent court decisions aboutAA somehow affect protections againstdiscrimination. It would be reasonable toassume that some will be less careful toavoid the appearance of discriminationgiven the changed judicial and political

O climate. You should therefore take on theresponsibility of educating a college com-

p munity about the distinction and about0, the continued importance of making per-. sonnel decisions fairly and in accordance

with the law.

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DISMISSALS, MON-REMEWALS, TERMINATIONS

H. Dale Abadie, Craft Institute for International Studies,University of Mississippi

few decisions involving the dean areas painful and as costly to the insti-tution as those involving the dis-missal, non-renewal, or terminationof faculty. They are accompanied by

pain and discomfort because those deci-sions almost always reflect failure of somekind: failure on the part of the facultymember to meet or adjust to institutionalexpectations; failure of the institution tomake sound judgments in the hiring pro-cess with regard to the faculty member'spotential for serving the objectives of thecollege or university; or, perhaps, the fail-ure of the school to contribute success-fully to the faculty member's professionaldevelopment.

The decision to sever the employmentrelationship can be costly on a numberof levels. There is the cost of institutionalresources expended in an unsuccessfulattempt at faculty development. On occa-sion, there are the expenses associatedwith severance settlements and negotiatedarrangements. And, perhaps most costly,

is the effect of the separation upon thefaculty member's professional advance-ment. For all of those reasons, there isoften an institutional reluctance toembark upon dismissal, non-renewal, ortermination proceedings. However, thereare times when institutional well-beingrequires it.

Although often confused because closelyrelated, the terms "dismissal" and "termi-nation" have different meanings. Bothusually apply to separation "for cause,"dismissal referring to the ending of a fac-ulty member's employment prior to theexpiration of his or her term appointment,and termination applying to the ending ofemployment upon completion of the termof appointment. Both terms, and espe-cially "termination," are used in casesinvolving tenured faculty, whereas "non-renewal" has to do with decisions not torenew the employment contract of a non-tenured faculty member.

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A few words of caution should precedediscussion of the processes for ending em-ployment of faculty members. The sugges-tions that follow are not intended to applywhere an institution is party to a collectivebargaining agreement. In those cases, it islikely that your actions are limited by theterms and procedural requirements of thespecific agreement. Also, you should bemindful of the fact that institutions varyconsiderably and that each has specificand differing procedures for dealing withsuch matters. Therefore, especially if youare a new dean or one new to your insti-tution, you should become familiar withyour school's standards and procedurespertaining to employment and personnelissues. For example, public universitiesoften are regulated by procedures estab-lished by state governing boards and re-quire the involvement of state offices, suchas the Office of the Attorney General. Pri-vate colleges usually have proceduresestablished or at least sanctioned byboards of trustees.

Although the courts have generally de-clined to become involved in the non-renewal of contracts of non-tenuredfaculty on the grounds that those indi-viduals do not have a property right asso-ciated with employment, most colleges anduniversities subscribe to the proceduralstandards of the American Association ofUniversity Professors (AAUP). AAUP stan-dards require that faculty who are not tobe renewed receive timely, written notice:no later than March 1, or three months,for faculty in the first academic year ofservice; no later than December 15, orsix months, for faculty in the secondacademic year of service; and at least12 months before the expiration of an

appointment for those who have been inthe institution for two or more years. Ordi-narily the reasons for non-renewal deci-sions need not be given. Most institutionshave separate procedures for dealing withthe appeals of faculty who claim that thedecision not to renew one's contract in-volves a violation of a constitutional(usually first amendment) right.

Because termination processes apply totenured faculty, questions concerningthem are examined with closer scrutinyby the academic and legal communities.This has proven to be the case in recentyears where termination has occurred forreasons of "fmancial exigency." If yourschool is faced with conditions of fmancialexigency, you would do well to review care-fully the AAUP standards relative to theuse of financial exigency for terminationsand, especially, to maintain close consul-tation with the institution's legal counseland higher administrative officials. Suchcoordination and consultation are impor-tant in all considerations for dismissal ortermination, but, because of the possibilityof litigation, they take on a special urgencywhere financial exigency is the reason forthis action.

Termination of faculty "for cause" is a lesscommon occurrence and requires not onlythat the cause for the separation be suffi-cient and clearly established, but thatseparation occur only after due processhas been accorded the faulty memberconcerned. Thus, the procedure usedto accomplish the termination is an ex-tremely important factor once a decisionto terminate has been made. Thoughprocedures vary among institutions, a

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few common principles apply to actionsof this type:. Institutions may relieve faculty of duties

pending proceedings if there is substan-tial reason to believe that immediateharm is threatened by continuance ofthe faculty member in his or her duties.If termination or dismissal is being con-sidered, the faculty member must benotified of this and offered the right torequest a hearing.

. Faculty should be presented with astatement of charges and provided withsufficient time to prepare a defense.At a hearing, the faculty member shouldbe permitted to be heard in his or herdefense and to have present an advisorwho may act as counsel.

4. The faculty member should have theright to present witnesses as well as toquestion witnesses, and the right to afull stenographic record of the hearingwithout cost.

Those procedural safeguards are con-sistent with AAUP principles and havegenerally met the basic requirements ofinstitutional due process required by thecourts. That they might involve significantinvestments of time, attention, and mon-etary costs testifies at once to the serious-ness of terminations and dismissals andto the hesitancy of institutions to invokethem where alternative actions are pos-sible. Thus you should proceed with termi-nation or dismissal proceedings only afterconsultation with the college or universitylegal counsel and after obtaining the con-currence of the institution's chief execu-tive officer.

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HARASSMENT

Lisa A. Rossbacher, Southern Polytechnic State University

Harassment can be broadly consid-ered as a type of discrimination,on the basis of age, race, class,religion, ethnicity, economic background, gender, or other factors.

Harassment may take many forms, butthe most common ones that a dean en-counters are likely to be related to sexualharassment.

The standard defmition of sexual har-assment was originally developed by theEqual Employment Opportunity Commis-sion in 1980, in Guidelines on Discrimina-tion Because of Sex:

Unwelcome sexual advances, re-quests for sexual favors, and otherverbal or physical conduct of asexual nature...when (1) submis-sion to such conduct is made eitherexplicitly or implicitly a term orcondition of an individual's employ-ment, (2) submission to or rejectionof such conduct by an individual isused as the basis for employmentdecisions affecting such individual,or (3) such conduct has the purpose

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or effect of substantially interferingwith an individual's work perfor-mance by creating an intimidating,hostile, or offensive working envi-ronment.

The EEOC language was adopted in aSupreme Court decision in 1986, and itis still the standard definition of sexualharassment. Colleges and universitieshave significant responsibility (and there-fore liability) in ensuring that the workingenvironment is free of harassment for allemployees. The following advice is directedtoward minimizing both occurrences andliability for sexual harassment.

1. The best protection is for a college tohave a clear statement of policy andprocedures on sexual harassment.a. If a harassment policy already ex-

ists for your campus, take a carefullook at it, and ask questions abouthow responsive it has proven to bein actual use. Be sure it ensuresrapid resolution of problems whenthey arise. If a policy does not exist,develop one as quickly as possible,involving men and women faculty

and students, and consult carefullywith your institution's legal coun-selbut don't automatically doeverything the lawyers say, unlessit makes sense to you.

b. In addition to specifying whatbehavior is not acceptable, theharassment policy should includespecific, relatively-easy-to-followprocedures for how to resolvecomplaints.

c. Both an informal and a formalprocess should be available, withonly the formal part of the processresulting in sanctions.

d. Confidentiality should be main-tained for everyone involved, asmuch as possible. Among the mostdifficult cases to resolve are thosein which the accuser will not permither or his name to be used (or to beotherwise identified to the allegedharasser).

e. The harassment policy should in-clude a specific policy on romanticor sexual relationships betweenstudents and faculty.

f. The entire policy should be in-cluded in the faculty handbook oran equivalent document that makesadherence to the policy a conditionof employment. A common way toaddress this is to place sexualharassment clearly under the cat-egory of unprofessional conductthat threatens the academicfreedom of other members of thecommunity.

2. All complaints, responses, and ulti-mate outcomes should be recorded; allthe records should be kept in a single,confidential location.

3. Every complaint, whether formal orinformal, should be investigated; thisis often an important factor in lateridentification of institutional liability.

4. A single individual (or office) shouldreceive all formal complaints. It can behelpful if several people (men andwomen) are identified as being avail-able to help with informal resolution,but they must be consistent in theirrecord-keeping. The involvement of thedean at this stage is a college-specificdecision: some colleges identify thedean as the point person for casesinvolving faculty, while other collegesprefer to keep the dean out of the pro-cess in order to serve at the appeallevel, if needed.

5. In conjunction with the harassmentpolicy, colleges should also have a spe-cific program to ensure that students,faculty, and staff are informed abouttheir right to be free from sexual ha-rassment.

Note: The information included hereshould not be used in place of qualifiedlegal advice!

SUGGESTED REFERENCES

Fitzgerald, L., 1992. Sexual Harassment inHigher Education: Concepts and Issues.National Education Association.

Paludi, M., 1991. Ivory Power: Sexual Ha-rassment on Campus. State University ofNew York Press.

Sexual Harassment: Suggested Policy andProcedures for Handling Complaints. 1995.In Policy Documents and Reports: Ameri-can Association of University Professors.

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PHYSICAL DISABILITIES MD LEANN DISABILITIES

Kathleen Schatzberg, Cape Cod Community College

providing accommodations for stu-dents with disabilities should notbe a new endeavor. Recent publicityconcerning the Americans withDisabilities Act (ADA) has brought

additional attention to the issue, but mostcolleges and universities have been subjectto similar requirements for more than twodecades under the provisions of Section504 of the Vocational Rehabilitation Actof 1973 which required any institutionreceiving federal funds to provide reason-able accommodations for persons withdisabilities.

This requirement applies to every aspectof the institution, every constituency,every employee, every student, every userof the services and facilities. For the pur-poses of this handbook, we will assumethat the entire college has implementeda comprehensive plan to address themandate of ADA and proceed to addressthose concerns which relate specificallyto instruction.

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As chief academic officer, you must insurethat well-publicized procedures are inplace by which students may request rea-sonable accommodations. In many insti-tutions, these procedures are establishedcollaboratively with the chief student af-fairs officer. Indeed, many students havebeen so well-schooled at earlier stages oftheir education to identify their needs andadvocate for themselves that they will an-nounce their needs in the course of theirapplication, and they may base theiracceptance of an offer of admission upontheir perception of how well the collegeresponds to the needs of students withdisabilities. Typically, student affairs staffwill collect necessary documentation andadvise the student on how to access ser-vices and obtain needed accommodations.

The most important role of the academicdean is to ensure that a welcoming andcooperative climate meets students withdisabilities when they interact with facultyand engage their course work. You mustbe a role model in establishing the fact

that students with disabilities enrichthe experience of everyone in the learningcommunity. Both the letter and the spiritof the law demand that reasonable accom-modations be provided in order to insureaccess to education by persons with dis-abilities. You may encounter some resis-tance to this by some faculty or staff whomay view accommodations as "specialtreatment" or a "watering down" of aca-demic requirements. Such individualsmust be persuaded that, in fact, rea-sonable accommodations are necessaryto enable people with disabilities to besuccessful in meeting (not evading) theacademic requirements of their chosenprogram of study.

Some court decisions over the years sinceSection 504 have established that collegesmay deny access to certain kinds of pro-grams when it can be demonstrated thatthe student's disability would result indanger to themselves or others. For in-stance, a student with narcolepsy wasdenied entrance to a culinary program onthe basis that falling asleep while operat-ing electric slicers or other kitchen equip-ment could easily lead to serious injury.Likewise, a student who depended uponlip-reading was denied access to a nursingprogram because of its required surgicalrotation where the use of surgical masksmight lead to communication deficits thatcould harm a patient. These extreme ex-amples aside, students with disabilitiesmust be granted access to the academicprograms of their choice. It is obvious,then, that in the liberal arts and sciences,there could be almost no justification todeny a student access. Rather, the criticalelement is creativity in designing or modi-fying the learning experience so that a

student with disabilities has the sameopportunity to achieve the same compe-tencies as any other student.

The specific accommodations to be madeare, of course, highly individualized toeach student and each course. Workingwith academic support staff and the dis-abilities specialist on campus, the deancan ensure that faculty get the assistancethey need to respond to each student'sneeds. Many colleges fmd it useful to pro-vide staff development workshops on thelaw, on designing reasonable accommo-dations, and on the particular academicissues encountered with particular typesof disabilities. Beyond that, each student'sneeds must be handled on a case-by-casebasis, so that the disabilities specialistserves not only the advocacy role forstudents but also a role as support forfaculty as they work to design needed ac-commodations. Tutoring, extended timefor examinations, oral examinations, anddictation of papers are all fairly simple toaccomplish. More complex might be train-ing a teacher in classroom teaching stylethat will accommodate a student whoneeds to use lip-reading or assisting ascience lab instructor in modifying labexperiences to accommodate a studentwho is blind or confmed to a wheelchair.The very heart of providing accommoda-tions, however, begins with the commit-ment to provide access to students withdisabilities. Assuming that commitment,the rest is relatively easy.

Another aspect of accommodating stu-dents with disabilities that will concernyou is budgeting. Within the academicrealm of the college, most accommodativeservices are relatively low-cost. Extra timefor exams costs almost nothingexisting

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staff in tutoring centers or the facultymember themselves can provide proctor-ing. Tutoring for disabled students costsno more than tutoring for any other stu-dent, and most colleges now providetutoring services that are available forany student who wants to use the service.Books on tape are provided to people withvisual disabilities at no cost to the college,provided textbooks are identified earlyenough to allow for taping. Some kinds ofaccommodation are costly, however, andthese costs must be planned for and builtinto the budget. Providing signers for deafstudents, for instance, can be a substan-tial expense. The need to plan for suchexpenses makes it critical that studentsbe encouraged to make their needs knownearly in the application process, andthereafter, to begin the registration pro-cess for each term as early as possible.

Learning disabilities present some parti-cular challenges for the academic dean.Faculty are more likely to be skeptical ofthe authenticity of learning disabilities.Intensive effort is usually required first, tohelp faculty understand learning disabili-ties and second, to reassure faculty thatthe institution collects appropriate doc-umentation to verify the need for particu-lar accommodations. A simple workingdefmition should emphasize the fact thatstudents with learning disabilities havenormal or above average intelligence buthave difficulty with processing informationthat may affect reading, listening, writing,speaking, or organizational abilities. Sincelearning disability is really an umbrellaterm covering many kinds of disability,accommodations are therefore highlyindividualized.

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In this area more than any other, thecollege needs a disabilities specialist whocan command the respect and trust offaculty. Ultimately, however, if some fac-ulty continue to resist the authenticity of adocumented learning disability, your inter-vention may be required to explain thatthe college's obligation to comply withthe law cannot be compromised. In anincreasingly litigious society, people withdisabilities are learning that courtroomsmay be an effective way to overcome theresistance of those who are not coopera-tive in providing necessary accommoda-tions. You have an obligation, of course,to protect the institution to whateverextent possible from the expense of liti-gation and its potential for a tarnishedreputation. Providing adequate profes-sional development for faculty, establish-ing timely mechanisms for documentingdisabilities and negotiating accommoda-tions, and putting in place procedures bywhich students can access these servicesare all ways in which you can not onlyprotect the college but build its good nameas an institution that readily accommo-dates people with disabilities.

Throughout the entire process, from es-tablishing policy and procedures, to pro-viding professional development for facultyand staff, to meeting, greeting and work-ing with students, the entire college com-munity is well-served if certain generalprinciples frame our responses to issuesof disability. First, we welcome studentswith disabilities to our learning commu-nity because they help all of us, but mostespecially all students, to learn how towork in the real world of diverse human-ity. Second, providing accommodations

for students (and staff) with disabilities iseveryone's job. The campus disabilitiesspecialist may provide leadership andexpertise, but everyone from presidentand dean to faculty and support staff arecharged with the responsibility for makingthe campus one that enthusiastically

welcomes students with disabilities andresponds creatively to their needs. Finally,any costs in time and resources are wellworth the opportunity that students withdisabilities provide us for living our cm-* mitment to the humane goals of a liberalarts education.

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STRATEGIC PLANING

David E. Leary, University of Richmond

lipnless an institution is to changewilly-nilly, without clear directionor purpose, its members shouldengage in some form of planning.To bemost effective, this planning

should involve everyone who will be af-fected by its results, and it should berooted in a strong sense of the institu-tion's mission, history, and values. In itssimplest formulation, "strategic planning,"as it is commonly called these days, in-volves the clarification of goals, means,assessment, and resources.

GOALS

The best scenario for strategic planningbegins with an entire institution. Anydiscussion of more specific goalsfor in-stance, the goals of a School of Arts andSciencesshould take place within a clearunderstanding of the overall mission of theinstitution. Once determined, the institu-tion's mission statement should providethe framework within which specific goals

are selected, articulated, and prioritized.Specific goals that do not contributetoward the fulfillment of the institution'smission should be dropped, or at leastgiven a much lower priority in terms ofthe time, effort, and resources devoted tothem. Without vigilance in this regard,planning will be "non-strategic" and rela-tively irrelevant to the on-going develop-ment of the institution.

When planning is initiated at a lower levelwithin the institutional structure, withoutthe benefit of a clearly defined institu-tional mission, initial efforts should bedirected to the definition of the most gen-eral goals that can be agreed upon by therelevant participants. Once defined, theyshould be shared with those "higher up,"with a request for feedback, so that theseindividualstheir insights and their coop-erationwill be drawn into the planningprocess. Hopefully, this will help them"buy into" the results of the process.

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Considering and debating alternativegoals, with the objective of coming upwith a relatively small number of commonaims, is the core of any planning process.Besides preparing the way for an efficientand effective orchestration of communityeffort, the process of coming to communalagreement about a common set of goals isone of the best ways to form a community,i.e., a group of individuals sharing com-mon aspirations, values, and objectives.In many ways, this is the most importantstage in the planning process. It shouldn'tgo on forever, but it shouldn't be fore-shortened before everyone has a chance tohave his or her say, or before the groupreaches a reasonable consensus. The pro-cess should engage rather than disengageits participants. This doesn't mean thattough decisions do not have to be made;sometimes they do, and sometimes theywill disappoint some individuals. But theprocess should be open and fair: All pointsof view should be allowed expression; allreactions should be made public. Learningto deal "up front" with differences of opin-ionvaluing and yet discriminating amongthemis one of the key ingredients andbenefits of a planning process. Decisionsmust be made in establishing goals andin putting them into practice; the soonerthe group takes responsibility for makingsuch decisions, the sooner planning willbecome a valued component in thecommunity's life.

There are many things that can be con-sidered as a community tries to clarify itsprimary goals. Besides their institution'sbasic mission, which generally takes intoaccount their institution's history, tradi-tions, values, and constituents, manyplanning groups fmd it useful to take a

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"SWOT' approach at a rather early stage.This acronym stands for Strengths,Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats:+ What are the relative strengths and

weaknesses of the institution, of itsfaculty, students, majors, and pro-grams, of its relevant facilities andresources, etc.?

