September 2019
Featured Article
Effective Communication with Your Dean
By Jerry Hudgins, University of Nebraska - Lincoln
An important facet of a Department Chair’s (Head) job is the interaction with upper administration, particularly the Dean. There are universal guidelines that are appropriate in these relationships. One is that to the best of your ability, try to keep the Dean informed on important matters, good and bad, so that he/she is not surprised by news delivered in other settings. One of the worst experiences you can have is for your boss to learn about something that you should have conveyed to them. A cautionary note here is to be careful of pestering the Dean with too many details about day-to-day operations in the department. Those issues are your job. Learning the difference is part of the experience. Also, don’t fall into the trap of only messaging bad news or only good news.
There will be many times when help from the Dean or upper administration is necessary to achieve a goal or solve a problem. When coming forward with a problem, it is always a good idea to try to also propose one or two possible solutions, or at least have them ready for discussion if asked. It is also good to think win/win as you develop or discuss solutions [1]. Be mindful that you should try to solve as many problems inside the department or unit as possible. Go to the Dean sparingly for resource requests; he/she will appreciate your efforts to manage your unit.
Establish yourself as dependable and resourceful. Volunteer on occasion to assist in developing a new program, report, data collection, etc., that benefits a group larger than your unit (e.g., the College or institution). There are a myriad of opportunities to lead change and improvement for your unit and larger community, such as leading a strategic planning group, a new awards committee, or faculty development community, as examples. The Dean and other administrators will appreciate your concern and energy applied for the good of the whole. It is certainly also important to be willing to serve with others even if not leading a particular effort. The entire or partial group of department chairs within our College of Engineering often take up tasks that are of importance to us all. In this way, we have developed stronger leadership and other resources to support the Dean and become more social with each other, this having other positive benefits.
There is one idea that is paramount in dealing with your boss and others higher in the academic administration. A simple example illustrates the concept. There is a space issue such that you cannot reshuffle existing space in the department to adequately accommodate a new large educational program. This program will require additional teaching/lab space. You have identified useful space that is currently being used as offices and is occupied by college staff. Having no options to trade office space to the Dean for the needed new lab/teaching space, you inform the students affected by the new program that its implementation will be delayed. The students begin to appear in numbers at the meetings between the Dean and the college-level student advisory committee. The Dean determines that he/she can reallocate some space better used for offices to free up space so the new educational program can begin. This illustrates the concept of “Those that can solve the problem need to have the problem,” [2]. This idea, if implemented, can result in many solutions to many issues.
Finally, always be open, honest, and forthright with the Dean and other administrators. Generally that will carry you through tough times.
[1] The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen R. Covey, Simon & Schuster Inc., 1990, ISBN 0-671-70863-5.
[2] Are Your Lights On?; How to Figure Out What the Problem Really Is, Donald C. Gause and Gerald M. Weinberg, Dorset House Publishing, 1990, ISBN 0-932633-16-1.