Department Chairs: Duties, Responsibilities, and Selection

Introduction

Chairs are administratively responsible for their departments or programs. This means, among other things, that they are responsible for the unit's budget, for providing direction to faculty and staff and evaluating their performances, and for seeing to it that the unit adheres to university, college, and departmental rules and regulations. It is the chair's responsibility to provide leadership to the faculty, staff, and students in the department, leadership that will help them reach their potential for excellence in teaching and learning, research and service. University leadership is inherently different than leadership at other types of institutions. Chairs cannot simply order faculty or students to do things, but must lead by building consensus and trust through collaborative decision-making. Being a chair is also a busy job, and administering the department should be a chair's highest priority.

Note: This document uses the word "chair" to mean department head or program director. All units in CLAS that offer courses and have tenure-track faculty, whether officially a department or not, should have by-laws that include, among other things, a process for electing the chair.

Chair Responsibilities

Budgeting: The Chair develops budget requests in consultation with the dean, and is responsible for managing the departmental budget.

Recruiting and Hiring: The Chair directs the recruitment and hiring of new faculty members and recommends appointments to the dean.

Promotion and Tenure: The Chair recommends to the dean all personnel changes, including salary, tenure, promotion, and rank.

Scheduling: The Chair is responsible for determining teaching assignments and the arrangement of teaching schedules.

Enrollment: The Chair is expected to monitor enrollment and work to meet departmental enrollment goals.

Student Advising: The Chair is responsible for overseeing departmental student advising.

Curriculum: The Chair recommends course and curricular proposals developed within the department for approval by the dean and other appropriate officers and committees.

Office Management: The Chair is responsible for all aspects of departmental office management, including inventory and control of departmental equipment and supplies, fiscal activities, and supervision of clerical support personnel.

Some thoughts about Departmental Leadership

Department Morale. Department chairs have a major influence on departmental morale. With inevitable exceptions, departments will reflect the optimism or pessimism of the chair. Faculty, particularly young faculty, as well as staff, will take their cues from the chair. The best department chairs are those who have positive attitudes, not those who wallow in self-pity and believe themselves the victims of forces beyond their control.

Recognize Accomplishments. Most people appreciate being recognized for doing a good job. Recognize the accomplishments of faculty, staff, and students privately and publicly. Let the department know when a faculty member publishes an article, gets a grant, or makes an important presentation.

Information. Share information, important dates, and good news with the faculty and staff. A department e-mail distribution list is a convenient way to get the word out. E-mail is an easy way to re-send items about which faculty should be informed. Faculty and staff should almost always know about important departmental decisions and the rationale for these decisions. The operation of the office should be transparent, and transparency is accomplished by providing faculty and staff with information.

Regular Department Meetings. Generally, it is wise to schedule a faculty meeting at least once a month. Often, faculty complain about meetings, but you risk far greater ire if you do not meet with your colleagues on a regular basis. Department meetings are an opportunity for you and the faculty to communicate with each other face-to-face. One-on-one meetings are fine, but there is no substitute for meetings in which discussions can take place among all the faculty. It is also wise, if not essential, to keep minutes for departmental meetings and to send them to all department faculty and staff. And, of course, keep a file of past minutes. Invariably, questions will be raised about decisions made during a meeting. Minutes from departmental meetings are also useful for archival purposes and as a reference source if or when there are questions about departmental policy.

Share administrative responsibilities. Departmental service is expected of all academic personnel. Sharing administrative responsibilities with your academic personnel lessens the burdens of the position for you and also improves faculty understanding of the complexity of administration. Effective department heads are able to delegate!

Keep the dean informed. Tell the Dean's Office about departmental accomplishments, including those of both students and faculty. Frankly, departmental prestige is an important factor in budget allocations, faculty awards, etc., and prestige is based upon faculty and student achievement. It pays to advertise accomplishments.

Moreover, the Dean's Office should be kept informed of problems, real or potential. If the Dean's Office has a heads-up on a potential problem, we may be able to work with the department chair to resolve the problem before it gets out of hand. The associate deans are always available to meet with chairs, and each chair has a standing monthly appointment with the dean. You should always make that appointment and use the opportunity to discuss issues in the department.

Records Management. You should keep a copy of relevant letters, memos, notes, student complaints or complements, and emails from the dean and other university officials. Keep a hard copy of any and all agreements with the dean. Obviously documents relating to personnel decisions should be filed. The Oregon University System's archiving policy is available at http://www.ous.edu/archives/schdmain.html. It specifies what you should keep copies of and for how long, and how to dispose of sensitive documents.

Selection of Department Heads

CLAS chairs and directors are appointed for three years, with appointments typically starting on September 1 and ending three years later. The authority of departmental faculty to elect their department chairs and the process by which this election takes place is prescribed in Section 4, Article III of the Constitution of the Portland State Faculty Senate. This is included in the Faculty Governance Guide. Departmental by-laws may further delineate the chair selection process for individual departments. In addition, CLAS strongly recommends that chairs be senior members of the department, be tenured, and have experience in faculty governance. The essence of the chair election process is as follows:

• Chairs are elected for three-year terms;

• They can be reelected for additional three-year terms subject to departmental by-laws;

• Departments have the authority to elect their chairs and to use their own procedure, as long as the chair election procedures are specified and have been approved by the full-time members of the department in a secret ballot;

• Any changes in the departmental chair election procedure must be implemented by April 15th of the department chair's third term;

• After electing a new chair, or reelecting a sitting chair, the department submits its choice to the dean, who will then send it to the provost, who will consequently send the recommendation to the President. The dean and the provost may comment on the department's selection, but they may not change the selection. The President will then approve the choice or ask the department to try again. The dean and the provost may add alternative names, but the original choice of the department must also go forward. Ultimately the department chair serves at the pleasure of the President.