+ What opportunities are opening up,or will soon open up, because ofchanges in personnel, environment,job market, etc.?

To answer these and other related ques-tions, it is generally helpful to get some"internal" and "external" data. Externaldata from other institutions will provide"benchmarks" or comparisons that willground the assessment of strengths andweaknesses in fact rather than fiction. Inaddition, finding out what similar institu-tions are doing, what they have accom-plished with similar students or resources,how their students are faring after gradua-tion, etc., can be a good source of ideasand insight, though it is good not to im-port external goals and programs withoutappropriate modifications. Every institu-tion and every community is different andhas its own particular potentials. Simplycopying some other institution or commu-nity is not likely to lead to the kind of self-determined directionality that bodes bestfor the future. Communities that havelearned to think and act for themselvesare in the best position to take advantageof their own distinctive opportunities.

In the end, this primary phase in strategicplanning should help create or renovate acommunity of enthusiastic, motivatedbelievers, individuals who share a com-mon commitment to a vision which theyhave helped to create, which is appropri-

ate for their institution, and which has arealistic chance of coming to fruition.Reaching beyond one's current grasp isthe name of the game; reaching too far,beyond all realistic expectation, is a for-mula for discouragement. Since some indi-viduals will drop out of the process at thefirst signs of discouragement, it is impor-tant to orchestrate a sequential imple-mentation pattern that will optimize earlysuccesses and establish an expectation ofcontinued successful development. Theprocess of continued participation andpositive achievements is more important,in many ways, than the end productsthemselves. The thought that I keep inmind is: I would rather get "there" in fiveyears with everyone on Board, than in oneyear with half the people overboard. Pyr-rhic victories leave no one satisfied.

MEANS

The best goals in the world mean nothingif you don't have the means of realizingthem. A key component in strategic plan-ning is the determination of how the group(whether at the university, school, or de-partment level) is going to try to reach itsgoals. Any plan should specify how this isto be done. (The language of strategicplanning is often confusing and distin-guishing. For example, in some cases be-tween goals, objectives, and action, goalsbeing general, objectives being the meanstoward particular goals, and actions beingthe very specific ways in which objectiveswill be met. But at bottom we are talkingcommon sense here. You need to clarifyhow you are going to get from where youare to where you want to be. Create yourown language, if it is more useful to you.)

Again, the means that are chosen to ac-complish any goal could be borrowed andadapted from some other institution, orfrom some other unit in your own institu-tion. But whether inspired by other groupsor not, these means have to be "owned" bythe planning groupat least articulated intheir own way, for their own specific pur-pose. Unless they fully accept particularobjectives and actions, they are unlikely tofollow through on them over time. This iswhere deans are often challenged. Youmay see relative weaknesses in the imple-mentation strategies of a group, and maywish (and may be able) to influence theirrevision. But to order certain changes isnot a recipe for success. Working withunits, helping them monitor feedback,taking a progressive on-going revision ap-proach seems, generally, the best way foryou to proceed. Unless, of course, the per-formance of a particular unit is so poorthat more radical intervention is neces-sary. This would constitute a special case,however; the exception should not deter-mine the rule. In most institutions, thereare enough people of good will and suffi-cient talent to warrant a more patient,continual improvement approach to theimplementation of strategic plans.

In developing concrete strategies for reach-ing their goals, it is often very helpful forunits, whether schools or departments, tobring in some external consultants. In myexperience, the results of consultation arebest when the unit has already articulateda draft of its goals and has at least a ten-tative list of means for reaching thesegoals. This establishes the fact that con-sultants are not being brought in to do thework of the unit, but to provide meaning-ful feedback on their work. In addition, I

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have found it useful to bring in two con-sultants rather than one, and to have eachconsultant submit a separate written re-port after the campus visit. (Prior to thevisit, these consultants are sent copies ofthe unit's plan and as much relevant dataon the unit, its faculty, its programs, itsstudents, its graduates, etc., as possible.During the visit, they meet with faculty,students, and administrators, and reviewas representative a sample of student workas can be made available to them. In manycases, of course, strategic planning callsfor the collection of student work that isnot yet available in meaningful quantityand variety. But in subsequent rounds ofplanning, which at my institution are nowslated for every 5-7 years, more adequaterepresentations of student work will beavailable.) The submission of two externalconsultant reports underscores that thereis no one "external view" of the unit, thatthe diverse views of the consultants areto be taken seriously but not undulyprivileged. Of course, when both consult-ants agree on something, this puts anadditional onus on the unit to explainwhy they did not accept a particular rec-ommendation, if in fact they decide notto do so.

ASSESSMENT

Once a unit decides upon particular goalsand means, it makes sense to ask how themembers of the unit will know whether ornot they are making good progress towardthese goals, how they will know whetheror not the means they have chosen areproving to be adequate, and how they willknow what modifications to make in orderto facilitate a more timely achievement oftheir goals. This is what assessment is all

about, and I find that faculty (who in somecases may resist evaluation and assess-ment) are easily persuaded that it makessense to monitor their progress towardtheir goals so that their time and effortswill not be wasted. How their progress isto be monitored, whether by quantitativeor qualitative means, or both, is largely afunction, I believe, of the nature of theirgoals, the kinds of information that wouldbe relevant to them, and their own meth-odological and conceptual dexterity.

Again, it is critical that the process of as-sessment be owned and operated, to thefullest possible extent, by the members ofthe unit. Once units see that the intent isnot to judge their failures but to help themachieve their own common goals, theygenerally come to accept and even em-brace ongoing self-assessment, both as agroup and as individuals. Clearly, a lightbut firm touch "from above" will help hereand there, but it is often sufficient simplyto make it clear that you, as dean, valuewhat they are doing and stand ready toreview what they are doing with them. Inaddition, of course, it helps to build anannual assessment section into the an-nual review report that most units areexpected to submit. These annual assess-ment reports should demonstrate progres-sive development over time. In particular,they should demonstrate how the unit isusing the results of assessment, whateverform those results may take. "Closing theloop" in assessmentusing the results tomake midcourse corrections in order tooptimize progress toward goalsis thecritical matter. Again, faculty come tounderstand this as they begin to see thepositive outcome of the planning- action-assessment-revision cycle.

The main trick is to encourage a unit tofmd the most meaningful-and-cost-effec-tive way of doing assessment. Faculty arebusy; they have lots to do; they hate tofeel that something is a waste of time.Only if certain results will mean anythingto themwill persuade them to do some-thing differentlyshould they be collected.The collection of data that means some-thing to people in other units, or in otherinstitutions, but not to the members ofthe unit that is gathering them, is justout-and-out stupid. Challenge the mem-bers of your units to arrive at a consensusabout what set of data would be the mostuseful to them, the most significant inrelation to their goals and to the valuesystem that facilitated the articulation ofthese goals. If having a direct conversationwith all graduating seniors promises tobe more meaningful than the results ofumpteen standardized, nationally normedtests, then buy a coffee machine and re-serve a lounge for lots of conversations!

The goal of assessment is improvement.Improvement will occur only if the princi-pals are persuaded by the results of as-sessment. Although your faculty may bedifferent from mine, I suggest that youask them to keep their assessment pro-gram as meaningful and as simple aspossible. Since any given assessmenttechnique can give a distorted perspective,this does not mean that they should de-cide upon only one means of assessment.Multiple means are always preferable,but each of the multiple means shouldbe meaningful and cost-effective.

Some of the assessment procedures thatmy institution's units have found useful,in addition to teaching evaluations andexternal reviews, are exit interviews with

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graduating seniors, blind reviews ofstudent papers, data on post-graduateschooling and employment, feedback fromgraduate-program advisers and employers,comparisons of data and practice withnationally prominent units in other insti-tutions, analysis of the characteristics,knowledge, and skills of in-coming stu-dents in relation to those of graduatingseniors, and tracking of the progress ofindividual students through student port-folios. The hope, as I have said, is for "con-tinuous improvement," but my experiencesuggests that it is a mistake to use jargon,much less acronyms like TQM, to conveythe common-sense objective of gettingbetter each and every day (or at least eachand every year). Try to keep your peoplefocused on what can be achieved, not ontheir relative weaknesses or failures. Noone likes to fall short; all of us enjoy beingpart of a winning effort.

RESOURCES

My own philosophy is that, in order to getbetter, institutions (and the units withinthem) need vision, will, and resourcesinthat order. Defming a mission and com-mon goals is how a community creates avision that will elicit sufficient motivationand effort to transform hopes into reality.Much can be accomplished with visionand will alone, and we all know examplesof individuals and institutions achievingfar beyond their apparent resources.Money alone (to pick only one kind ofresource) will not create a good institutionor a strong unit. However, certain goals,certain means, and certain ways ofmonitoring progress toward a realizablevision can be achieved only with a certainamount of resources. The resource

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question should come last, after goals,means, and a monitoring system havebeen determined; but though it shouldcome last, it is still vitally important. (Ofcourse, this is too simple: you need tohave a good idea of possible resources asyou plan your goals, means, and assess-ment procedures. But plenty of goodopportunities have been lost by groupsthat do not set their goals high enoughbecause they are prematurely certain thatthey cannot muster the resources toachieve them.)

Timing is important, and so are credi-bility and incentive. To insure that theunits within my own School of Arts andSciences would initiate planning when itwas best for them, I announced sevenyears ago (after our institution as a wholehad completed a University-level strategicplan) that I expected each unit to havecompleted a strategic plan at least by thenext visit of our accreditation association(i.e., within seven years), but that I real-ized that each individual unit would wantto schedule its own planning process(within this seven years) in light of its ownparticular situation (e.g., its last planningphase, upcoming sabbaticals, expectedretirements and hirings, etc.). I also un-derscored that I did not want to wasteanyone's time, so I wanted as succinct astrategic plan as possible, provided that itspecified goals, means, assessment, andresources. To give the process credibilityand to provide some incentive, I an-nounced that those units that completedtheir plans first would be at the front ofthe line in terms of allocation of resources.For instance, I emphasized that futurehiring and funding decisions would takestrategic plans into serious consideration.

This did not mean that departments couldexpect anything or everything they wished.It meant that their arguments for parti-cular things would be significantly en-hanced if they could show that thesethings were essential components in athoughtful and persuasive plan that wasconsonant with the institution's generalmission and goals.

Institutions of higher learning are notori-ously short of resources these days, buteven so, strategic planning can help insurethat those resources, however limited, areused to best effect. Even if new resourcesare available, either through institutionalsources or through external fund raising,reallocation of existing resources willalmost certainly become a necessary partof any significant forward movementwithin higher education settings. Suchreallocationwhether of staffing, operat-ing costs, capital expenditure funds, orwhateverwill create understandableconcerns among faculty. The best I cansuggest is that the more public and themore widely agreed-upon are the goals tobe served by the reallocation of resources,the easier it will be for members of thecommunity to accept, and even applaud,this reallocation. Of course, this is saidby a dean who has been extremely fortu-nate in being at an institution with a con-siderable resource base. I will leave it toothers to provide more specific advice re-garding how best to operate under morestringent circumstances, but I suspectthat the same general principle willremain in effect.

As regards the important question of howyou can compete effectively for resourceswithin the larger institution, it seems clearthat it is helpful, when making an argu-

ment for enhanced resources, to relate the 0 equitable, and appropriate distribution ofneed for them to a clearly defmed set of resources. For this reason as well as forcommonly agreed-upon goals. Everyone what it promises in terms of purposefulwants more faculty, higher budgets, better development, the engagement of the corn-equipment. But what specific outcomes, munity, and hope for the future, it wouldrelated to what goals, having what sort be wise for you to argue for strategic plan-of impact on the fulfillment of the insti- . ning if your institution does not alreadytution's mission, can you promiseor at 4> sponsor it, and to support its processesleast point out as probableif you are 4> and ends to the fullest possible extent.given additional resources? Strategic 4> Not for its own sake, not because it isplanning can be, and should be, one of 4> currently fashionable, but because it ismost effective means of insuring a fair, 0 the smart and right thing to do.

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fun ACCOUNTING

Douglas Steeples, Mercer University

you may already have discoveredthat charitable, not-for-profit entitiesmaintain their financial records differ-ently than do for-profit enterprises.These differences reflect the special

needs of the former, which have resultedin the development of distinctive practicesand accounting standards. However, inboth the for-profit and the not-for-profitsectors, entities usually keep their recordson an accrual basis. That is, they accountfor revenues in the period in which theyare earned, and expenses in the period inwhich they are incurred, even though cashpayments of those revenues and expensesmay occur at some later period.

The best way to highlight differencesbetween accrual accounting of for-profitsand the practices of not-for-profits is tocompare simplified balance sheets for thetwo types of entities.

In every solvent entity, whether for-profitor not-for-profit, the annual fmancialstatement displays a balance between as-

sets and liabilities (or their not-for-profitequivalents), and operating results areshown in terms of profits or losses, orpositive or negative (results) or variances(from budget). For-profit entities usuallyemploy the calendar year as their fiscalyear. In higher education, the most com-mon fiscal year is July 1-June 30.

In the case of a for-profit, the sources ofassets are sales of shares of ownership(usually through stock), sales of goodsand services, and borrowing. The situationis more complicated for a not-for-profit.There are no sales of shares of ownershipin not-for-profits, hence no stocks or otherforms of paid-in capital (equities) to ac-count for, although there might well beborrowing. There are no earnings (henceno retained earnings), although there areoperating results for which to account.And there are numerous sources of fundsother than through borrowing, andthrough the sale of goods and services.These sources may include gifts, bequests,grants in response to proposals specifying

The balance sheet of a for-profit

AJAX PROFIT COMPANY BALANCE

ASSETS

Current AssetsCashMarketable SecuritiesAccts. ReceivableInventoriesPrepaid ExpensesTotal Current Assets

might look pretty

SHEET,

$1,0001,0003,6756,850

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much like this:

DECEMBER 31, 1996 ($000s)

LIABILITIES AND EQUITIES

Current LiabilitiesAccounts PayableBank Loans payableAccrued LiabilitiesEst. Tax LiabilityCurrent Portion of Long-term DeptTotal Current Liabilities

$2,100250490825500

$ 13,135 $4,165

Noncurrent Assets Noncurrent LiabilitiesProperty, Plant, Eq. Long-term Debt, less current

Cost $14,600 Portion $1,500Accumulated Depreciation 7 300 Deferred Income Taxes 650Property, Plant, Eq. Net 7,300

Investments 780 Total Liabilities $6,315133

Patents and Trademarks 260Goodwill 650 Equities The

Total Noncurrent, Net $8,990 Common Stock $2,000 FinancialSide of

Other Paid-in Capital $3,000 DenningTotal, Paid-in Capital $5,000Retained Earnings $10,810

Total Assets $22,125 Total Liabilities and Equities $22,125

intended uses, and legislative enacta-ments making funds available for desig-nated uses.

Revenues from sales of goods and servicesand gifts and grants for which no purposeis specified may be used at the discretionof the entity. Their use is, then, denomi-nated as "unrestricted." Revenues fromdonors, granting agencies, lenders, andlegislatures that specify their intendeduses may be deployed only as theirsources prescribe. Such revenues aretermed "restricted," although their sourcesmay stipulate either current or capital

purposes. Management of restricted fundsis explicitly a trust responsibility of thegoverning board of a not-for-profit entity,since the entity has been incorporatedunder state laws governing the formationof charitable organizations to serve speci-fied public interests or purposes. In asense, the management of unrestrictedrevenues is also a trust responsibility ofthe governing board, since that manage-ment must be prudent and must avoidincurring obligations that invade restrictedrevenues or that jeopardize the solvency ofthe entity and thereby threaten to invade

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restricted revenues and/or, of course,endowments.

The system of accounting that has devel-oped to meet the needs of not-for-profitentities is called "Fund Accounting." Thebalance sheets for not-for-profit entitiesreport through a system in which relatedactivities are grouped together in catego-ries called "funds." All income is allocatedto appropriate funds, and all expensesare charged to appropriate funds. FundAccounting replaces the equation em-ployed in for-profitsassets=liabilities+equitieswith a new equationassets=liabilities+fund balances. It is to the fundbalances that we should direct our atten-tion if we are interested in the health of anot-for-profit entity, while observingmovements and relationships across thebalance sheet. The balances reflect theequivalent of retained earnings andequities.

Just as resources coming to a college oruniversity may be designated unrestrictedor restricted, so are the funds to whichthey flow. The usual fund groups are "Cur-rent," from which most operations areusually conducted; "Plant," where trans-actions involving land, buildings, andequipment are reflected; "Endowment,"representing gifts held in trust by the en-tity the earnings of which support variousaspects of the operation as may have beendesignated by donors; "Loan" funds, in theevent that the institution lends resources;and "Agency" funds, where an institutionaccounts for any funds it holds for otherbodies, such as student organizations,booster clubs, and the like.

Where there are excees unrestricted dol-lars available, a governing board may, at

its discretion, move these dollars from onefund to another. Such an action is called a"nonmandatory transfer." There are also"mandatory transfers." These occur be-cause all receipts are ordinarily recorded,initially, in the current fund. When theterms of receipt require allocation forparticular purposes, these funds must betransferred per the governing terms. Mostmandatory transfers result from contrac-tual agreements that may contain provi-sions for payments to qualify for debtfmancing and loan programs. It is a com-mon and sound practice of governingboards to allocate bequests that do notspecify a use ("undesignated bequests") toinvestment, in order to earn income for acollege or university. Funds so deployedare reflected under the fund group, "En-dowment and Similar Funds." They areusually called "funds functioning as en-dowment," or "quasi-endowment," be-cause, unlike true endowment which byterms of gift or bequest can be used for noother purposes, they can be transferredout of the investment pool and used forsome other purpose at the discretion ofthe governing board.

You will find in associated reportstheStatement of Changes in Fund Balances;and the Statement of Current Fund Rev-enues, Expenditures, and Other Chargesentries consistent with fund accountingpractices. As you turn to the annual bud-get, the same account groups may appear.But the annual budget, in dealing withreceipts and expenses, will introduce addi-tional categories that may be unfamiliar.

The most important source of operatingrevenue for private or independent collegesand universities is tuition and fees. Whilemost public institutions are "formula-

The following shows what a much-simplified university balance sheet might look like.

