“The first rule of leadership: it’s all your fault.”
– from A bug’s life
Congratulations! You have been elected, appointed or deceived to serve as department chair, and everyone says it is the hardest job on campus. Maybe that’s what draws you into the position – the days, nights, and weekends you like, these issues have nothing to do with creativity, inspiration, or intellectuals. Maybe you dream of having a positive impact on mentoring young faculty or gaining more respect and resources from superior government for your department.
If you have spent more than a month working, your attitude towards being admired by faculty, staff and students will also crash on the jagged shore: “What did you do for me today?” Reality. Now is the time to plan B. We provide a list of proven techniques to ensure you are never asked to serve as chairman again.
Tip 1: Spend most of your time on strategic planning.
Strategic planning is your most important job as chairman; we all know that these documents are constantly mentioned. I have my laminated card on which I distribute to potential donors and students and read frequently during the coffee break.
When writing these documents, create a “word salad” – the better the pseudo-intelligence. The consistent sprinkle of terms such as “revolution”, “intellectual” and “equal” will strengthen the document. Violating George Orwell’s writing rules, a long word, a short word can always be used and replaced with terms with everyday English equivalents (e.g., “With a brave focus on the principles of fairness and equity, we will innovately create a minor secondary aid in a multi-disciplinary subject that is ubiquitous in these small-scale societies while providing an existing and once again stage for industrial flow to replace the stage.
Make a subcommittee to do this and make sure they meet in the summer – especially if your faculty has been appointed for 9 months. Task Subcommittee members create these documents from scratch. Don’t take the time to find previous versions or draft potential plans as a starting point.
Tell the Subcommittee that you would be happy to meet with them when you need your input. Then all invitations are rejected. Let them guess what you want the final product will create a lively conversation and allow them to combine on your blunt instructions.
Tip 2: Hold a teacher meeting from hell.
Use teacher meetings as an opportunity to read news updates that are easy to email. Or, better, email each of each project and read it out loud at a teacher meeting. Remember that your teachers are not busy with their own research, teaching and services.
When sensitive issues arise on the agenda, make your position clear and clear before asking for a vote and highlight any other strategies that it is superior. Then answer the teacher’s questions based on their efforts to court you. Teachers will soon learn that without other opinions or the attention of lively debates, the meeting went smoother.
Finally, openly vote on these decisions by simply raising your hands. The old teachers will be as comfortable as all professors when it comes to sharing their votes. People of different races/ethnicities, cultural backgrounds and genders will feel a similar level of comfort. If you work as a chair and think the decision is simple, then they will be simple too.
Tip 3: Avoid meeting teachers to review their research trajectory.
Each faculty’s annual report will provide enough information to save you time meeting with each faculty. The teacher before the lease will head in multiple different directions to get funds, or who waives the grant after the first refusal should face the consequences it should be. We all suffered during that time, and they should have suffered too.
In this spirit, avoid scheduling and supporting the coaching team of new teachers. Or, if you have assigned a new teacher’s mentor, assume that the two meet regularly. New teachers will always be happy to get in touch with their busy senior mentors whenever they have questions.
Tip #4: Become an expert in everything.
Departments are complex organizations that preside oversee a group of fields including finance/budget, human resources, courses, teaching tasks, graduate problems, computing support, and more. Put on as many hats as possible and be an expert on all these topics. Do not entrust employees, graduate program supervisors or partners who may have expertise in these areas.
Tip #5: As much service as possible.
Teachers always try to reduce their work, so a rule is formulated that is suitable for distributing services and sticking to them. In this spirit, confuse “equality” with “equality” and relate any reference to diversity, equity and inclusion to social justice with “you know, deij, yadda yadda yadda”.
Do not consider mentoring other teachers as a service. In fact, if it happens outside of one of your official committees, don’t calculate any useful, impactful or innovative services. If this is indeed a clever idea, then you’ll already have it.
When teachers ask for a break with a busy committee to focus on a major grant proposal or develop a new course, remind them that when you are a faculty member, you are able to complete both tasks while also serving as a business officer, a director of graduate program and an honorary faculty member for daily yoga classes.
Tip #6: Become a Dean’s Messenger.
As a chair, you are essentially the mouthpiece of the dean and the superior government. So, focus most of the time on top-down initiatives. Don’t canvas your teachers to understand the needs of their own growth and success. And, if you take rash steps to develop a department-driven plan, be sure to make the Dean’s advice in every step you take. Carefully allocated a large amount of planning work to non-productive teachers who taught the same courses the same way and received a major research grant last time before 2000.
Finally, teachers are encouraged to know the deans and other members of the upper-level government. Then, punish them savagely because any communication directly through yours.
Tip #7: Become a brave decision maker.
When a decision to need a chair, please do not ask your instructor’s ideas first. It looks stronger if you make a decision in isolation. Similarly, when a faculty asks you to do something, saying “no” every time you ask to say “no” means you are strong and decisive. Or, say yes to a random “corridor inquiry” instead of considering a faculty member if they need it.
Remind your teachers frequently that you are “data-driven” and require any requirement, no matter how small, with a few pages of reason to delineate the cost of a penny, determine the exact source of each dollar, and include a comprehensive, multi-species ROI analysis. Then make a decision based on your mood or bad mood and the teacher’s requirements are from one of your “favorites”.
Tip #8: Respond to students’ complaints about teachers immediately.
When you receive a complaint about a student’s faculty, take action against that faculty immediately. Remember that students are completely objective; stories cannot be on the other hand. Let the same college president deal with things directly with the faculty and staff, and even better the president. Ignore the department’s charter, i.e. the faculty and staff work hard to develop. Decisive action is better than following agreed guidelines. Don’t perform your role as the main supervisor of the faculty and certainly not a person who is in a stake in mind.
Tip #9: Let everyone know how busy and important you are.
Say, “I remember I was just a teacher; it was much easier than being a chair.” Or, better yet, “I did the chairs wrong before; we did better when we went back to my old school.”
Always refer to the Dean, Provost and President in their name. Then, if teachers do the same, tell them that they are disrespectful.
Tip #10: No life, put your research on it.
It’s crazy to think that you can keep your lab going. Instead, spend most of your time replying to emails. You will be proud of your pain in response to the latest requests from the upper government immediately. Don’t distribute special “meeting coffee with chairs” or do not spend special time doing your own work. In the chair, you can easily stand out from your own research!
Finally, and most importantly, although you will never be asked to serve as a chair, you will be eligible to be the dean. Now prepare yourself and be open to your position with a positive attitude!
Disclaimer: Any similarity to a particular chair in the present or past is purely accidental. The product is manufactured without any chairs being damaged.