Compensation

For departments with more than five faculty, the chair assignment is .5 FTE on an 11-month basis. This means that the chair receives two months of summer salary and a .5 release from teaching during the academic year, usually one course each quarter.

For departments with fewer than five faculty, the chair receive a .33 FTE release on a 10-month basis. This means that the chair receives one month of summer pay and a 2-course release during the academic year.

Chair and Director Reviews

In the early spring of each year, all university administrators are evaluated based on their job performance, including department chairs and program directors.  The evaluation process has a number of steps. 

• In the first stage of the review, the department chairs and program directors write a self-evaluation detailing their administrative accomplishments over the past year, goals that they have not yet accomplished, and the resources they need to be successful. This self-evaluation is sent to the Dean's office.
• After the initial self-evaluation, a member of the Dean's Office (usually an associate dean or the dean), conducts an interview with the individual chair or program director.
• Based on the self-evaluation and interview, the Dean's Office then writes an evaluation of the chair or director.
• Chairs and directors may ask to review their evaluations if they so choose.
• When this review process is complete, all of the material, including the self-evaluation and the evaluation from the Dean's office, become part of the chair or director's personnel file.

It is the goal of the Dean's office that these evaluations be honest and helpful so that chairs and directors have a good idea of what they are doing well, as well as clearly identified areas for improvement.

Evaluation and Removal

If a chair is not properly fulfilling his or her responsibilities, the Office of the Dean may conduct a midterm evaluation of the chair's performance. If this evaluation finds serious problems in the chair's performance, the dean may request permission from the President to remove the chair. The dean may, in consultation with the provost's office and the President, appoint an interim chair until the problems are resolved.

Department Chair Checklist

This is a check list for new department chairs.  This list includes information all departmental chairs should know when assuming the role as the leader of their unit.  Most of this information will come from the outgoing chair or director, but it may be necessary to contact members of the Dean's office or other University officers for information about some of these items.

Faculty Issues	Check	Date
Where is each tenure track faculty member in their promotion and tenure schedule?  That is, when does each of the department's faculty members come up for tenure, promotion, and peer-review?
Where is each fixed-term faculty member in their promotion schedule?
Are there any special or unusual contractual agreements with faculty members regarding their tenure and promotion?  For instance, have any faculty members been given credit for prior service or has their tenure clock been altered for some reason?
Do you have a copy in the office of every faculty member's current CV?
Development and Fund Raising
What is the department's development or fund raising plan?
What departmental development efforts are on going?
Are there important donors, contacts, or other relationship that need to be maintained or pursued?
What kind of development activities does the department conduct on a regular basis, i.e. newsletters, receptions, etc.?
Curriculum and Course Scheduling
How does the course scheduling process work?
How does the department decide who teaches what?
Are all faculty teaching their contractual load?
What are the deadlines for the course schedule each term?
Who in the unit actually does the scheduling? (You are ultimately responsible.)
Do you have a list of available contingent faculty that can be used for extra sections or when regular faculty are not available to teach?  (You should have a backup list of potential adjunct faculty that could teach is needed. This list should include their terminal degree, area of expertise, and the classes they could teach.)
Budgeting
Have your reviewed the Department's budget with the CLAS CFO?
What does the department budget look like?  That is, what is the unit's total budget, how is it allocated, how much is from exhibit A, how much from the Dean's fund, and how much from other income?
What index numbers does the department have and what are their purposes?
Who does the purchasing for the department?
Do you have a departmental credit card and who controls it?
Assessment
What is the department's assessment plan?
Who is responsible for assessment?
How often do you conduct assessment?  Each term, annually...?
How is the assessment information used in reviewing and restructuring courses and programs?
Advising
What is the departments advising plan?
Who is responsible for advising at the graduate and undergraduate levels?
What is the department doing to increase student retention and graduation rates?
Do you have an advising webpage?
Office Staff and Office Functions
Is your office properly staffed?
Does the office staff understand what their roles are and do you?
Does the office keep regular office hours, which is from 8 to 5?
Who covers the office during the lunch hour and other times when the office staff might be absent?
Grants and Contracts
What grants and contracts do faculty members in the department have?
Who is responsible for the budgets of these grants or contracts; the PI, the Department, you?
What new grants or contract proposals are in the works?
Enrollment Management
What are your department enrollment targets for the year and what mixture of courses will you use to meet these targets?
What are the trends in department's enrollment in the last five years?  Is your enrollment increasing, decreasing, or changing in other ways?
Where do you expect your enrollment to be in five years?
Student Success
How many majors do you have and how many graduate each year?
What steps has the department taken to increase retention and graduation rates?
By-Laws
Does the department have up to date by-laws?
Does you department have up to date promotion and tenure procedures?
Have these by-laws been approved by the Dean's office and by OAA?
Does every faculty member have a copy of the by-laws?