ZENITH UNIVERSITY BALANCE SHEET, 30 JUNE, 1996 ($000s)

ASSETS LIABILITIES & FUND BALANCES

Current Year Prior Year Current YearCURRENT FUNDS CURRENT FUNDS

Unrestricted Unrestricted

Prior Year

Cash 200 100 Accts. Payable 175 100Investments 350 250 Accrued Liab 20 15Accts. Receivable 380 200 Due to other Fund 160 110Inventories at Cost (FIFO) 70 50 Fund Balance 705 385Prepaid Expenses 10 20Total 1,010 620 Total 1,010 620

Restricted RestrictedCash 90 80 Accts. Payable 20 5Investments 150 140Accts. Receivable 70 90 Fund Balance 290 305

Total 310 310 Total 310 310

Total Current 1,320 1,320 Total Current 1,320 930

WAN FUNDS LOAN FUNDSFund Balances

Cash 30 20 US Govt. Grants 30 20Investments 50 60 Unrestricted Univ. 300 250Loans 350 270 Restricted Univ. 100 80

Total Loans 430 350 Total Loans 430 350 135

ENDOWMENT AND SIMILAR FUNDS ENDOWMENT AND SIMILAR FUNDS TheFund Balances Financial

Cash 20 20 Endowments 3,550 2,850 Side ofInvestments 5 480 4 480 Quasi, unrestr. 1,050 950 Deaning

Quasi, restr. 900 700Total Endow 5,500 4,500 Total Endow 5,500 4,500

PLANT FUNDS PLANT FUNDS

Unexpended UnexpendedCash 350 570 Accts. Payable 100 150Investments 1,250 1,500 Notes Payable 70 270Due current unrestr. 160 110 Bonds Payable 1,100 1,300

Fund bal., unrest. 390 260Fund bal., rest. 100 100

Total 1,760 2,180 Total 1,760 2,180

Retirement of Debt Retirement of DebtCash 10 10 Fund bal., unrestr. 10 10Deposits w/trustees 250 450 Fund bal., restr. 250 450

Total 260 460 Total 260 460Investment in Plant Investment in Plant

Land & Improvments 1,000 1,000 Notes Payable 350 350Buildings 10,620 10,000 Bonds Payable 2,000 2,000Equipment 1,000 1,000 Net InvestmentLibrary Collection 1 080 1 000 in Plant 11 350 10 650

Total 13,700 13,000 Total 13,700 13,000Total Plant Funds 15,720 15,640 Total Plant Funds 15,720 15,640

AGENCY FUNDS AGENCY FUNDSCash 5 Fund Balance 5

TOTAL 22,975 21,420 TOTAL 22,975 21,420

1. 3 3

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funded" (the amount legislatively appropri-ated bears some prescribed relationship toenrollment), tuition and fees are assumingincreasing importance in state-assisted(public) colleges and universities as well.The greater the role of these sources ofrevenue, the more "tuition dependent" or"enrollment driven" an institution is saidto be. The prevailing view is that some-where on the order of 65-80% of the oper-ating income for educational and generalexpenditures of a private institution oughtto come from tuition and fees.

"Auxiliary Services," which typically in-clude the operation of and revenues fromthe residence halls, bookstore, food ser-vice, and the like, would, depending on therelative importance of a resident studentbody, perhaps generate as much as 30%or more of the total institutional budget.For residential campuses, the goal of a10% net return from auxiliary serviceswith which to subsidize the educationaland general budget, is common.

In the private sector, a common aspirationis for endowment and funds functioningas endowment to provide, through a com-bination of earnings and capital gains,from 10 to 25% of the educational andgeneral budget, although a great manyinstitutions find this an unattainable goal.State appropriations may serve as a com-parable source of funding in the publicsector. Gifts and grants, in either event,are often required to achieve a balancedbudget.

When we turn from fmancial statementsto the budget, we fmd that our operatingcharges (generally charged against thecurrent fund) fall into several key cate-gories. These are:

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Educational and Generalthe largest,containing expenditures for

Instruction (normally 27-35% ofEducational & General)ResearchPublic ServiceAcademic Support (Library, academicadministration, etc.)Institutional Support (governingboard, president, business affairs,advancement, purchasing, humanresources, etc.)Operation and Maintenance of PlantScholarships/Financial AidMandatory Transfers for

Principal and InterestRenewals and ReplacementsLoan Fund MatchingGrant Matches

Total Expenditures and MandatoryTransfers, Educational and General

Auxiliary EnterprisesExpendituresMandatory Transfers for41+ Principal and Interest

Renewals and ReplacementsTotal Expenditures and MandatoryTransfers for Auxiliary Services

Other Transfers and AdditionsExcess of restricted receipts overtransfers to revenuesRefunded to grantorsUnrestricted gifts allocated to otherfundsPortion of quasi-endowment gainsappropriatedNet increase in fund balance.

SOME CAUTIONARYOBSERVATIONS

Anyone who has shared in many accredi-tation visits or enjoyed extensive adminis-trative experience will appreciate that fundaccounting, like its counterpart in the for-profit sector, can conceal as much as itreveals. Persons who are candidates fordeanships or new to administration arewell advised to recall the admonition, ca-veat emptor. A candidate, or a new dean,who neglects to ask for, and review, themost recent two or three years' worth ofaudited fmancial statements for an insti-tution, is inviting unpleasant surprises.Financial statements can provide indica-tions of fiscal problems, or the threat offiscal problems.

Suppose, for example, that ZenithUniversity's Unrestricted Current Fundsincluded cash of $800,000, while the PlantFund, Endowment, or Quasi-Endowmentcarried a notation "Due from CurrentFund," $1,000,000. Such entries wouldreplace a positive cash balance with anegative balance in the current fund of$200,000 and would reflect interfund bor-rowing. While interfund borrowing can bea legitimate means of meeting short-termliquidity needs, it can also indicate a seri-ous shortage of resources with which tomeet obligations. Or the statement couldshow that there were no funds functioningas endowment, meaning that the entirequasi-endowment (if there had ever beenone) had been spent down. Or it could

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reflect sums due to the endowment itself,indicating borrowing from the endowment.

One might also encounter entries for anyof these funds contained within parenthe-ses, indicating negative balances. At leastone college has in recent years deeded itscampus over to the city in which it is situ-ated, so that the city would pick up debtsstanding against the campus. Then it usedits endowment to purchase the campusback at a somewhat discounted price. Thetransaction was represented as a produc-tive investment of endowment on groundsthat the institution could not do businesswithout a campus, even though the trans-action carried no promise of a return onthe purported investment.

Either as a candidate or a newly ap-pointed dean, you need at the very least toassess two other indices of institutionalfiscal strength, through an examination offmancial statements. One is the "currentratio": the ratio of 90- day receivables to90-day payables, as well as of current yearreceivables to payables. The other is the"discount rate": net tuition dollars receivedas opposed to the nominal tuition rate.The conventional wisdom has been that adiscount rate of 15-20% could be optimal.Market pressures, however, have driventhe rate up rapidly, to the point that manyinstitutions are near or at 30%, and someare above 40%. Discovery of adversetrends in either of these indices shouldinduce caution, if not serious concern.

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SPWAL BUDGETS

Gary L. Maris, Stetson University

rant approval process. It is im-

3portant for you to have a goodgrant approval process at yourcollege or university. Thisshould be simple and involve

one to two pages of basic information,determining:

1. Basic intent of the grant2. Any college commitments3. From whom it will be requested (This

avoids different grant request conflict-ing. Also, you may wish to use a par-ticular strategy in seeking grants fromparticular foundations or governmentagents.)

4. Any effect on curriculum of the grant5. Any effect on faculty staffing6. A budget (This needs to indicate all

revenues expected from grantingagency and all expenses expected bythe college, including in-kind commit-ments.)

7. The possibility of hiring adjuncts forrelease time grants and the effect onthe curriculum

8. Matching grants and the collegecommitment (This is particularly thecase with the NSF equipment grants.Ideally, it's good to have a capital poolwhere money is available for anymatching funds. However, this often isnot the case. This means having toidentify the source of the matchingfunds ahead of time. In some rare in-stances, several faculty may apply forthese grants and success may mean arather large matching grants bill forthe college.)

Daily managing. Usually grants are man-aged by two personsthe person who isrequesting the grant and a person in thefmance office. The fmancial person shouldbe able to set up the account and managethe expenditures and fmancial reports,thus freeing the faculty member of thisonerous, and sometimes complicated and

technical, task. The faculty member willhave the responsibility of seeing to theproper expenditure of the grant. Your roleis to ensure that all is being done prop-erly; normally, however, the faculty mem-ber receiving the grant will conscientiouslyand scrupulously adhere to the variousterms of the grant.

SPECIALENDOWMENT BUDGETS

Some departments tend to squirrel awayrestricted funds, as though the funds werean end in themselves. You need to be surethat these funds are, in timely fashion,going to be put to use in support of re-search and teaching. One way to end thissquirreling habit is for you to indicate todepartments that they need to "use 'em orlose 'ern." This can be done even if theseare restricted funds by indicating that thefunds will be used toward the departmen-tal budgets if the department can find noother use for them. However, you must becareful in doing this lest the advantage ofbuilding up a fund for major usage has tobe forgone in an attempt to spend moneyevery year.

It's good to require annual budgets fromthe department with regard to any re-stricted funds for which it is responsible,and annual reports from your office or thefmancial officer regarding the status ofthese funds. Restricted funds can actuallyget lost or forgotten when a leadershipshift occurs the department and theformer chair fails to write anything downabout the grant, and no reports are issuedeither from or to the department.

Communication between the collegeoffice raising funds and the academic

departments and yourself is needed. Somefunds may have come into a college andsimply been placed into a restricted ac-count without adequate information tothe department or the dean's office. Thismay mean no one in the academic area isaware that the funds even exist. Yes, thishas happened. You need to make surethat it won't happen at your institution.

What are "restrictions?" Often great lati-tude is provided to departments receivingrestricted funds. Usually the comptrolleror such person tied closely to the auditingprocess will know the specific character ofthe conditions governing the use of anyrestricted fund. It is not uncommon thatdepartments may be free to do many morethings with their funds than they mightimagine. However, there are some in-stances when the donor has tied the fundsdown so closely they can hardly be used.This is something to remember in raisingfunds or discussing restricted funds withdonors. It's good to keep them restrictedsufficiently so that indeed it is the depart-ment that receives these funds and theydon't just end up as general income. But ifrestricted funds are too highly restricted,the department's hands are tied and themoney may not be used for worthwhileeducational purposes.

Some funds have particular sensitivitiesattached to them that need to be noted.For example, a donor may have providedthe funds in memory of a son or daughter.To call the funds simply by the donor'slast name may miss this point and notprovide the recognition the donor desires.This seems like a minor item, but it hap-pens and can affect a sizable amount ofmoney. Be sensitive about such sensitivi-ties, not only while seeking funds but also

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in expending themand in your orthe department's thank-you report tothe donor.

Universities can "sweep" funds at limes offmancial emergencies, if the restrictionsare general enough. They do this throughthe accounting procedure of indicatingthat the restricted funds are being used asthe "first dollars" in meeting the budgetsof the particular department to which thefunds are directed. For example, restrictedfunds for the Department of Biology to usefor enhancing its field study labs might beused simply against the basic laboratorybudget. This obviously is not the intent ofdonors, but it is often technically possibleand proper. It is nonetheless a rather per-nicious, demoralizing practice that can killthe incentive for faculty members to raisefunds and donors to give funds. This isone reason to be careful in the wording ofrestrictions so that they are tight enoughto avoid general budget uses but broadenough to give the department latitude touse them effectively. Ideally, you shouldwork toward practices that don't permitsweeping up such restricted funds even intimes of economic challenge.

DEPARTMENTAL vs.POOLED BUDGETS

Some items naturally fit best simplywithin departments, e.g., office expenses.Some items may be either pooled or de-partmental or both. I shall focus on threesorts of funds in which a "pooled" ap-proach sometimes makes sense. Generallyspeaking, pooled funds have the advantageof making better use of "excess" funds andso are most useful where a department'sneeds are likely to vary from year to year.

Travel funds. In the case of travel, a pooledapproach would mean having travel fundsavailable to distribute to those facultymembers who frequently attend confer-ences and not having the funds tied up indepartments where faculty members areless active. If travel is on a per-faculty-member basis, whereby each faculty mem-ber is provided a set amount of money totravel to professional conferences whetherthey are presenting papers or not, it cansimply be left with the departments. Thesefunds tend to be expended regularly anddepartmental management avoids theadministrative process of having to filtereverything through the dean's office forregular tasks. However, travel funds thatare provided on the basis of the presenta-tion of papers at conferences and otherkinds of "on-program" functions may bekept or centralized, since this distributionwill probably not be as widely dispersed inpractice. It's not a bad idea to have a two-part system with:

1. An account in each department with abasic amount of money per facultymember for professional travel. This issimply for professional development.

2. A pooled amount for special travelrequests beyond the basic amount.This would be restricted only to facultypresenting papers at conferences orhaving other active roles in the confer-ences which make it more special thansimply attending conferences for pro-fessional development.

Computers/software. This is a good areafor having pooled resources. It's best tohave a coordinated, comprehensive collegeprogram for purchasing and distributingcomputer resources. This allows a betterdistribution of resources, since some

departments may be more heavily intocomputer usage than other departments,and the multiple possibilities for differentkinds of software and hardware necessi-tate some centralized decision-makingprocess in order to avoid chaos. If eachdepartment has its own funds and makesautonomous decisions then departmentswith greater computer usage may haveinsufficient funding and departments thathave very modest computer needs mayhave an excess of funding. It may alsomean that departments will purchasetypes of hardware that the institution isunable to service, either because of in-sufficient parts or a lack of expertise.

You should be involved in determiningpriorities for distribution of computer re-sources, even though these may be comingout of a central office such as the Office ofInformation Technology. You have a goodawareness of what is happening in thevarious departments (or should have!) andcan better gauge the impact on the cur-riculum, the number of majors, and thework of particular faculty members thansomeone heading up an office of informa-tion technology. Pooled resources enablea college to capitalize on economy ofscale and on-site licensing when pur-chasing computer resources. Sometimesa central buyer can even get some equip-ment "tossed in" due to the size of thepurchase that is taking place. This wouldnot usually be available to an individualdepartment.

If funds are pooled with regard to comput-ers and software, an academic committeeon computers should be formed so thatsubstantial academic input is in place.This committee should be representativeof various segments of the university, from

<t

the philosophers to the number-crunchingphysicists and computer scientists. Thevarious needs of different disciplines musthave a chance to express themselves inthe strategic decisions being made for thecomprehensive expenditure in the com-puter science area.

Capital funds. Capital funds are best usedas pooled funds, although there are occa-sional exceptions. Departments that tendto have major capital expenditures on aregular basis, such as those in the naturalsciences, should have some basic capitalfunds available to them on an annual ba-sis. However, in general it's best to holdcapital funds in a pool in order to distrib-ute resources in a more efficient fashion.Capital expenditures by their very naturehave various years of obsolescence; there-fore, not all departments are going to havemajor capital needs every year. Also, capi-tal needs tend to be rather large items andare hard to manage if your budget is dis-persed across all the various departments.

The allocation of capital resources is bestdone by allowing departments to provideannual lists of capital needs and to pro-vide prioritization of these needs. This al-lows you to make a master list of capitalneeds and amounts, indicate departmentalpriorities, and indicate your priorities asdean. With the help of computer spread-sheets, it's easy to manipulate these listsso as to see how many first-priority needscan be met, etc. It also allows you to keeptrack of which departments are receivingcapital funds and how well these fundsare being distributed throughout theinstitution.

Maintenance funds. The reasoning thatpertains to capital funds also applies here.

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Discretionary funds. These are a luxury notoften available to deans. However, in onecollege these discretionary funds haveprovided the dean with the leeway to makemany people happy, often with small allo-cations. For example, the request for $200to help a student attend a professionalconference to present a paper in colla-boration with a faculty member often is amorale booster to both. Likewise, the op-portunity to help a department give $200or $300 as an honorarium for a speaker ina particular discipline provides enrichmentin that department's program for that yearwhich may not be a regular occurrence.There are numerous and varied requeststhat come to deans that often amount toonly a few hundred dollars. The moredeans are able to say yes, the higher themorale in the college and the more goodthings take place. Since these are oftensomewhat haphazard depending uponparticular students or faculty membersor possibilities in any given year, having

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pooled discretionary funds allows theflexibility to "go with the flow" of requestsin any given year. Keeping track with acomputer spreadsheet permits you tobalance assistance to different depart-ments and avoids a particularly aggressivedepartment from obtaining a lion's shareof the funds.

Critical to the use of pooled resources is:1. Your willingness to prioritize needs/

requests.2. Your careful tracking of who is getting

what, in order to see how widelydistributed the funds are to variousdepartments and persons.

3. Your tough skin for the barbs fromdepartments and individuals whensaying no. Clear reasons for prioritiesand a "fairness" in distribution willhelp lessen the criticism and increaseunderstanding among those whoserequests are denied.

DEALING WITH MN TECHNOLOGY

Carol A. Lucey, Alfred State College of Technology

The use of technology in academicsettings is becoming a hot topicwhenever academics get together.Undergraduate instruction in areassuch as communications, English,

foreign language, mathematics, and thesciences are making greater and greateruse of computers. National Science Foun-dation Instrumentation and LaboratoryImprovement (ILI) funds are increasinglygoing to computer-based instructionprojects. Librarians are changing the waythey do business as a result of on-linesearch access. The whole education enter-prise is changing character as a result ofthe Internet and video-conferencing. Manyadministrators now see technology use asa potential cost-cutting mechanism fordealing with such refractory problems asthe high cost of instruction per FTE andhigh library periodical budgets. How effec-tive is all this new technology in cuttingcosts and enhancing educational experi-ences and where is it all leading us? Be-low, I discuss budgeting for technology

needs, planning, fairness across the cur-riculum, and consequences of technologyuse in instruction.

BUDGET ANDPLANNING ISSUES

It is almost a cliche that the technologyneeds of a college expand to consume thefunds available. Here are some clear cave-ats for the novice administrator movinginto this area:

Planning

If your information technology servicesdelivery department does not already havea college-wide steering board, form oneimmediately. This board should be com-posed of representatives of all areas of thecollege that use the department's services.Be sure to include such users as the regis-trar, institutional research, and the cleri-cal staff, as well as the heavy academicusers (these will probably include the

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library, the sciences, and perhaps thewriting center and tutoring services area.)If students are assessed a technology fee,they should also have a representative,elected from some duly authorized organi-zation such as a student senate.

The Infotech director or dean should chairthe board. A board membership assign-ment should be viewed as high prestige(you might want the president to issueappointment letters each year to theboard's members) and should meet fre-quently. Stick your nose into this areaoften to make sure they are meeting andthat the information flow is from users totechnology providers, not the other wayaround. All major upgrades that involvelarge investments of staff time should havebroad support. "Migrations" in operatingsystems, which are almost always associ-ated with major service dislocation andheavy costs, should be clearly understoodand supported by the users before anydecisions are made.

Technology budgets should, to the extentpossible, be allocated by the steeringboard, not by the technical staff. Also,don't get trapped into making budgetallocation decisions by yourself, unlessyou are willing to walk the plank when amajor upgrade fails. And new technologyoften does fail!

Planning and 'flashy new stuff':

There are some wonderful new toys ondisplay at every technology trade show.Educom is one of the best, if you want tosee technology in action in an academicsetting. However, avoid the "bleedingedge." Get suspicious of requests to pur-

chase untried technology. Once your teamand your board tell you they want to goforward with some new, flashy system, askthem to go visit a college with a workingversion. Go with them, if you can. Askyour counterpart at the other college ques-tions such as: how many person hours didyou spend to get this thing to run? Howoften does it go down? How much did youspend on hardware upgrades to make itwork? How much support does your tech-nical staff have to commit to this thing tokeep it running? Do your students evercomplain, and what about? And stay awayfrom version 1.0 of anything.

