March 2020
Featured Article
A Workshop for New Chairs at ECEDHA 2020
By John Papapolymerou, Michigan State University, and Art Lizotte, Keysight Technologies
Stepping into your new office, the one you just moved into over the weekend, you sit down and open your email to find a plethora of messages. You see several congratulatory messages, some from your faculty, two from the dean, and one from the provost. You immediately realize that you will need a new plan for how you tackle your inbox. Yet, before you get started, Sarah, whom you have known for years and now reports to you, comes into your office and asks for a moment of your time. (You think to yourself, maybe I need to keep my door closed if I don’t want to be interrupted.) Sarah informs you that she would like to communicate to the IAB that you have just started and you look forward to meeting everyone in the fall. (Again, you think to yourself, you don’t even know who’s on the IAB much less want to open yourself to yet another set of emails to reply to.) You let Sarah know that you will let her know by Friday how you would like to proceed. As she leaves, Bob, the somewhat problematic faculty member, walks in after her. Bob wants to chat about the upcoming faculty senate meeting. You ask if he would work with Sarah to setup a time on Wednesday. Bob rolls his eyes as he turns to leave and you get up to walk behind him to close the door.
This might sound a bit extreme and may have resembled your first day on the job as ECE Department Chair. Yet, having to manage your schedule differently, having to address issues from your faculty and students, and having to work with your fellow department chairs, your dean and those above him, as well as students and alumni are all part of the challenges that await you and more. Throughout the workshop, expect great discussions from John, an experienced ECE chair and MSU ALP Fellow and Art, an experienced manager from industry, to equip you well for your role as department chair as they share best practices every chair should master by the end of their first year. We will also introduce for the first time an inbox exercise where we will give participants a real department chair scenario and discuss with them how to best address the given situation in a group format. Recent and upcoming trends in higher education will also be presented and discussed with participants to better prepare them for the department chair role.
Come prepared with your questions for John and Art as you probably have been faced with several challenging situations already. While there will be many topics discussed, answering your questions will be a priority, whether are part of the group or offline if the details need to be handled more discreetly. Either way, you should walk away with nuggets of wisdom to use.
Whether you have been in your roles for a short time already or maybe you haven’t started yet, you will benefit by the rich discussions and exercise that will take place during the two-hour workshop.
John and Art look forward to meeting all of you in Orlando!