Distance Learning

A special caveat on the video-based dis-tance learning "bleeding edge": you willhave trouble with the software, with thetelephone service provider, with the videoequipment, and with the computer. Youwill spend money on technicians who cannever be far from the class when it is run-ning. The system will "go down" at inop-portune times during the semester, andyou will have to have videotape backupavailable. Additionally, you will have all ofthese problems at the remote site.

You will spend more on your line charges,your technical support, and capital amor-tization than a "live" adjunct instructorwould cost you. And the system will takeyou at least two semesters longer to getoperational than promised. In the end, ifyou are breaking even on the cost of in-struction, most of your students won't likeit (you'll be "sending to" too many studentsat too many sites), your faculty will worryabout workload issues, and parents willcomplain that this sort of instruction is

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0their student's tuition bill.

Despite all of the above, there is a placefor distance learning technology in highereducation. Isolated colleges who cannothire qualified full time or adjunct instruc-tors for exotic courses will fmd that theycan enrich their students' curriculum byuse of distance learning. In general,however, don't expect a bargain in thistechnology.

The Internet

If you have reasonably good "bandwidth"(i.e., a T1 or faster telephone connection)to the world of the Internet, spend somemoney on a good campus home page sys-tem. This can become the foundation ofa college information service for your stu-dents, your faculty, your alumni, and yourprospective students. It can also give youa jumping off point for some specialized"asynchronous learning" course work.This will probably be one of the most effec-tive forms of technological delivery of neweducational services in the future. TheAlfred P. Sloan Foundation is now fundingexperimental projects to explore the use ofthis new medium.

Downloading costs

If your residence halls aren't currently"wired" to the campus backbone (i.e., theoptical fiber infrastructure, over which thecollege network services are delivered),allocate some resources to do so immedi-ately. Encouraging students to install theirown computing equipment in their resi-dence halls will make for happier usersand will decrease some of the wear and

tear on college-owned machines. Eventu-ally, this should allow you to diminish thesize of the budget you have to spend onhardware which has a very short usefullifetime. Caveat: be prepared to offer somebasic troubleshooting and some campuscomputer repair services. These can beoutsourced, if you are not too far from ametropolitan area.

Many hardware and software vendors offerwonderful discounts to faculty and staffand students affiliated with higher educa-tion institutions. Ask your infotech deanor director to arrange a campus purchaseplan through the college employees' creditunion that will allow faculty and staff topurchase computers for themselves ontime plans, taking advantage of thesesteep discounts. That will promote facultyand staff professional development andcost the college practically nothing!

Timing

Practice 'just in time" principles on tech-nology purchases. That is, don't buy morethan your faculty and staff know how touse, and don't train your faculty and staffto use technology you're not prepared todeliver. The former will cost you moneyand cause underutilization and the latterwill frustrate your faculty and staff andcause morale problems. Tailor your train-ing to match your purchases.

In technology purchases, there is no suchthing as a long-term investment. Whateveryou do, don't buy more technology thanyou need at any given time, thinking you'llgrow into it. Technology does not age well,and those are your precious equipmentdollars sitting there in that large pieceof high-tech junk! If you've got some

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end-of-the-year, extra cash to spend, al-ways choose to spend it on faculty andstaff professional development before turn-ing it over to a technology committee forpurchase of "toys."

"Hand-me-downs"

Avoid a campus "rolldown" policy. Thisoccurs when the "innovators" and "earlyadopters" (usually in the sciences or tech-nologies) always get the newest computerswith the newest software versions, whilethe folks in areas defmed as "nontechni-cal" always get stuck with the old ma-chines when the early adopters abandonthem. This ends up putting "286s" on thedesks of the literature professors, becausesomebody decided they don't need any-thing but word processing. This will surelyproduce a morale problem in your litera-ture department, and you won't havemany literature professors ready or willingto try teaching via such new techniques asclass on-line Lotus Notes conferencing or"asynchronous learning" on the Internet.

Having said all this, it is still necessarynot to starve the creative early adopters ofnecessary new technology tools. Somecolleges make a pool of competitive, "stra-tegic initiative" grant funds available foruse by such initiators. This money canthen be used to fund new technology forthe campus technology "spark plugs."

TECHNOLOGYAND THE CURRICULUM

Here are some things I've noticed abouttechnology use in the classroom:

New technology as a catalyst

When science and math faculty decide toupgrade a course using interactive com-puting, the process is as important and as

* exciting for the instructor as it is for the<> student. Whole physics and mathematics

departments have been revitalized byPriscilla Laws' "Workshop Physics" or bythe Harvard Calculus program. These pro-grams also encourage the use of "activelearning" techniques by those faculty whoare probably most prone to the "drinkfrom the firehose" lecture technique.

Programs first

Be careful to make sure that your depart-

* ments have done appropriate programplanning before they make their technol-ogy purchases. The academic programshould always dictate the purchase of theequipment type, not the other way around.

People first

Departments sometimes become so enam-ored of technology that they lose sight ofthe human dimension of what they aredoing. Students do need instructors to setconceptual frameworks within which theycan work before setting their classes to

O work on machines. Also, some studentshave a tough time breaking free from thetraditional, nontechnological lecture for-mat. Don't let the new technology deliverysystems strip your curriculum of itshumanity!

"On Stage"

Faculty love Powerpoint and similar pre-sentation software packages. They are

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inexpensive and, with little effort, producevery elegant presentations that can incor-porate videocfips and other multimediamaterials. Take a large lecture room andturn it into a smart classroom with a com-puter, a good opaque overhead projector,and a high-quality projection system. Youwill quickly discover that faculty enjoyusing this room for their courses. Thiskind of technology can produce a muchbetter instructional experience in yourlarge lecture sections for students andfaculty alike.

Information Literacy andthe Library

Be sure that your library is getting suffi-cient technology-based professional devel-opment funds, and don't shortchangethem on equipment funds. All researchprojects today should include the use ofsearch engines on the Internet as well ashard-copy library materials. Don't expectto save much yet on your periodicals bud-get, however. There are still too manycopyright and cost issues unresolved andmany professional society journals havetherefore hesitated to go electronic, or theyonly permit access to users who also havehard-copy subscriptions.

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Information vs. Transformation

Finally, many faculty worry about whethernew technology, long-distance delivery,etc., will change the way they teach, oreven render them irrelevant. The answeris probably different in different kinds ofhigher education enterprises. The lectureformat of instruction is bound to becomeless viable as electronic media providemore alternatives for the simple convey-ance of information. Many large univer-sities are already moving to self-pacedforms of technology-based instructionin place of experiences that used to occurin large lecture halls. Laboratory- andstudio-dependent disciplines will proba-bly not change much, except the equip-ment use will become more and morecomputer-based.

I am willing to bet that there will alwaysbe an important place for the small, per-sonalized instruction format in under-graduate colleges. Perhaps new technologywill serve its most.useful purpose in thenext few years by reinforcing the fact thatmost parents send their students to col-lege for a transformational experience withother people. Those colleges with student-centered faculty and curriculums shouldsurvive the new technology.

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WORKLOAD, PRODUCTIVITY, AND COSTIBENEFITS

Myron S. Henry, University of Southern Mississippi

Since as dean you are probably ac-countable for major portions of thefiscal year budget of your institution,it is incumbent upon you to be knowl-edgeable about income generation and

expenditures by units in the divisions youadminister, as well as about other mea-sures of unit or program productivity.

INCOME GENERATION,PROGRAM COSTS, ANDSUPPORT FOR SERVICES

For most colleges and universities,academic programs consist of a series ofinterrelated courses (or learning experi-ences) taught or guided by faculty. Froman assessment of learning perspective,an academic program might be judged assuccessful if students can demonstrate anappropriate level of new knowledge or skillattainment after having completed pro-gram requirements. This is an importantmeasure of success. However, institutionsmust be able to "afford" to offer an array of

academic programs appropriate to theirmission. Therefore, in the aggregate, youneed to weigh the benefits and costs ofoffering particular academic programs.

Direct costs to offer instructional pro-grams certainly include compensation for"full-time equated faculty" (i.e., full-timefaculty, "fractional faculty" determinedfrom part-time instructional appoint-ments, and graduate assistants) and sup-port staff within academic units; currentexpenses (e.g., supplies, travel, phones,tuition waivers, and student employmentwithin academic units); and instructionalequipment. Costs incurred outside aca-demic programs or units such as those forthe library, heat, lights, cleaning, campussecurity, and space usage, as well as costsfor other important institutional functionssuch as admissions, record keeping, ad-ministration, and yes, parking, are alsoreal. Usually you do not need to link allthe detailed costs for services provided byother sectors of the institution to specificacademic programs or units. But it is

possible to estimate that in the aggregatea certain percent of all income (INC)generated from student enrollments inacademic programs is needed to pay forimportant institutional support services.

At my prior institution, Kent State Univer-sity, the aggregate of expenditures (EXP) ofthe academic colleges was 59% of incomegenerated from student enrollments in thecourses offered through those colleges infiscal year 1996. Does this mean that 41%of the income generated was devoted to"needed" services provided to the academiccolleges by other sectors of the institu-tion? While this question might generatedebate, I assume for purposes of the cur-rent discussion that aggregated expendi-tures within the academic units totaled60% of the income generated throughstudent enrollments in those units. Whatdoes this mean for you? It may mean thatthe continuing base budget of the college(which I am presuming to be approxi-mately equal to year-end expenditures forthe college) should be about 60% of theincome (INC) generated from enrollmentsin academic programs (units) within thecollege. Thus if the EXP/INC ratio forsome programs (units) in the college isgreater than six-tenths (6 EXP/10 INC),then EXP/INC ratios for other academicprograms need to bring the aggregateEXP/INC ratio for the college to aboutsix-tenths.

PERFORMANCE MEASURES

The ratio of academic program costs toincome generated (EXP/INC) might be de-scribed as a fiscal "performance measure"for academic programs. This ratio mightalso be thought of as an indirect perfor-mance measure for collections of faculty

involved in particular academic programs.As a program performance measure, theEXP/INC ratio is related to a series ofquestions. Are the faculty who areresponsible for an academic programserving enough students in courses? Dothe retention rates for specific academicprograms need improvement? Are thereenough students in upper divisioncourses? Are section sizes sufficient atthe various levels of instruction? Are theaggregated teaching loads of faculty ap-propriate? What are the graduation trendsfor a particular academic program?

EXPECTED AND ACTUALSTUDENT/FACULTY RATIOS

Student/faculty ratios can also be charac-terized as performance measures for aca-demic programs, and they are connectedto income generation (INC) and expendi-tures (EXP), even though that associationmay be somewhat abstract.

Establishing "expected" program or unitspecific ratios (benchmarks) of "full-timeequated students" (PIES) to "full-timeequated faculty" (FTEF) can be an effectiveway of measuring program performance.For example, student/faculty ratios mea-sure more than the number courses afaculty member teaches: they are also anindicator of whether or not classes aresufficiently enrolled.

To illustrate the use of student/facultyratios as performance measures, I willadopt an approach that is similar to onethat has been used for higher educationin Virginia. For our purposes, 15 studentcredit hours per semester is defined to be1 FTES. Thus 75 student credit hoursequals 5 FTES.

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Assume a humanities unit (program ordepartment) has a total of 14 budgetedFTEF. Further assume this unit offersthree levels of courses and instruction:general studies (GS), baccalaureate (BAC),and master's (MAS). Assigned (benchmark)student/faculty ratios (FTFS/FTEF] for theunit by instructional levels are:

GS, 22/1,BAC, 18/, andMAS, 15/1.

Averaged over two semesters (the aca-demic year), this humanities unit gener-ated full-time equated students byinstructional levels as follows:

GS, 271.6 FTES,BAC, 40.8 FTES, andMAS, 9.0 FTES.

Thus the two semester average for hu-manities was 321.4 FTES.

The actual student/faculty ratio for thisunit was

(total FTES)/(actual FTEF) =321.4/14 = 23/1.

How does this actual student/faculty ratiocompare to the expected student/facultyratio? The answer to this question re-quires calculations involving the assigned(benchmark) student/faculty ratios bylevels. Since the assigned student facultyratio at the GS level is 22/1, and 271.6FTES were generated at the GS level, pro-ductivity at this level would predict a needfor 271.6/22 = 12.3 FTEF. Similarly, pro-ductivity at the BAC level would predict aneed for 40.8/18 = 2.3 FTEF; and produc-tivity at the MAS level would predict aneed for 9.0/15 = 0.6 FIEF. Thus basedon actual full-time eirated students gen-erated, .the assigned (benchmark) ratios

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by levels of instruction would predict aneed for

12.3 FTEF + 2.3 FIEF +0.6 FTEF= 15.2 FTEF.

The expected overall student/faculty ratiofor this department is then

321.4 FTES/15.2 FIEF = 21.1/1.

This expected student/faculty ratio of21/1 compares to the actual student/faculty ratio of 23/1, and the "generated"number of lull-time equated faculty is15.2 compared to 14 actual full-timeequated faculty. When compared with theassigned (benchmark) ratios, we wouldconclude that this academic unit (and byextension, its faculty) exceeds productivityexpectations.

INSTITUTIONAL CITIZENS

Assigned (benchmark) student/facultyratios and EXP/INC ratios provide youwith complementary and often reinforcingviews of program (unit) productivity. Infact, these two performance measures maybe two of the best in assessing the "fiscalvitality" of a collection of academicprograms.

While fiscal measures are important, soare other productivity considerations,some of which are not easily quantified.Specifically, the expertise, institutionalmemory, and commitment of a facultymember who has dedicated many yearsof service to an institution are invaluable.Such a faculty member may help recruitand advise students as "unofficial" partsof his or her responsibilities. This type offaculty member may help "friend and fundraise" on behalf of the institution, and beinvolved in significant committee activities.

While quality and quantity are not mutu-ally exclusive, there are some things thatare difficult to measure in terms of costsand benefits. The "institutional citizen,"whether that person be faculty or staff, isundervalued on most campuses.

You can learn about appropriate compen-sation levels for faculty by reviewing datafrom a set of peer institutions. You canuse performance measures such as INC/EXP and student/faculty ratios for quanti-

tative assessments of program and unitproductivity. But to learn the "real stuff'about the institution, you need to seek outand listen to the institutional citizens.Costs aside, these faculty and staff are atthe core of the institution and are largelyresponsible for its overall success. Whenan institution is in need, it is the institu-tional citizens who deliver. That is a realbenefit at twice the price.

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FUND RAISING AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Peter A. Facione, Santa Clara University

As a new dean, you can expect sooneror later to hear the president say,'The way to assure that your collegewill thrive is to help raise money forscholarships, endowed professor-

ships, programming, equipment, facilitiesand the like."

A certainly ineffective, if not foolish andfatal, response is, 'The faculty and I be-lieve that the excellence and worthinessof our programs are self-evident to thediscerning observer. Thus we seek greaterinstitutional support, for we will notcompromise quality. In fact, this institu-tion owes my college a greater share ofthe budget."

A response more likely to be heard andappreciated goes, "Yes, I'm eager to helpraise money to advance the priorities ofthe total campus, other colleges, and myown college. I would also like to talkabout ideas for revenue generatingprojects and related fmancial incentives.The college and participating departments

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can contribute to the common good of thecampus and still access a reasonable per-centage of the net revenue to supportstudent learning, faculty excellence, andthose departmental and college goals thathave been approved through the campusplanning process."

REVENUE GENERATINGPROJECTS

A college has surprising capacities forrevenue generation. It controls, withinlegal and policy limits, the use of its landand facilities, the work and expertise of itsfaculty and staff, and its academic author-ity to provide recognized educational pro-grams, research, and services. It may haveaccess to the same or better equipment,telecommunications, and physical supportservices as many area businesses. Thesephysical and human resources, along withsome vision, planning, and start-up capi-tal, can be the basis for launching revenuegenerating activities that are appropriate

to the educational and public service mis-sion of the institution. It takes a measureof business acumen and a dash of leader-ship to create a system of incentives andmarketing strategies that build the qualityand reputation of the institution, provideincome and educational opportunitiesfor faculty, staff, and students, and offermeaningful, institutionally appropriate,and needed services to client organizationsand individuals. Here are a few basicsuggestions:

Serve clients' interests, not providers' pre-conceptions. The conception here is of aself-contained, not-for-profit activity withthe potential to return to the department,college, and institution reasonable sharesof net revenue after expenses each year.For these activities to be financially viable,one must know the clients' interests andfinancial capabilities. Do not begin plan-ning from the perspective of what the fac-ulty want to offer, nor by presuming toidentify what you think the clients shouldwant to know. Rather, begin by trying toprovide them with what they actually havea genuine interest in learning. Think qual-ity first, then add convenience, pricing,delivery, and marketing. A thoroughknowledge of what other providers aredoing, how they are pricing their activities,and how well your program compares totheirs in terms of educational and servicequality are essential, if you are going topresent a financially and educationallyviable activity.

At no time should you do anything thatdiminishes the academic quality or reputa-tion of your institution. The costs of sucha misadventure are too great for too manyother parts of the institutional enterprise.The budgeting for these business-like

,

activities should be separated entirelyfrom the regular tuition support and per-sonnel budgets of the college and institu-tion, and handled instead through aseparate fund. Although it may be accept-able practice at some institutions, it wouldgenerally be a mistake to divert tuitiondollars or institutional general fund re-sources to these enterprises. If start-upfunding is loaned from these sources,there should be a multi-year repaymentplan. Finally, the time to begin evaluatingthe project is after its third cycle, whichallows the people involved the time to im-prove on initial designs and refine theirpresentations and processes.

Programs and facilities. Liberal arts col-leges and professional schools can presentlifelong learning emichment programs,continuing education programs in re-sponse to professional development aswell as ficensure requirements, programsfor gifted and talented children and high-school students, returning adult degreecompletion programs, post-baccalaureatecertificate programs such as in technicalor professional writing, or contract degreeprograms for business or institutional cli-ents. Beyond academic programs, thespecial facilities of a campus often providerevenue generation opportunities, for ex-ample: long-term summer rentals of theat-rical, performing arts, and TV productionfacilities; joint use contracts with localcities or youth organizations for access,maintenance, and upgrade, of athleticfacilities, stadia, and intramural fields;and summer or weekend rental of class-rooms and lecture halls, classrooms, andresidence halls as conference facilities.

Land and joint ventures. If your campushas acreage and needs buildings, interest-

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ing arrangements are possible with city,county, or state governments or depart-ments, or with local research companies,foundations, utility companies, churches,hotel chains, school districts, or healthcare providers for construction and jointuse of new facilities. New curricular andresearch programs, service-based learningopportunities, grants, and public serviceprograms can often be linked successfullyto such joint ventures. Although it maytake more years to cultivate the idea andnurture the political and personal rela-tionships than it will take to actuallybuild and occupy the building, theselarger undertakings can be wonderfullong-term assets to the community aswell as to the college.

Talent. Looking at the talent of the stu-dents, faculty, and professional staff, youmight consider forming a consulting ser-vice aimed at business and institutionalclients. Consulting services might focus onleadership development, corporate ethics,philanthropy, international relations, en-vironmental issues, strategic planning,public relations, multi-cultural workplaceissues, telecommunications, economicand demographic forecasting, ergonomics,organizational psychology, or technologicaldevelopment. Student talent in the use ofcomputers and the graphic representationof idea can be harnessed creatively in theproduction of webpages, CD-ROMs, andthe like for businesses as well as smalleror less technologically capable not-for-profits in the local area. The talent ofstudent journalists working in print orelectronic media might be directed to sup-port the internal communication and stafftraining needs of area schools, religious,and philanthropic organizations. Although

some of these examples might not yieldsignificant net new revenue, they can beset up so that expenses are covered andstudents gain valuable educational ex-periences. This provides some additionalsalary to key members of the regular andadjunct faculty and staff and does noharm to student recruitment and retentioneffortsboth of which can be fmanciallybeneficial.

FUND RAISING

Fund raising is part cultivating, partasking, part strategic positioning, partpromoting, part marketing, and a lot offriend-raising and careful stewardship.The positioning needed to be successful infund raising is the development of a singu-lar idea or institutional identity that cap-tures the core vision, mission, and goals ofthe college or institution. Presidents anddeans, as leaders, are responsible for thearticulation of positioning statements.Positioning links campus strategic plan-ning to institutional and college market-ing. Marketing can be thought of assystematically creating the conditions forpersons to make contributions to the qual-ity and advancement of the enterprise.Marketing is not manipulation; rather, itis the honest presentation of opportunitiesto persons who have both the means andthe will to contribute to the realization ofthose opportunities. In cultivating a pro-spective donor or foundation, you shouldbe marketing the institution in ways thatrespect and, indeed, depend upon thedonor's integrity, intelligence, and freechoice. Marketing might be distinguishedfrom promotional and advertising activitieswhich simply aim at getting people to dosomething fairly immediate, like enroll in

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classes or make a contribution in directresponse to a solicitation.

Cultivating prospective donors. This is themost common and most important way inwhich you can participate in the total in-stitutional fund-raising strategy. If you areunwilling to step up to this responsibility,you should probably resign. More oftenthan not, once you have had a bit of suc-cess in this arena, reinforcement begins towork its sweet seduction. At first there arethose ceremonial necessities we all say wedespise, the occasional alumni event, theluncheon with the foundation officer, oraccompanying the president on a visit to apotential campus benefactor. From therewe move into the more sophisticated andchallenging aspects of development, in-cluding major campaigns and the cultiva-tion of specific donors or foundations.

The president and development directormay use your knowledgeable enthusiasmfor a given project and the generally aca-demic orientation to draw the donor to-ward some specific element in theinstitution that they believe to be an areaof real interest and concern for that donor.You are not expected to ask for fmancialsupport at this point. In fact, a successfulstrategic effort with a given donor mayrequire several contacts with that prospectin order to build up a relationship of mu-tual trust and set the stage for the presi-dent or director of development or anotherdonor to actually ask for a gift.

Typically, your role is to convey the signifi-cance and potential of the project. Withthe proper staff support from your Devel-opment Office, your participation in thecultivation event will have been discussedahead of time in a prospect briefing and

will be followed afterward with a contactreport. The prospect briefing will includegiving you information about the personswith whom you would be meeting and theidentification of the specific project orprojects you are expected to describe. Thefollow-up, usually prepared by you or by adevelopment staff member who attendedthe event, will summarize what was dis-cussed and include observations withregard to the prospect's apparent levelof interest in what you talked about orin other things the institution might bedoing.

Annual drives. The annual drive, includingsuch things as the alunmi telephone cam-paign, seeks smaller gifts, but is mostlyabout raising participation rates, identify-ing potential donors who might be movedin the direction of larger gifts with greatercultivation, and general institutional iden-tity development. In these drives numbersof contacts count. Fund-raising directorsknow that the amount pledged is in directproportion to the number of people asked.If you have not made your pledge, thenyou will be less effective on the phone orin motivating students or faculty to par-ticipate. So the place to start is with your-self. The money raised through annualdrives, although the pledges are small, istough money to raise because it is earnedincome after taxes. Contrast that withcapital gains income from the sale of stockor real estate, which typically is the sourceof those larger gifts.

Stewardship. What you do with the foun-dation grant or personal gift afterwardmay be more important than the workthat went into raising that gift in the firstplace. People and foundations want toknow that their money was used as had

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been agreed upon. Endowments for pro-fessorships and scholarships can be madereal to donors if those who benefit fromthe gift, the professor or the students,communicate with the donor about theirwork or their educational experiences.Foundations expect reports of how fundshave been managed. The kinds of reportsthat lead to subsequent gifts are thosethat honestly communicate that the firstgift was used as intended, much appreci-ated, and productive as measured by thequality of the results and the level of insti-tutional commitment to continuing theproject beyond the duration of the gift.

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SUMMARY

You should think strategically about howexternal gifts can advance core collegegoals, how you can present these opportu-

* nities to individuals and to philanthropicfoundations, and how you can use thosegifts that have been received so that theyaccomplish the intended results and pave

<> the way to subsequent academic improve-

* ments and fundraising opportunities.

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NM HANDBOOK AS A LIVING POLIG DOCUMENT

James L. Pence, St. Olaf College

Ilearned the value of understandingfaculty personnel policies early in mycareer in academic administration.During my year as an ACE Fellow in1985-86, Tom Emmet, the acknowl-

edged "guru" of faculty handbooks, in-troduced me to the idiosyncrasies ofhandbook language. When Tom spokeabout "fugitive policies," "estate commit-tees," and the "holy trinity" of faculty con-tracts ("sunlighters," "twilighters, and"moonlighters"), I was hooked! When Tomdefined "normally" and "make every effort"as "handbook weasel words," I listened.When Torn argued that the process ofwriting or revising a handbook is a dean'stask, I paid attention. Those of us whostudied under Tom Emmet can recognizean Emmet-inspired faculty handbook byits characteristic outline and the absenceof "weasel words." ("Writing a FacultyHandbook: A Two-Year, Nose-to-the-Grindstone Process," Chronicle of HigherEducation, 1985, 31 (5), 281

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In my first administrative post, I was as-signed responsibility for managing theprocess of revising the faculty handbook.Relying on Tom's materials and his adviceas a consultant, I participated in a com-prehensive revision of the faculty hand-book, an activity that resulted insubstantive change in institutional policyand direction. Reflecting on that experi-ence several years later, I wrote that the"process of revising faculty personnel poli-cies can itself become the stimulus forchange, enhancing opportunities for suc-cessful programmatic redirection or ad-ministrative reorganization" ("AdaptingFaculty Personnel Policies," ManagingChange in Higher Education, ed., D.W.Steeples. New Directions for Higher Edu-cation, 71 (Fall 1990), 59-68J. Havingcompleted two comprehensive handbookrevisions at two quite different kinds ofinstitutions and having served as a hand-book consultant on several campuses, Istill believe what I wrote in 1990. Knowingwhat and when to revise is a critical

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success factor in the world of deaning.Understanding the faculty handbook as aliving policy document helps deans toserve the interests of the faculty and touphold the mission and goals of the insti-tution.

Over the years I have developed five basicprinciples about writing and revising fac-ulty handbooks:

Distinguish between contractualprovisions and explanation

Faculty handbooks should contain theessential employment policies for the fac-ulty. As I understand the legal issues, thehandbook itself is not inherently contrac-tual, but it takes on the force of contractwhen it deals with individual performance,confers a direct benefit, or imposes a di-rect obligation. Failure to indicate whichpolicies are intended to be contractual andwhich are intended to explain administra-tive matters is problematic. A good sourceof information on the contract issues offaculty handbooks is Faculty EmploymentPolicies by Kent Weeks. (College Legal In-formation, Inc. Nashville, 1997). A practic-ing attorney and professor, Weeks haswritten extensively on faculty contractmatters in Lex Collegii and other forums.This text is subtitled "A Forms Manual forCollege Decision Makers" and includesextremely helpful sample policies as wellas discussions of handbook issues. On thematter of distinguishing between contractand explanation, Weeks is clear: do itcarefully! Another good source is theNational Association of College and Uni-versity Attorneys. The NACUA selectedreading series includes collections ofarticles of interest to handbooks. Legal

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Issues in Faculty Employment is still avery good reference tool (edited by P.Eames and T. Hustoles, 1989).

Recently I had the opportunity to consultwith a fellow dean on revising the hand-book at his institution. Having understoodthe importance of distinguishing betweencontract and explanation, he worriedabout the loss of "inspirational" languagecontained in the current text. He did notwant to produce a legalistic document andrisk redefming the employment relation-ship between faculty and the institution innarrow, protectionist terms. I suggestedthat he preface the contractual portion ofthe handbook with an "academic vision."In that vision, he can write about the val-ues of the institution that undergird thecontractual policies. He can express theinstitution's desire to use clear policies toattract and retain good faculty. He canaddress the issues of integrity, quality,and standards from philosophical perspec-tives. And he can clearly label this sectionas "explanatory."

In my experience reviewing dozens of fac-ulty handbooks, especially those at liberalarts colleges, the blurring of contract andexplanation is the most important issueneeding attention.

Be aware of incorporation byreference issues

The AAUP "Redbook" belongs on the shelfof every dean (AAUP Policy Documents &Reports. American Association of Univer-sity Professors, 1995). It also belongs inthe hands of every faculty member as-signed to work on a faculty handbookrevision. My first assignment to a hand-book revision committee is "read your own

handbook." My second assignment is "readthe Redbook." The critical issue with re-spect to AAUP policies is the one of incor-poration by reference. As I understand thelegal point of view, reference to an externaldocument may lead to an argument thatthe document is "incorporated by refer-ence" into the handbook. For example,colleges often cite the AAUP "1940 State-ment of Principles of Academic Freedomand Tenure" in faculty handbooks. Toclarify the intent of that citation, for ex-ample, I urge you, in writing a revised fac-ulty handbook, to quote verbatim theportions of the statement you intend toincorporate or indicate that the entirestatement is incorporated by reference.Failure to be clear about the use of exter-nal documents leads to confusion andpotential conflicts of interpretation.

Reference to an internal document alsoraises the incorporation by referenceissue. My institution allows departmentsto develop their own "Statements of Pro-fessional Activity" to serve as standardsfor evaluating scholarly and creativeactivities. Although the statements arenot physically included in the facultyhandbook, the policy authorizing depart-ments to develop statements is clearlyintended to incorporate them. They shouldbe appended to the faculty handbook anddefmed as "incorporated by reference." Inthe next printing of the handbook, theywill! Reference to academic policies con-tained in the college catalogue may alsoraise incorporation issues. To the ex-tentthat your institution intends to bind fac-ulty to adhere to catalogue policies, youneed to be sure the faculty handbook hasa clear statement of institutional practicesin incorporation by reference.

You should review your faculty handbooksand look for all references to other docu-ments. Such references should be clearlylabeled as "incorporated" or "not incorpo-rated." Failure to be clear may lead tolengthy and expensive litigation.

Be aware of delegation ofauthority issues

When I review a faculty handbook, I readwith two important questions in mind:who decides? Who decides who decides?The lack of clear decision architecture pre-sents formidable problems to deans, espe-cially those who come to a position fromoutside the institution. The faculty hand-book is the right place to deal with dele-gation of authority issues, both in termsof governance and personnel policies.First, the handbook should contain a clearstatement of the authority of the governingboard. Second, it should indicate whatkinds of authority the board delegates tothe president. At one institution I served,the board delegated to the president theauthority to award tenure. At another, theboard delegated the authority to grantpromotions but not award tenure.

The "delegation of authority" issue appearsmost often in handbook language dealingwith personnel decisions. Legal con-straints in public colleges prevent thedelegation of certain kinds of personnelauthority; custom serves a similar purposein private colleges. Being clear about thedifferences between "decisions" and "rec-ommendations" is imperative in handbookrevision. Kent Weeks deals with this issueat length in Faculty Decision Making andthe Law (College Legal Information, Inc.Nashville, 1994). This manual is designed

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to inform faculty about the legal implica-tions of the decisions they make. Fromboth the institutional and the individualperspective, delegation of authority issuesare important ones for you to consider.

Minimize the disparitybetween stated procedure andcustomary practices

The differences between policy and pro-cedure tend to blur in faculty handbooks.When disputes over matters of interpreta-tion occur, they tend to focus on this dif-.ference. Being clear about the separationof policy from procedure is a good idea,especially in the contractual portions ofthe faculty handbook. In some handbooks,policy sections are physically separatedfrom procedure sections; in others, hand-book authors state "this is our policy"and "these are the procedures we use toimplement that policy." The extent towhich handbooks differentiate betweenpolicy and procedure depends a gooddeal upon issues of campus culture andcampus climate.

My concern is that deans work to mini-mize the disparities between stated proce-dure and customary practices that haveevolved over time. For many understand-able rea sons, customs evolve in spite ofwritten procedures. I have on occasionbeen told "We don't care what the hand-book says; we have never done it thatway." Disparity between stated procedureand custom arises as a result of "hand-book tinkering" or willful neglect of con-tinuous review of procedures in force. Ihave two suggestions for reducing poten-tial liability resulting ,from disparity be-tween stated procedure and custom:

(1) periodic training and developmentsessions for department chairs and othersinvolved in implementing procedures;(2) establishing a standing regulation thathandbook provisions be reviewed on acontinuous basis. In some cases, turningcustom into stated procedure solves theproblem. In other cases, moving text fromcontractual sections to explanatory sec-tions satisfies all parties.

Recognize the value of facultyhandbooks as stories ofinstitutional culture

I have long believed that colleges areworkplaces, organizations, and cultures.Faculty members bring to handbook dis-cussions an expectation that the termsand conditions of employment are clearlystated in handbooks. Workload require-ments, reward and benefit systems, andprofessional development opportunitiesneed to be set forth in user-friendly waysin the handbook. Writing or revisinghandbooks to recognize only the work-place contexts is to diminish the richnessof collegiate life. Organizational issuessuch as effective faculty-administrationcommunication, internal governance anddecision-making, and responsibility forresponding to faculty recommendationsare critical to the maintenance of ahealthy workplace. Using a handbookrevision to deal with these issues may bean effective means for you to increase co-operation between faculty and admini-strators. Cultural issues, by far the mostcomplex and the most interesting, are al-ways embedded in handbooks. The impor-tant considerations of values, traditions,and symbols are written and implied inthe pages of a faculty handbook.

One of the dangers of the litigious age inwhich we live, over and above the costs ofpreventing litigation or dealing with it, isthat handbook revisions can fail to ac-knowledge the importance of campusculture in shaping institutional vision.After 14 years of active involvement withfaculty handbooks, I am more convincedthan ever that deans need to cultivate,not diminish, the Janus-like features ofhandbooks. If the contractual sections ofhandbooks are written or revised after theexplanatory and philosophical sections areadopted, the faculty and the institutionwill be better served. Too often, debateoccurs over contract language and thephilosophy behind the language is in-vented after the fact, if it is stated atall. Once the institution knows why itvalues tenure, it can write or revise itstenure policies.

SUMMARY

Faculty handbooks are "living" policydocuments. Writing or revising facultypersonnel policies can become a usefultool for learning about the institution,planning for its future, clarifying itspresent, and contextualizing its past. Ifyou embark on a revision process, you canexpect a "nose-to-the-grindstone" workload for one and one-half to two years. Ifdone well, though, the outcome will servethe faculty and the institution far beyondthat time. A good handbook is a roadmapand a compass, a legal document and avision statement, a prescription and adescription. A good handbook also "lives"and changes as the institution and thepeople who inhabit it change.

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Kathleen Schatzberg, Cape Cod Community College

The college catalogue, more than anyother publication the institution pro-duces, represents the official andpublic stance that the college takestowards its students and all its other

constituents. It is a public relations docu-ment that will project the personality ofthe institution and may serve as a vitalrecruitment tool. It is a reference tool usedby faculty, counselors, advisors, and stu-dents to determine the opportunities of-fered students, the rights by which theymust live, and the responsibilities de-manded of them. At the same time, it is astatement of what the college intends toprovide, and from many perspectives. Itis a legal document that binds both thosewho attend and those who labor in theinstitution. Indeed, it is often referredto as the contract between the collegeand students.

Before the advent of the technologies withwhich we are now blessed, the annual orbi-annual ritual of producing a newcatalogue was tedious, almost torturous.

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Virtually everyone involved in it knew withcertainty that as soon as it was printedsomeone would find something dreadfullywrong with it. Fortunately, new technolo-gies have eased this task considerably,and with well-organized, automated sys-tems, revising the catalogue can be accom-plished in the course of regular routines,so that the new catalogue can be producedwith a minimum of time and effort. Noneof the technologies, however, will ever sub-stitute for that final, painstaking, word-by-word proofreading by an individual withenough knowledge of the institution, andits offerings to catch the devilishly smalland fiendishly huge errors that even thegrandest technology will not prevent. Thatperson is the dean!

Some elements of the catalogue areoverarching and will involve you as amember of the senior administrative teamthat reviews them as a whole. These in-clude the college mission, its history, gov-ernance, facilities and academic calendar,and statements on such matters as anti-

discrimination policies, commitment toaffirmative action principles, or com-pliance with governmental mandates.There should also be a statement noti-fying readers that any aspect noted inthe catalogue may change before the nextcatalogue is printed, a necessary state-ment even though the college may belegally held to the provisions announcedin the catalogue.

Other elements of the catalogue are theresponsibility of student affairs adminis-trators. The elements that most concernyou, however, comprise the bulk of thecatalogue and include academic policiesand procedures: the degree programs of-fered and their respective requirements;the listing of individual course offerings;and the listing of the faculty and theircredentials. Many catalogues also provideinformation on formal articulation agree-ments the institution holds with otherinstitutions. The key to managing theproduction of these components of thecatalogue is to establish a pathway bywhich changes route inevitably to thecatalogue. It also helps to have a particu-lar individual in the academic unit of theinstitution responsible for overseeing theseprocesses, although in small institutions,there may be no one but yourself to fillthat role.

Academic policies and procedures, forinstance, are usually changed as a resultof committee action. Notifications of suchactions then go to various offices andpersons on campus who need to imple-ment and communicate these changes.The routing must include the academicadministrator or staff person responsiblefor compiling catalogue revisions. If unfail-ingly collected in this manner, the actual

revision process for these sections of thecatalogue becomes easy. As with all sec-tions of the catalogue, keeping an elec-tronic copy specifically for entering suchchanges as they occur will also reduce theamount of time needed to produce therevised document.

Likewise, the actions of the curriculumcominittee should lead to the ffies for revi-sion of the sections on degree programsand courses. Notice of a new articulationagreement should be communicated insimilar fashion, as should hiring, promo-tion, and other human resources actionsthat would alter the details of the facultylistings in the catalogue. In short, the de-sign of these communication systems willeither ease or complicate the task of pro-ducing the catalogue.

One philosophical question about theproduction of the college catalogue in-volves what may be some fundamentalcontradictions concerning its purpose. Ifthe catalogue is to be a statement of theinstitution's image and style, it will in-clude many photographs, statements ofideals and activities in the broader arenaof public life, and a graphical format thatcommunicates a personality. If the cata-logue is a contract, many of these featuresare not needed but the catalogue must beexhaustively detailed and precise. Thecatalogue-as-contract will include a greatdeal of material concerning regulation ofthe institution by governing and accredit-ing bodies as well as institutional regula-tions governing students. If the catalogueis to be a reference tool for students anda recruitment tool for the AdmissionsOffice, then it must be inviting and user-friendly. This function of the catalogue, forinstance, would definitely include such

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components as descriptions of articu-lation agreements that offer studentsundergraduate transfer or graduate-levelopportunities, as well as detailed descrip-tions of scholarships and services pro-vided for students.

Many publications experts would say thatthe catalogue that tries to serve all thesepurposes may not do any of them verywell. Most colleges face tough choices withlimited resources, however, and thereforetry to create a catalogue that does serve allthese purposes. No easy answers springup to resolve this dilemma, but the dis-cussion of what purposes the catalogueserves must precede and frame its produc-tion. It is your role to lead this discussionamong the faculty who may fmd the cata-logue wanting if they are not included inthis debate.

One fmal note on how the college cata-logue will be transformed as we adopt evermore sophisticated technology. It is not

unusual now for a college to have itscatalogue, or major portions of it, postedon a Web page, allowing for instant accessby students, prospective students, andthe public-at-large, and allowing alsofor nearly instantaneous updating. Theprinted paper catalogue as we have knownit may go the way of the 78 RPM record orthe computer keypunch card. The sameinstitutions posting their catalogues onthe Web may also allow students to accesscourse outlines and other information viacomputer kiosks or lab stations positionedthroughout the campus and even via mo-dem from home. These emerging technolo-gies may enable us to produce electroniccollege catalogues that communicate thecollege's social style, include more infor-mation with greater accuracy, and do sowith an ease we could never have imag-ined when we groaned at the glaring errorspotted when the first carton of new cata-logues arrived from the printer.

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LIVIDIN6 TO (REM

Len Clark, Ear lham College

The first and critically important stepin responding well to criticism in thedean's role is to hear criticism in thefirst place. The importance of thisstep is matched by its difficulty.

Most of us are accustomed to a healthygive-and-take with colleagues. We've alsoread our own student evaluations throughthe years and think we're pretty good atmaking adjustments and keeping ouroccasional anger to ourselves. This maylull us into believing that these skills areeasily transferable to the dean's position.

Colleagues only very rarely will directlycriticize you to your face. Lest one loserespect for one's colleagues in recognizingthis fact, it's good to remember how enor-mously exaggerated are our students'perceptions of the power of their profes-sorsattributions of power far beyondthe reality. Similarly, teaching faculty veryoften attribute, sometimes almost uncon-sciously, enormous power to the dean.This is frightening, and it leads to a

great muting of criticism from which youcould benefit.

Often, the only criticism you will hear issecond or third hand. The first temptationis anger at this kind of indirect criticism,which is easy to interpret as a lack of re-spect for you personally and a lack of self-respect as well. Cultivate the habit ofconsidering such criticism, however indi-rect, as a gift. Develop the habit of alwaysthanking those who are its sources. It re-ally is a gift, the more valuable by its rar-ity. Criticism of deans does occur explicitlyand face to face. Some criticism occursearly and from those who simply have aspirit of candor. But a second and morecommon occasion for direct face-to-facecriticism is when people have fmally over-come fear through an accumulated angeror distrust that is already at a dangerousboiling point.

Perhaps our most destructive temptationin responding to criticism is to argue. Wedon't think we are sounding defensive or

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demeaning in doing so, because so manyof us have been trained to believe thatargument with colleagues is a mark ofprofessional respect. We've often beentaught that to argue with the position isto respect it; to ignore it or treat it withdismissive politeness is to demean theproposal and the colleague. The problemwith this approach is that your colleagueswill not interpret your response in thisway. Argument by someone in a positionof perceived power is almost always seenas bullying and demeaning, and some-times as defensive as well. Cultivatehabits of responding that acknowledgethe value of your having heard the criti-cism, whether or not you are able to agreewith some part of it or not.

Tone of voice in responding to criticismis more important than you might ima-gine from the experience of your "pre-vious life." It's best to imagine that youhave a megaphone permanently attachedto your mouth. A raised voice that youmean to be merely reasonable inflectioncan be reported to you later, to yourgreat surprise, as your having "yelled"at a colleague.

Many deans have developed effectivestrategies of asking for feedback fromothers, knowing that they will get too littleunless they ask for it. Try different stylesof wording that seem to be effective in elic-iting candid comments. Use your friendsand senior colleagues, but also experimentwith strategies for finding out how you areperceived by your youngest colleague.

Some phrases that might get you think-ing about locutions which might fit yourstyle are:

"I've been operating according to oneframework, and you're helpfully sug-gesting that I back up and try onanother frame work. That's veryuseful. Thanks."

"I know it takes a lot of fortitude tobe critical. But I really rely on yourperception and on your judgment.How could I be doing better with Xissue or person?"

(In a follow-up note) 'Thanks foryour counsel yesterday. I heard you,and you've helped stimulate someworthwhile rethinking on my part.Thanks for the help."

The virtue that underlies the best re-sponses to criticism is a genuine opennessto change. While most of us possess thisopenness in some measure, because we'vegotten old enough to realize how manytimes others have provided us with in-sight, this virtue is often countered by ourkeen sense of needing to be consistent, tolead with an eye to policy, and by pres-sures to accomplish the objectives thathave been set for our office or that wehave set for ourselves. Deanships of greatvalue are occasionally tied to the accom-plishment of objectives about which onemust be single minded, and after theaccomplishment of which one goes onto other things. Longer deanships aremarked less by a set of concrete programobjectives than by an adaptability tochanging circumstances that allow youto focus most on the needs and giftsand judgmentsof your colleagues.

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TRANSITION. LEADERSHIP: THE TEMPORARY PRESIDENT

Charles D. Masiello, Pace University

Leading any institution of higherlearning is a complex, difficult, andconsuming task. Under normal cir-cumstances, the presidency is bothchallenging and demanding role. For

those who assume the position on a tem-porary basis, the complications are in-Creased. For purposes of this discussion,I will assume that you have been ap-pointed temporary president. But mycomments should be equally of interestto you if you are dean during a periodwhen someone else has been appointedtemporary or interim president.

While the terms "interim president" and"acting president" are often used inter-changeably, for the purposes of my dis-cussion here, the following distinction ismade: an acting president is one whoseterm is unspecified, whose duties may notspan the full range of those of a regularpresident, and who most often is chosenfrom within the organization and mayindeed have a joint appointmentforexample, a dean who assumes the role of

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president for a short period of time andthen is expected to return to the deanship.Acting presidents may also be consideredcandidates for the regular position ofpresident. An interim president, on theother hand, is an individual who is se-lected from outside the institution and isappointed for a fixed period of time. Sucha person may or may not assume all theduties of a regular president but is usuallyprecluded from being a candidate for theposition of president. With these distinc-tions in mind, let us examine the chal-lenges and opportunities that accompanythe temporary university president in thetransitional leadership role.

TEMPORARY PRESIDENT ORINTERIM PRESIDENT-WHICHIS BETTER?

This is a question that every institution intransition must answer. The responsedepends on many factors: the projectedlength of the transition period, the degree

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of positive change that the temporaryperson is expected to achieve, the campusclimate, the availability of candidates, andthe anticipated profile of the future presi-dent, as well as the long-term objectives ofthe Board. Temporary presidents are oftenindicated when the transition period isexpected to be short, where major changesare not expected, when the campus envi-ronment is relatively stable, and where anappropriate internal candidate is available.Interim presidents may be preferable whenthe Board desires significant change andanticipates a longer transition period. Insuch instances, a well-chosen externalcandidate, rather than an internal candi-date such as yourself, may be better ableto withstand the political fallout that regu-larly accompanies major changes. Such acandidate will be freer to make difficultdecisions and prepare the way for the newpresident by getting thorny issues out ofthe way before his/her arrival. Moreover,an external candidate will not have to copewith the difficulties of returning to a previ-ous position at the university after makingunpopular decisions.

If you are appointed temporary presidentfor your university or college, you will bethe bridge between the departing presidentand the naming of a successor. You willthereface play a pivotal role in determiningthe future success of the new presidentand the institution as a whole. If you carryout that role effectively, your time in officecan serve to clarify institutional identity,provide breathing space, resolve a particu-lar crisis, diminish conflict between facultyand administration, quell student unrest,and create a more supportive foundationupon which the new president can build.Conversely, if you fail to take your role

seriously, your time in office can do justthe opposite, placing both the new presi-dent and your institution at risk.

CONDITIONS OFAPPOINTMENT

The Board of Trustees, as the ultimatedecision making body of the institution, isresponsible for understanding the cultureof the institution, the current climate, andthe present and future needs of the insti-tution. The Board also must identify goalsand objectives and develop a clear conceptof what they wish you to accomplish whiletransitional president. You should insistthat these expectations be clearly commu-nicated to you. Without such guidance,you will be left to speculate about the truedesires of the Board and you are thereforeapt to drift. Initial and continuing dialoguebetween yourself and the Board, togetherwith key administrators, will be a majordeterminant in your success.

The length of the transition period islargely dictated by the projects that theBoard expects you to accomplish andshould be clearly made known to thecommunity at the time of your appoint-ment. Generally speaking, it is not a goodidea for you to remain as temporary presi-dent for more than 12 months, althoughexceptions may be warranted in specificsituations. An effective presidential searchwill normally require a minimum of fourmonths, and may take considerablylonger. Consequently, the transitionperiod is frequently of 6 to 12 monthsin duration.

A formal announcement of your temporarypresidency should be made. The Boardshould carefully consider the components

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of such an announcement. At minimum, itshould specify the length of the appoint-ment, whether or not you will be a candi-date for the regular presidency, and yourrole in the process of searching for a newpresident. In addition, the announcementshould specify what the Board expects youto accomplish and should invest you withthe full power of the presidency, or atleast sufficient power to accomplish theassigned tasks. Your relationship to theBoard should also be specified. The transi-tion process through the first few monthsof the permanent presidency should alsobe described. Communicating such infor-mation clearly and widely to the universitycommunity will serve to provide directionfor the institution and diminish the ten-dency to stagnate or, conversely, rushthings through during the transition.

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THE TRANSITION TEAM

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Establishing the bridge from one presidentto another is a difficult and complex pro-cess that demands careful planning. Whensuch planning is flawed, the transition canbe hampered and damage done to the in-stitution. As soon as it is clear that theincumbent will be leaving the presidency,the Board should establish a transitionteam and strategy that will carry thewhole institution through the first fewmonths of the new president's term. Ini-tially, the transition team can help theinstitution deal with the anxiety that willinevitably accompany the departure of thecurrent president, formulate the issuesthat require resolution during your tenureas the temporary president, and identifydesirable characteristics of the newtransitional and permanent leaders.

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There is a tendency to believe that oncethe permanent president is named, thebulk of the task is complete. Nothing couldbe further from the truth. At this point,the real work may be just beginning.Presidents cannot lead alone. They needmentoring. The transition team, togetherwith yourself as the person who served astemporary president, and members of thesenior administration and the Board, canand should provide valuable guidance tothe new president. A transition team thatis truly committed to the new president'ssuccess can be supportive in discrete waysthat enable the new leader to understandthe culture of the institution, avoid hiddenpitfalls, and exert effective leadership. Theability to succeed as president is oftendetermined within the first year that theperson assumes office. A sign of a fruitfultransition is frequently the willingness, ifnot eagerness, of the new president to ac-cept input from other well-motivated col-leagues. A person who consistently decidesto "go it alone" usually does not bode wellfor the institution.

JOINT ADMINISTRATIVEAPPOINTMENTS

Often acting presidents are chosen fromthe ranks of senior administrators andhold joint appointments. In your case,this means being both temporary presi-dent and academic dean. This poses anumber of challenges, which may becomeinsurmountable if the search for a per-manent president becomes protracted. Anobvious challenge is how to get two jobsdone simultaneously. The presidency is afull-time job, and so your previous admin-istrative duties must be assigned to a

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trusted colleague who will still requireyour guidance.

At the same time, you must distance your-self from your previous role. The transferof power may prove to be a difficult thingfor you to do, either for reasons of circum-stance or personality. However, if this dis-tancing is not apparent, it may be difficultfor the community to view you as fullyvested in the role of president. If you arenot a candidate for the permanent posi-tion, this should be made clear. In sodoing, you will eliminate uncertainty,diminish, and avoid lobbying groups whowish you appointed. You may be called onto make difficult decisions that could havedire political consequences. Indeed somedeans acting as president have, prior toaccepting the appointment, gained assur-ance that their employment will be guar-anteed after the transition periodawise precaution!

Even so, returning to your original posi-tion may be difficult. Power can be seduc-tive, and the challenges of your old cleanlyposition may no longer seem intriguing.People may view you differently. Friend-ships that once were strong may havebeen weakened or destroyed. Decisionsmade as president may produce oppositionand new conditions that will hamper youreffectiveness on return to your originalposition. Confusion between your role asexecutive and as administrator may alsoarise. Then, too, you may be drained, emo-tionally and physically, from the rigors ofthe presidency. Thus, the transition back

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to your original position must be as care-fully planned as the transition to thetemporary presidency was.

On the positive side, some individualsthrust into joint positions fmd the ex-perience a stimulating one and an ener-gizing change of pace. New challenges willbroaden your perspective by providingenhanced understanding of how the entireuniversity enterprise operates. Opportuni-ties to use your talents and creativity innew and innovative ways also abound. Adeeper sense of your own strengths andweaknesses may also be achieved throughthis experience. Finally, it may open upcareer possibilities by providing goodtraining for a permanent presidencyelsewhere.

SUMMARY

The transition from one president to an-other may not always require temporaryleadership; however, in many instancessuch leadership can be helpful in provid-ing a period to assess the past and planfor the future. No institution shouldexpect a temporary leader to be a miracleworker, but the right person can help toheal divisions and set the stage for a pro-ductive new presidency. The secret is toselect wisely, provide full backgroundinformation, and to be clear about theresults expected. A temporary president,when well-chosen and actively supported,can provide a sound bridge from oneleader to the next.

WOMEN WHO ARE DEANS, DEANS WHO ARE WOMEN

Linda H. Mantel, Willamette University

In thinking about my assignment of asection for the handbook on "DeansWho are Women," I have found it diffi-cult to sort out the "dean questions"from the "woman questions," so I have

decided to look at the situation from bothdirections. I recommend as useful back-ground reading the reports prepared forthe AAC&U by Bernice R. Sandler, withDonna Shavlik and Judith Touchton, par-ticularly The Campus Climate Revisited:Chilly for Women Faculty, Administrators,and Graduate Students (1986). The cli-mate is certainly better now than it wasa decade ago. The data on numbers ofwomen administrators are more favorablenow than they were then, and the fre-quency of "micro-inequities" in the waywomen are heard and treated on campushas diminished. However, women deansstill face issues relating to expectations,trust and rapport, visibility, isolation andcolloquy. Many of these issues will loomlarge if the woman is new to the institu-tion, or if the institutional culture is suchthat few women have held positions ofauthority. A woman chosen from the fac-

ulty, or in an institution accustomed tothe presence of women in power, may fmdthat her gender has little to do with theissues that are most pressing.

WOMEN WHO ARE DEANS

Most women who become deans have beendepartmental trailblazers and faculty lead-ers earlier in their academic careers (firsttenured woman, first woman chair, facultysenate chair, etc.), and thus have beensuccessful despite the campus climateissues. They have already demonstratedtheir competence, decisiveness, assertive-ness, and ability to communicate withboth women and men. They have devel-oped a comfortable collegial style and areaccustomed to being in the minority inmany groups.

Women who are experienced academicleaders may fmd that they engender a levelof trust and rapport beyond that achievedby many men. Even small details, such asarranging the office to be conducive toconversation, can set a tone that inspires

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confidence. By taking advantage of theseskills, a woman newly appointed as deancan build good working relationships.However, if they are the only, or one of afew, senior women officers of the institu-tion, such women may fmd themselvesexcluded from informal activities in whichbusiness is conducted and working rela-tionships reaffirmed. Taking up golf maynot be a bad idea! In addition, the absenceof a female role model at the top may leadto uncertainties in areas relating to dress,behavior, interactions with trustees andtheir spouses, and even the customs re-volving about going out to lunch. Advicefrom knowledgeable women who are long-time staff members can be most useful indealing with the local social expectations.

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A newly appointed dean needs to have aclear understanding of the institution'sexpectationsboth those of the facultyand those of the administration. A dean,chosen from the faculty, should have suchunderstanding, but an outsider, whethermale or female, will have a steep learningcurve. In addition, if the new dean is thefirst woman in a high administrativeposition, there may be issues of style(collaborative vs. hierarchical), as well asdecision-making authority and delegationof responsibility.

A major issue for any new dean, and per-haps particularly so for women, is that ofisolation. With whom does a dean haveprofessional colloquy? Relationships withprevious faculty colleagues often arealtered when one becomes a dean, and ifthe dean is new to the institution, eventhose relationships are not available.Other senior officers will have a differentset of concerns, and a single dean in an

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institution might believe, with some rea-son, that there are no colleagues withwhom specific problems and perspectivescan be shared. These concerns can belessened to some extent. For instance, ifthere are a number of institutions in thelocal area, a deans' group that meets occa-sionally for lunch can be a useful outletfor colloquy and information. On specificissues, of course, the ACAD list serves animportant function. However, by its verynature, the position of a dean is a lonelyone when compared to being a facultymember.

FURTHER THOUGHTS

I believe that many of the issues facingwomen deans do not differ greatly fromthose facing men; the institutional historyand culture and the fact of being an in-sider or an outsider are probably as im-portant as the gender of the dean insetting and solving problems, althoughthe subtle social-professional expectationsstill need to be understood.

On a lighter note, I believe that usefultools for all deans are Mantel's ThreeRules of Administration:

1. You can't do everything;2. You can't win them all;3. Not everybody will love you all the time

(followed by Jacobson's Corollary: Andthat's OK).

In my experience, I have found that thesethree rules are particularly difficult forwomen to follow: we're accustomed to do-ing everything; if we've come this far, we'reaccustomed to winning; and of course ev-eryone should love us, that's part of ourjob! Remembering and obeying these ruleswhen in a sticky situation may help toresolve the dean's current crisis.

Awn( DEMING DESPITE DIFFERENCE

James P. Pitts, University of North Carolina at Ashville

Academic deans are increasinglyexpected to exercise leadership inencouraging faculty and admini-strative staff throughout the collegeor university to incorporate diversity

into personnel recruitment, curriculum,and all aspects of the campus learningenvironment. Despite a number of legalattacks on affirmative action in the 1990s,colleges and universities continue to makeefforts to integrate race and gender diver-sity into their educational missions androutine practices of operation. But how isthe academic leadership situation affectedwhen the college or university hires orpromotes an academic dean who repre-sents one or more of the categories ofdifference that traditionally have beenexcluded or marginalized in the history ofthe institution? How is the leadership roleof the academic dean affected when he orshe is black or female in an institutionthat traditionally has been governed bywhites or males?

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For the past decade I have been the newblack dean in academic roles heretoforeheld by white males. I've served as theAssociate Dean of Academic Affairs at Ohio Real We

Wesleyan, and I've served as the ChiefAcademic Officer at Manchester College,Albright College, and now at The Univer-sity of North Carolina at Asheville. Thefirst three are private and the last is thedesignated public liberal arts university forthe 16-campus University of North Caro-lina system. Incidentally, in my two mostrecent appointments I have reported tocampus leaders (president or chancellor)who are women.

The socially constructed significance ofrace and gender hierarchy is manifest inthe social climate of a given campus andhow that campus climate changes. Theselection of a woman or African-Americanacademic dean is a significant develop-ment in the life and history of a campuswhere that position has been associatedexclusively with white males. For manymembers of the campus community the

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incarnation of progressive change in theperson of the academic dean is a realiza-tion of democratic values, the fulfillmentof the best values of the school and thenation. They feel pride in the "moral devel-opment" of the university, demonstratedin its transcendence of prejudice and ig-norance. Everyone seems elated thatselection of the best person for the jobresulted in a choice that coincides with acampus triumph for diversity.

Women and people of color, faculty, staffand students, often feel a particular pridein the selection of the new academic dean.They frequently say that they feel affirmedby the selection and look forward to amore inclusive and fair campus climate.

The campus-wide pride and sense of vic-tory that is usually attendant with theselection of a black or woman academicdean turns up the heat on those membersof the community, particularly faculty,who are consistent opponents of so-calledmulticulturalism or affirmative action.Such persons may be correctly labeled ormisunderstood. Now in the eyes of theirideological rivals in the campus commu-nity, reactionaries are thought to be onthe losing side. Such faculty often feelbesieged. They may worry that the arrivalof the new academic dean devalues whitesand males, and that the "new administra-tion" will become the partisan leader of thevictorious campus faction.

The primary roles and scope of responsi-bilities of the academic dean remain thesame despite campus issues and conflictsover achieving diversityto be the chiefadvocate for academic excellence and stu-dent learning. Black and women academicdeans have no less responsibility than

white male deans to provide a sense ofdirection and priorities for the campusand to assure that the various offices andresources of the administration supportthe academic and broader learning mis-sion of the campus. The particular chal-lenge that confronts the new dean who isblack or a female is that your an-ivalraises campus expectations, positive andnegative. These heightened expectationsbecome an additional factor in the dynam-ics of your campus.

Campus situations vary and there is nofoolproof set of rules for the conduct of thenew academic dean that will simplify thecircumstances of determining how youshould lead despite the significance thatvarious campus constituencies attach toyour presence. Nonetheless, here are afew tips that you might consider:1. Stay focused on the campus-wide lead-

ership role of the academic dean; don'tbe seduced into trying to perform theroles of people who report to you. Tobe sure, you should be alert to oppor-tunities to correct long-standing ineq-uities and exclusion, but you mustlearn to be effective by using the lan-guage of leadership and the manage-ment scope and rewards appropriatelyexercised by the academic dean.

2. Do a quick and thorough study ofcampus governance traditions andformal guidelines. These constitute thetopology of contested campus terrain.Learn to use them to promote excel-lence and to accomplish new horizonsof fairness. Ignore them and your lead-ership and agenda will be stillborn.

3. Listen carefully to all constituenciesand sources of information but alwaysweigh the validity and partiality of

advice and information. Both "friends" <> women and Afiican-Americans if it hasand "enemies" have good reasons to an underdeveloped or even arbitrarypersuade and manipulate you. human resources infrastructure. Fair-

4. Exhibit fairness in all your dealings ness for women and blacks on yourwith campus personnel and in moving campus, if it is to endure, may requirethe academic program toward higher fundamental reforms of basic evalua-goals. This means that you should be * lion and reward systems.sure that reactionaries are treated 5. Finally, be strategic and selective infairly. It also means that you should making changes; the academic dean,cultivate a climate of mentoring and G even a woman or African-American, isfairness that will benefit everyone, least effective where he or she tries toincluding women and racial minorities. make changes in many areas and all atA college or university cannot assure a the same time. Don't make too manyfair and supportive environment for enemies at once.

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SERVANT-LEADERSHIP: DEANS AT (HUROI-RELATED (KM

James L. Pence, St. Olaf College

At a recent gathering for alumni/aeand friends of St. Olaf College, I wasasked to speak in response to thequestion "Is There a Place forLutheran Higher Education?" The

very fact that graduates of St. Olaf wereinterested in this question is an importantindication of changing times in church-related colleges. Since its founding in 1874by Norwegian Lutheran immigrants, St.Olaf College has been continuously iden-tified as a "college of the church." TheSt. Olaf Choir, established in 1912 byF. Melius Christiansen, is internationallyknown for a capella sacred music. Morethan half of the student body in 1997 self-identified as Lutheran. The president con-venes faculty meeting with devotions, andthe student congregation holds dailychapel and regular Sunday worship. Notsurprisingly, though, our graduates wantto know how our church relationship willaffect our future.

The diversity of church-related collegesmakes generalizing about this sector of

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higher education very difficult. Defining"church-related" is itself not an easy task!In the sense that I use the term here, Irefer to those colleges who self-identify asbeing in an active relationship with anorganized church body. Typically, thesecolleges express an institutional commit-ment to keeping alive the dialogue betweenlearning and faith. My comments do notapply, therefore, to colleges that "cherishtheir historic ties with churches" or "valuethe traditions of its founders" but areotherwise thoroughly secular.

Having served since 1990 as the chiefacademic officer at two Lutheran colleges,I have devoted a good portion of my pro-fessional reading to the history, traditions,and values of church-related colleges. Imeet regularly with deans of church-related colleges in various professionalassociations, and I interact frequently withLutheran clergy and lay people who havelong personal histories of ties to Lutherancolleges. I have also read widely in theliterature of leadership development, a

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practice I have worked hard to maintainsince my 1985-86 year as an ACE Fellow.Based on reading and experience, I believethat church-related colleges offer a dis-tinctive opportunity for deans who viewthemselves as servant leaders. In aca-demic communities where both learningand faith are highly valued, servant lead-ership is undoubtedly the most fitting andmost effective leadership model.

The servant-leader model manifests itselfin three important contexts in church-related colleges: personal, behavioral, andorganizational. I offer a separate thesisabout each of these contexts.

My first thesis is that deans at church-related colleges both minister and admin-ister. A pastor friend of mine called myattention to this passage in a book writtenfor the continuing education of clergy:

Leadership: The creation and arti-culation of, the focusing attentionon, and the developing commitmentto a vision of what God is calling thecongregation to be and to doandthe concrete form its mission in thecommunity should takemarks theexcellent parishes. Such leadershipis primarily and indispensably exer-cised by the pastor(s). It is rooted inthe pastor's self-awareness of beingcalled by God to exercise the officeof ministry and refmed by trainingin the various disciplines and tasksof pastoral ministry. It is exercisedthrough an ordained minister's con-stant interaction with people in pur-suit of bringing the Gospel to bearon their daily lives. (Daniel V. Biles,Pursuing Excellence in Ministry(Alban Institute, 1988), 9)

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In church-related colleges, deans con-stantly interact with faculty and studentsin pursuit of bringing the lessons of learn-ing and faith to bear on daily life. Deansexercise their training in academic disci-plines and academic management to pro-vide leadership for the curriculum, theconcrete manifestation of the college'smission. They also carry responsibility forinspiring academic vision among facultyand focusing faculty attention on issuesof academic integrity. In church-relatedcolleges, integrity often is interpreted as"what God is calling the college to beand do."

My views on academic leadership havebeen strongly influenced, admittedly, bymy theological preferences. Luther's wordsin "The Freedom of a Christian" inform myunderstanding of the practice of deaning:

A Christian is a perfectly free lord ofall, subject to none.

A Christian is a perfectly dutifulservant of all, subject to all.

Not all church-related colleges emphasizethe value of academic freedom as much asLutherans do; not all deans of church-related colleges see themselves as dutifulservants, either. In colleges with churchties, however, the metaphor of dean asminister is apt. In many of these colleges,presidents have historically been ordainedpastors of sponsoring denominations andsenior faculty members were hired, atleast in part, on the basis of their commit-ment to the faith traditions of the institu-tion. Being personally comfortable withthe metaphor and the role is a healthyprecondition for success as a dean in achurch-related college.

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My second thesis is that deans at church-related colleges exercise moral authoritymore than legal or political authority. Atrustee of Wartburg College told me thatmy job description as dean there wasneatly summarized in one phrase: Dowhat's right and do it right. Sidney Rand,the former president of St. Olaf, oncewrote "the administration of the Christianliberal arts college needs to be above all inthe hands of educators" ("The Administra-tion of the Christian Liberal Arts College,"in Christian Faith and the Liberal Arts(Augsburg, 1960) 83). Faculty membersat church-related colleges have justifiablyhigh expectations of moral leadership fromthe chief academic officer, especially inpersonnel decisions. While deans every-where are expected to understand legalconstraints and know how to negotiate"the art of the possible," deans in thissector of higher education are expectedto lead by "walking the talk."

In all sectors of higher education, moralissues should be at the center. Pursuit ofthe truth does, after all, require moralaction. A recent article in Trusteeshipmakes this point well: "Colleges anduniversities must respect the moral im-perative, demanding truth in disciplinarystudies and research, as well as in theirinstitutional self-representations" (ThomasE. Corts, "Let's Stop Thvializing theTruth," January/February 1997, 6).Another article in the same issue advisesthat "college officials must be willing touse moral outrage as an instrument ofquality assurance" (E. Grady Bogue,"Moral Outage & Other Servants ofQuality," 11). At church-related colleges,however, moral issues are fundamentallymission issues, and academic leaders are

more than moral watchdogs. Deans pro-vide the moral compass for academicdecision-making. In some educationalsettings, private behavior and public be-havior of administrators can be and oftenare separated. That is not the case fordeans in church-related colleges, norshould it be.

My third thesis is that deans at church-related colleges make decisions for thecommon good. They approach their jobswith the assumption that the whole isgreater than the sum of its parts. In Com-mon Fire, Sharon Parks and her colleagueswrite about ways to "kindle a common fireand forge a new synthesis of practicalwisdom" in an increasingly complex world(S. Parks, L. Daloz, I. Keen, C. Keen,Common Fire: Lives of Commitment in aComplex World (Beacon Press, 1996). 13).The book describes a study of people wholead committed lives dedicated to thecommon good:

Such people have learned to trustappropriately and act with courage,to live within and beyond tribe inaffinity with those who are other, topractice critical habits of mind andresponsible imagination, to managetheir own mixed emotions and mo-tives, and to live with a recognitionof the interdependence of all lifemanifest in a paradoxical sense oftime and space. They help us imag-ine ways of building a more promis-ing future. (19)

Deans who serve at church-related col-leges very likely have a strong sense ofvocation, being "called" or "sent" by anoutside force to complete a task or mis-sion. Church-related colleges are usually

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small and often located in rural locations,contributing to the powerful sense of com-munity. The combination of vocation andcommunity encourages leaders to valuegood stewardship, which manifests itselfin decision-making focused on the wellbeing of the college as a whole.

Disciplinary loyalty exists in creativetension with institutional loyalty in mostcolleges. Deans are often called upon tonegotiate conflicts between individual ordepartmental interests and college-wideneeds. Church-related colleges are con-cerned about students and faculty inmatters of mind, body, and spirit. Notsurprisingly, then, deans in these kinds ofschools give preference to the view that"everyone counts" and make decisions inaccordance with those preferences. Thereality of service as a dean in a church-related college is that the concern for thewell-being of the organization as a whole isa necessary and desirable characteristic.

Being a dean at a church-related college isnot for everyone who aspires to be a dean.To those who seek positions in these kindsof collages, I offer three pieces of advice:

First, read broadly about church-relatedhigher education. Two recent books I rec-ommend are George Marsden's The Soul ofthe American University (Oxford UniversityPress, 1994) and Models for ChristianHigher Education, edited by RichardHughes and William Adrian (William B.Eerdmans Publishing, 1997). Marsdendiscusses the ways in which religiousperspectives have shaped the intellectualcontexts of American colleges and univer-sities. He traces the influence of religion inthe founding of public and private institu-tions and provides a context for interpret-

ing the movement "from protestantestablishment to established nonbelief."Marsden's book deals with the kinds ofissues that deans of church-related col-leges face on a regular basis, especially inthose colleges where the religious identityis being re-examined or re-invented.

The Hughes-Adrian edition containsessays from scholars at 14 different insti-tutions in seven denominational tradi-tions. The author of each essay was askedto write from an historical perspective anddescribe how his or her institution "hassought to address the relation betweenfaith and learning from the founding of theinstitution to the present" (2). In additionto the 14 institutional essays, the volumecontains essays on the contribution of theseveral denominational traditions toAmerican higher education.

Second, study the ethos of the institutionas it focuses on institutional sagas, found-ing documents, and the implicit under-standing of the ties with the sponsoringchurch body. Geography and ethnic iden-tity are often significant factors in thefounding of church colleges. Deans whocome "from the outside" to serve in thesekinds of colleges need to learn the territoryearly and "read the maps" often. I did notgraduate from Wartburg or St. Olaf; I amnot German and have only a touch of Nor-wegian ancestry; and I did not grow upLutheran. Spending some time reading thearchival documents of each institution,meeting with emeriti/ae in intimate off-campus settings, and getting acquaintedearly on with local pastors and alumni/aehelped me make "real-time" connections tothe institutions. The fact that I have beenan active member of Lutheran congrega-tions in the communities where I have

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lived has had an undeniably positive effecton my service as dean. Being able to sup-port the religious ties of the college withconviction and sincerity has been an ad-vantage for me; more importantly, it hasincreased my job satisfaction and givenme an opportunity to deepen my senseof vocation.

Third, understand the theological foun-dations of the church with which the col-lege is affiliated. Professors who teach atchurch-related colleges and students whoattend them may not be theologicallyliterate. The same should not be said fordeans. In the case of Wartburg and St.Olaf, Lutheran theological values areexpressed in organizational culture.The Lutheran emphasis on vocation andLuther's concepts of the two kingdoms andthe priesthood of all believers undergirdinstitutional practices and inform corevalues. Lutheran perspectives on Christianhumility influence the way we do market-ing (or don't do it!). Even if I were not aLutheran, I would study the Lutheranexpression of Christianity while servingas dean at a college with Lutheran ties.I would do this especially if I were nota Lutheran.

At the St. Olaf alurnni/ae gathering I re-ferred to in my opening paragraph, I iden-tified six challenges for Lutheran highereducation at the dawn of the 21st century:1. Maintaining a clear identity in the

competitive higher education market-place, especially in a post-denomina-tional era and in a society where"church-related" is not, as it once was,associated with quality in education."Because we are church-related, weare suspect," a respected senior pro-fessor said to me recently.

2. Recruiting a diverse student body toan academic community that valuesreligious expression.

3. Recruiting talented faculty memberswho support the mission and goals ofthe college with conviction.

4. Controlling costs to insure access forstudents from economically diversebackgrounds.

5. Managing change without destroyingpositive elements of institutional ethos.

6. Communicating the value of smallnessand the integrity of church-relatededucation in a secular society thatappreciates bigness and thinks of theseparation of church and state as"American."

I also identified six prescriptions for ahealthy and productive future:

1. Faithfulness to mission is moreimportant than reputation.

2. Clarity of purpose, goals, and prioritiesis good stewardship.

3. Embracing diversity is morallyresponsible.

4. Celebrating academic freedom is ourdistinctive heritage.

5. Collaboration with other church-related agencies makes sense.

6. Keeping alive the dynamic tensionbetween faith and learning is our dis-tinctive niche.

Although I spoke about St. Olaf as a col-lege of the Lutheran church, my lists ofchallenges could apply equally as well tomany church-related colleges. My list ofprescriptions, on the other hand, is lessbroadly applicable.

It may be the case that the theses Ipropose and the advice I have offeredare broadly applicable to deans newly

appointed to or developing interest in pos-itions in church-related colleges. On theother hand, they may apply only narrowly.Generalizing about church colleges is asdangerous as generalizing about deaning.I am convinced, however, that being adean in a church-related college affords arich opportunity to practice servant lead-

ership in meaningful and satisfying ways.It has allowed me to be openly and unam-biguously passionate about the two insti-tutions for which I care most deeply: thecollege and the church. Those of you whoshare that passion will find church col-leges very good places to be, and churchcolleges will appreciate finding you.

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HERM YOUR SU«ESSOR

George Allan, Dickinson College

his too shall pass away. Someday it'llhappen: you'll accept a deanly posi-tion elsewhere, return to the faculty,become a president, retire, join theArmy, whatever. When that happens,

what obligation if any do you have to yoursuccessor? That person might be the heirapparent whom you had hand-picked, orthe person who drove you from office, orsomeone not even selected by the time ofyour departure. I recommend a Kantiananswer: you should ignore such happen-stance and do precisely those things thatyou would want anyone else in a similarsituation to do.

This admonition can be operationalized asfollows: you should do for your successorprecisely as you wish your predecessorhad done for you. First, repeat thosethings you appreciated your actual pre-decessor having done in preparation foryour appearance on the scene. Second, donot repeat whatever your predecessor didthat proved useless, counterproductive, oran outright hindrance to your efforts.

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Third, add those things of which yourpredecessor unfortunately gave you noforewarning but could have.

THINGS TO DO

Here are at least a few things youshould do:

1. Create a checklist of the immediatenext tasks to be done: previouslyscheduled new business, as well asthe unfmished business you are sim-ply not going to be able to move to theoutbox before you leave. Some of thesematters will be more important thanothers, but they will all need the newdean's early attention. Since your suc-cessor will be dealing with these issueswhile waiting for the new paint job onthe office to dry and before he/she isquite clear where the bathrooms are, itwould help to provide where possiblean outline of the course of action youwould have taken or the options asyou see them. The new dean may wish

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to ignore your suggestions completely,but you might save that person a lot ofwasted time and even embarrassmentby pointing the way through what maystill seem to his/her new eyes a con-fusing maze of enigmas enwrappingbooby traps.

2. Provide a calendar and tickler file forthe yearly dean's office cycle of respon-sibilities. What's important here is notthe details but the facts: by when doeswhat need to be done? Better yet, sim-ply let the new dean inherit your officemanager or secretary: the one whoactually makes the tickler file work.The new dean may want to changesome of the practices underlying theyearly office calendar, but you shouldassume he/she will be wise enough tofollow advice implied throughout thishandbook and for the first year followyour old calendar of routines.

3. Indicate which committee files need tobe carefully perused in advance of thenew dean showing up to his/her firstmeeting of each committee. This infor-mation should include the decisions orrecommendations that came from thecommittee during the past year, theminutes of those meetings, and thecrucial documents used in arriving atits actions.

4. Provide well-ordered files on depart-ments, programs, and institutes, etc.,under the dean's purview. Each shouldinclude a history of what's happenedto the entity in question, includinginformation on the dean's interactionswith it over recent years, a portrait ofits current status, and an indication ofits expectations and aspirations, espe-cially anything that might be taken asa promise that you've made or that

was made by the faculty or admini-stration but which has not yet beenkept. This category of "promises" isespecially important because depart-ments and their ilk are sometimestempted to imagine promises that aformer dean (that's about to be you)made to them, or to discover thatpromises really made to them by thatformer dean have been unaccountablyforgotten by others, especially by col-legial competitors.

5. Similarly, provide well-ordered files onindividual faculty members. Dependingon the number of faculty for whom youare dean, this set of files should en-compass either all of the faculty or atleast the important ones (the bestscholars, the best teachers, the best"campus citizens," the chairs, the key 187

committee members, representativeyounger faculty, representatives of keyspecial interest groups). Each fdeshould contain a history of theperson's evaluations, a salary history,and some indication of his/her aspir-ations (perhaps in the form of self-evaluation statements), and anindication of promises made but notyet kept.

6. Be sure that you have a detailed papertrail available for the new dean on alllegally sensitive matters. In particular,include a paper trail on all personneldecisions for which the dean has re-sponsibility even if only pro forma. Myview is that the more detail the better,but this is contrary to some lawyerswho recommend having as minima-listic a paper trail as possible. Thepoint here is that the procedural andsubstantive decisions made while youwere responsible for things are about

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to be your successor's responsibility.So be sure that person knows as fullyas possible that for which he/she hasjust become responsible, and may younever be called back to testify in court.

7. Collect together in one place the rel-evant institutional and deanly "visionthings" such as+ Long range planning documents+ Mission statements+ Self-studies for accrediting

agencies and the formal evaluationreports

+ White papers+ Presentations made by the presi-

dent and by yourself, that expressjudgments about the past of theinstitution (all of it or some seg-ment of it) and sketch aspirationsregarding its future.

Your successor may hope to remain loyalto that tradition and that vision (thoseintertwining traditions, those clashingvisions) or to break with it sharply. Or, inHegelian fashion, your successor maywish to save the best of the old by cuttingaway its worst, remolding what remains inthe light of a new sense of importance andopportunity. In any case, your successorwill need to become familiar with the oldways in which your institution has under-stood itself. Put this stuff front and centeron the new dean's desk: label it "RequiredOrientation Reading."

These suggestions simply come down toan admonition to keep good records. Ifyou retain pertinent information (not toomuch, not too little: just the right amountand kind of stuff) about the academic pro-gram and the faculty, the existence of thatinformation in accessible and intelligible

form will be the best way to have preparedfor your successor. So from your first dayas dean you should be laying the ground-work for a smooth transition to an un-known successor.

THINGS NOT TO DO

Now let me be negative and indicate somethings not to do for your successor. Theseare things you might well be tempted todo. Well, don't!

1. Don't provide the new dean with yourpersonal views on the virtues andvices of administrative and faculty col-leagues. No gossip about good guys/bad guys, please. Your successor willfmd out soon enough who they are.Remember that your devils may beyour successor's saints, and those whoare inherently unredeemable will soonenough reveal themselves. Meantime,your departure is like the first day ofspring. It's a new world now, and theremay be those who will use the occa-sion to turn over a new leaf, to put along-festered grievance against thedean's office behind them and treat thenew dean kindly. Honeymoons areimportant: don't poison the well withyour prejudiced assessments (whetherthey be right on the mark or wide of it,they are still, for someone not yet ar-rived on campus, prejudgments).

2. Don't tie your successor's handsby making irreversible decisionson controversial matters, decisionswith which it would be reasonable toimagine your predecessor not agreeing.In other words, don't try to lock inyour accomplishments in fear thatotherwise they will not survive your

departure. The future is no longeryours: don't try to preempt it. (Thisis not in contradiction with thePoint 3 below!).

3. Don't put off difficult decisions, shov-ing them off'on your successor, be-cause you find the task unpleasant.The more you can take on the burdenof making the "hard choices" needed tobring old projects to a close or simplyto continue effectively the flow of es-tablished practices, the more you giveyour successor the gift of breathingroom. Your successor's day for hardchoices will come soon enough; as faras possible, let it be as a result of priordecisions made by that person, notby you.

A CLOSING THOUGHT

Let me close with a brief panegyric on in-stitutions. The citadel of higher learningwhere I spent my career has lines in itsalma mater that could be modified asfollows: "oh deans may come, and deansmay go, but this noble college shall longendure." The office of the dean is moreimportant than you are. Even thoughwithout you that office would be an emptyshell, without it you are just another Joeor Jane. Act always with an eye on theoffice and the purposes for which it exists.Be sure that what you received as a trustyou will be able to pass on as a trust, pref-erably one you have helped alter in themeantime for the better. Use the officealways and only for the good of your in-stitution, and then hope that you will findthat good to have served your own good aswell. Your best gift to your successor is to Real Lifehave lived by this sort of an ideal of theoffice you have chosen to serve.

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LIST Of RESOURas

WHAT A DEAN IS

National Organizations:

American Conference of AcademicDeans (ACAD)Contact Eliza Jane ReillyExecutive Director1818 R StreetWashington, DC 20009(202) 387-3760(202)265-9532 FAXDean's List: reilly@aacu.nw.dc.us

About ACAD:

'The American Conference ofAcademic Deans' objective is toencourage, initiate, and supportprograms and activities that en-hance the academic stature and thepublic understanding of liberal edu-cation. ACAD provides opportunitiesfor academic deans to meet, ex-change views, and discuss commonproblems of higher education relatedto the arts and sciences in collegesand universities. Now in its 55thyear, ACAD currently serves 600deans from public and private col-leges and universities throughoutthe United States. All academicdeans and chief academic officers,both graduate and undergraduate,are eligible for membership."

Council of Colleges of Arts andSciences (CCAS)College of Arts and SciencesArizona State UniversityP.O. Box 873901Tempe, AZ 85287-3901(602) 727-6064

About CCAS:

'The Council of Colleges of Arts andSciences is a national associationof baccalaureate degree-grantingcolleges of arts and sciences whosepurpose is to sustain the arts andsciences as the leading influence inAmerican higher education. TheCouncil serves as a forum for theexchange of ideas and informationamong deans of arts and sciencesrepresenting the member collegesand as a representative of the liberalarts and sciences at a nationalpolicy-making level. The Councilfurther seeks to support programsand activities to improve the intel-lectual stature and public under-standing of the disciplines of thearts and sciences."

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Council of Independent Colleges (CIC)One Dupont Circle, N.W., Suite 320Washington, DC 20036(202)466-7230(202)466-7238 FAXWebsite: www.cic.edu

About C/C:

'The Council of Independent Col-leges is an international associationof more than 400 independent, lib-eral arts colleges and universities.CIC works with college presidents,academic deans, other administra-tors, and faculty to help its memberinstitutions enhance educationalprograms, improve their administra-tive and fmancial performance, andincrease their institutional visibility.The Council is known as both asource of practical advice for collegeleaders and a resource of ideas foreducational reform."

Society of Academic Officers (SAO)SAO is a division of the Center for Policyin Higher Education (CPHE)4301 Connecticut Avenue, Suite 450Washington, DC 20008phone: (202) 363-3149fax:(202) 363-6598e-mail: info@cph.org or sao@cphe.orgweb: http: / /www. cphe. org

About SAO:

"To provide professional develop-ment, networking opportunities,and a forum for the exchange ofideas for academic administratorsfrom all types of institutions andlevels of the profession."

0, Strategies:

From Douglas Steeples, Mercer University:

"Materials that Deans should read withcare.

These include the college bulletin orcatalogue, the viewbook, and otheradmissions materials:

complete a "course count: as a meansof getting a curricular overview;complete a staffing diagram to get asense of how your human resourcesare allocated;frame an understanding of whomthe institution seeks to recruit asstudents and how they do this.

The minutes for at least the mostrecently completed academic year, ofthe faculty business meeting or that ofthe faculty senate.

* The records/recommendations of anycommittees on faculty recruitment, pro-motion, and tenure, together with thoseof your predecessor.The records for the past year of anyother committees that work closelywith you.The faculty handbook, especially thoseportions pertaining to the practices inplace for recruiting, promoting, andtenuring faculty colleagues, and thosepertaining to faculty responsibilities,and to processes for changing thecurriculum.The most recently completed accredi-

O tation self-study report, and writtenresponses and recommendations fromyour regional accrediting body.The budgets for your college or schoolat least for the current and the mostrecent year, and, if possible, 3 to 5years, in order to ascertain funds.

. Audited fmancial statements for yourcollege or school.Any written materials concerning budgeplanning procedures and processes, andpolicies governing fiscal management.

. Any college, school, or (especially)presidential planning documents."

BECOMING A DEAN

Publications:

Martin, Joseph. To Rise Above Principle:The Memoirs of an UnreconstructedDean. Urbana/Champaign, Illinois:University of Illinois Press, 1988.

Tucker, Allan and Robert Bryan. The Aca-demic Dean: Dove, Dragon, and Diplo-mat. Washington, DC: ACE, 1988.

See list of Resources on Administrationand Management, Higher Education, Se-rial Publications, the Classics, and GoodNovels and Entertainments provided bySam Hines on pages 47-52.

Publishers:

Jossey-Bass, ACE/Macmillian/Oryx,Johns Hopkins, and Anker Publishers

CURRICULUM

Publications:Chandler, John et al. Liberal Learning and

the Arts and Sciences Major, 2 volumes.Washington, DC: Association of Ameri-can Colleges, 1990.

Curtis, Mark H. et al. Integrity in theCollege Curriculum. Washington, DC:Association of American Colleges, 1985.

Gaff, Jerry G., James Ratcliff, and asso-ciates. Handbook of the UndergraduateCurriculum. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass,1997.

Kells, H.R. Program Review and Ecluca-

* tional Quality in the Major. Washington,DC: Association of American Colleges,1992.

Kells, H.R. Self-Study Processes: A Guide0. to Self-Evaluation in Higher Education.

4th ed. Phoenix, Arizona: AmericanCouncil on Education/Oryx Press, 1995.

<> Orrin, Robert. ed. Education and Democ-<> racy: Re-Imagining Liberal Learning in

America. New York: College EntranceExamination Board, 1997.

Schneider, Carol Geary and Robert* Shoenberg. "Contemporary Understand-

* ing of Liberal Education: the Academyin Transition." Washington, DC: Asso-ciation of American Colleges andUniversities Publications, 1998.

* Strategies:

From Peter Alexander, St. Peter's College:

"On Curriculum Review: Our earliercycles (all departments in a 5-yearrotation) were comprehensive; i.e.,each department had to evaluateeverything. Current and futurecycles will be focused, each on adifferent theme. For example, thecurrent cycle is focused on Out-

* comes Assessment. The intent is tohave fewer issues to deal with in thehope of getting better and more in-* depth analysis."

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LEGAL MATTERS

Publications:Bowen, William B. And Derek Bok. The

Shape of the River: Long-Term Conse-quences of Considering Race in Collegeand University Admissions. Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1998.

"Sexual Harassment: Suggested Policy andProcedures for Handling Complaints."Policy Documents and Reports. Wash-ington, DC: American Association ofUniversity Professors, 1991.

Eames, P. and T. Hustoles. Legal Issues inFaculty Employment. Washington, DC:The National Association of College andUniversity Attorneys, 1989.

Fitzgerald, L. Sexual Harassment inHigher Education: Concepts and Issues.Washington, DC: National EducationAssociation, 1992.

Paludi, M. Ivory Power: Sexual Harass-ment on Campus. Albany, N.Y.: StateUniversity of New York Press, 1991.

Weeks, Kent. Faculty Decision Making andthe Law. Nashville, Tennessee: CollegeLegal Information, Inc., 1994.

Weeks, Kent. Faculty Employment Policies.Nashville, Tennessee: College LegalInformation, Inc., 1997

Publishers:College Legal Information, Inc. pub-lishes Lex Collegii, a quarterly legal news-letter for independent higher educationinstitutions.

ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS

Publications:Chronicle of Higher Education. "Writing a

Faculty Handbook: A Two-Year, Nose-to-the-Grindstone Process." 1985. 31 (5).

Pence, James L. "Adapting Faculty Person-nel Policies." D. W. Steeples, ed. Manag-ing Change in Higher Education. NewDirections for Higher Education, 71 (Fall1990).

Publishers:American Association of UniversityProfessors. AAUP Policy Documents andReports.

Strategies:From James L. Pence, St. Olaf College:

"In my experience reviewing dozensof faculty handbooks, especiallythose at liberal arts colleges, theblurring of contract and explanationis the most important issue needingattention."

"You should review your facultyhandbooks and look for all the refer-ences to other documents. Suchreferences should be clearly labeledas "incorporated" or "not incorpo-rated." Failure to be clear may leadto lengthy and expensive litigation."

"Disparity between stated proce-dure and custom arises as a resultof "handbook tinkering" or willfulneglect of continuous review of pro-cedures in force. I have two sugges-tions for reducing the potentialliability resulting from disparity be-tween stated procedure and custom:(1) periodic training and develop-ment sessions for department chairsand others involved in implementingprocedures; (2) establishing a stand-ing regulation that handbook provi-sions be reviewed on a continuousbasis. In some cases, turning cus-tom into stated procedures solvesthe problem. In other cases, movingtext from contractual sections toexplanatory sections satisfies allparties."

REAL LIFE

Publications:Biles, Daniel V. Pursuing Excellence in

Ministry. Berkeley, CA: The AlbanInstitute, 1988.

Bogue, E. Grady. "Moral Outrage & OtherServants of Quality." Trusteeship.January/February, 1997.

Corts, Thomas E. "Let's Stop Trivializingthe Truth." Trusteeship. January/February, 1997.

Hughes, Richard and William Adrian.Models for Christian Higher Education.Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B.Eerdmans Publishing, 1997.

Marsden, George. The Soul of the AmericanUniversity. Oxford, England: Oxford Uni-versity Press, 1994.

Parks, Sharon and L. Da loz, I. Keen, andC. Keen. Common Fire: Lives of Com-mitment in a Complex World. Boston:Beacon Press, 1996.

Rand, Sidney. 'The Administration of theChristian Liberal Arts College." ChristianFaith and the Liberal Arts. Minneapolis:Augsberg, 1960.

Sandler, Bernice and Donna Shavlik andJudith Touchton. The Campus ClimateRevisited: Chilly for Women Faculty,Administrators, and Graduate Students.Washington, DC: American Associationof Colleges and Universities, 1986.

Strategies:From Len Clark, Earlham College:

"Cultivate the habit of considering...criticism, however indirect, as a gift.Develop the habit of always thank-ing those who are its source. It isreally a gift, the more valuable byits rarity."

From Linda H. Mantel, WillametteUniversity:

"Mantel's Three Rules ofAdministration:

1. You can't do everything;2. You can't win them all;3. Not everybody will love you all

the time (followed by Jacobson'sCorollary: And that's ok)."

From George Allan, Dickinson College:

"...you should do for your successorprecisely as you wish your predeces-sor had done for you. First, repeatthose things you appreciated youractual predecessor having done inpreparation for your appearance onthe scene. Second, do not repeatwhatever your predecessor did thatproved useless, counterproductive,or an outright hindrance to yourefforts. Third, add those things ofwhich your predecessor unfortu-nately gave you no forewarning butcould have."

'These suggestions come down to an ad-monition to keep good records. If you re-tain pertinent information (not too much,not too little: just the right amount andkind of stuff) about academic program andthe faculty, the existence of that informa-tion in accessible and intelligible form willbe the best way to have prepared for yoursuccessor. So from your first day as deanyou should be laying the groundwork for asmooth transition to an unknown succes-sor."

I Su

(ONTRIBUTORS

Chairs, ACAD Board

1992 Tamar March, New England College1993 Len Clark, Earlham College1994 Margaret Curtis, Albion College1995 Hannah Goldberg, Wheaton College1996 Lloyd Chapin, Eckerd College1997 Bari Watkins, Morningside College1998 David Leary, University of Richmond

H. Dale Abadie is currently the AssociateDirector of The Croft Institute for Inter-national Studies, University of Mississippi.He formerly was Dean of the College ofLiberal Arts at the University ofMississippi.

Peter Alexander is Academic Dean at SaintPeter's College.

George Allan is currently Professor ofPhilosophy Emeritus at Dickinson College.He formerly was Dean of the College atDickinson.

Lloyd W. Chapin is Vice President andDean of the Faculty at Eckerd College.

191

Len Clark is Provost and Academic Deanat Earlham College.

Virginia Coombs is Vice President of Aca-demic Affairs at Oklahoma City University.

Martha A. Crunkleton is Professor of Phi-losophy and Religion at Bates College. Sheformerly was Vice President for AcademicAffairs and Dean of the Faculty at Bates.

Peter A. Facione is Dean of the College ofArts and Sciences at Santa ClaraUniversity.

Philip Glotzbach is Vice President ofAcademic Affairs at the University ofRedlands.

Myron S. Henry is Provost and Professorof Mathematical Sciences at the Universityof Southern Mississippi. He was formerlyProvost and Professor of Mathematics atKent State University.

Samuel M. Hines, Jr. is Dean ofHumanities and Social Sciences and

ResourceHandbook

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AcademicDeans

Professor of Political Science at theCollege of Charleston.

David Hoekema is Interim Vice Presidentfor Student Life and Professor of Philoso-phy at Calvin College. He was formerlyAcademic Dean at Calvin College.

David E. Leary is Dean of the School ofArts and Sciences at the University ofRichmond.

Carol E. Lucey is Vice President forAcademic Affairs at SUNY College ofTechnology at Alfred.

Linda H. Mantel is Interim Vice-Presidentfor Academic Administration at WillametteUniversity. She was formerly Dean of theFaculty at Reed College.

Gary L. Maris is Professor of PoliticalScience at Stetson University. He wasformerly the Dean of the School of Artsand Sciences at Stetson.

Charles D. Masiello is Dean of DysonCollege of Arts and Sciences at PaceUniversity.

James L. Pence is Vice President and Deanof the College at St. Olaf College.

James P. Pitts is Vice Chancellor for Aca-demic Affairs at the University of NorthCarolina at Asheville.

Lisa A. Rossbacher is President of South-ern Polytechnic State University. She wasformerly Dean of the College at DickinsonCollege.

Elizabeth Scarborough is Dean of LiberalArts and Sciences at Indiana UniversitySouth Bend.

Kathleen Schatzberg is President of CapeCod Community College. She was formerlyVice President for Academic Affairs atRochester Community and TechnicalCollege.

Douglas Steeples is Dean and Professor ofHistory of the College of Liberal Arts atMercer University.

Walter C. Swap is Dean of the Colleges atTufts University.

Bari Watkins is Vice President and Dean ofthe College at Morningside College.

American Conference of Acadernic Deans1818 R Street, NW

Washington, DC 20009

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