Facilitating a Collegial Department in Higher Education E-Book

Robert E. Cipriano

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

Facilitating a Collegial Department in Higher Education

Written for department chairs and deans, this well-researched resource offers a practical reference for how to create and sustain a more civil and harmonious departmental culture. Filled with useful information, including relevant case law, the book gives readers what they need to know to enhance the climate, culture, and collegiality in an academic department, as well as the university.

Praise for Facilitating a Collegial Department in Higher Education

"Bob Cipriano has provided a book that addresses department civility— a critical, ongoing problem in higher education. The book is rich in examples, best practices, and strategies for dealing with individuals as well as ways to build collegial departments…. Not only is the book packed with information, the author also has an engaging writing style and wit."
—DANIEL W. WHEELER, higher education consultant; professor emeritus and former head, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

"Pull out a fresh highlighter before opening this book! Be prepared to immediately collect practical, usable tools for building civility in your department from an experienced chair and successful workshop presenter."
—SHARON BROOKSHIRE, director of conferences, Division of Continuing Education, Kansas State University

"Department chairs' greatest job dissatisfaction emanates from colleagues in conflict. Bob Cipriano teaches and guides us, first how to deal with toxic colleagues and then how to turn your department into a collegial environment."
—WALTER GMELCH, dean, School of Education, University of San Francisco

Leseprobe

Jossey-Bass Resources for Department Chairs

Books

Jeffrey L. Buller, Academic Leadership Day by Day: Small Steps That Lead to Great Success

Jeffrey L. Buller, The Essential Department Chair: A Practical Guide to College Administration

Don Chu, The Department Chair Primer: Leading and Managing Academic Departments

Robert E. Cipriano, Facilitating a Collegial Department in Higher Education: Strategies for Success

Christian K. Hansen, Time Management for Department Chairs

Mary Lou Higgerson, Communication Skills for Department Chairs

Mary Lou Higgerson and Teddi A. Joyce, Effective Leadership Communication: A Guide for Department Chairs and Deans for Managing Difficult Situations and People

Daryl Leaming, Academic Leadership: A Practical Guide to Chairing the Department, Second Edition

Daryl Leaming, Managing People: A Guide for Department Chairs and Deans

Jon Wergin, Departments That Work: Building and Sustaining Cultures of Excellence in Academic Programs

Dan Wheeler et al., The Department Chair's Handbook, Second Edition

Journal

The Department Chair

Online Resources

Visit www.departmentchairs.org for information on online seminars, articles, book excerpts, and other resources tailored especially for department chairs.

Contents

Cover

Jossey-Bass Resources for Department Chairs

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1: Collegiality and Civility in Higher Education

Incivility in Higher Education

Changing Dynamics of Higher Education

The Importance of Civility in Higher Education

Collegiality Operationally Defined

The Challenging and Complex Role of the Department Chair

The Lynchpin of a University

The Power of the Chair

What Draws Someone to Chair a Department? To Make a Difference

The Power of Collegiality

How Chairs Can Facilitate a Positive Environment in Their Department

Resources

Conclusion

Chapter 2: Respectful Codes and Hiring for Collegiality

Attributes Faculty Members Should Possess

Hiring for Collegiality

How to Recognize and Support Collegiality

Collegiality Interview Questions

Developing Codes for Collegial Conduct

Conclusion

Chapter 3: Strategies for Promoting Collegiality

The Chair's Role in Facilitating a Collegial Department

Proactive Strategies Chairs Can Employ to Promote Collegiality in the Department

Invest in People

Conclusion

Chapter 4: Managing Conflict Within the Department

Positive Effects of Conflict

Negative Effects of Conflict

Conflict Summarized

Anger

Role of Department Chair

Key Preparations for Meeting with a Difficult Person

No Jerks Allowed in This Department

Mitigating Circumstances

Collegiality Issues External to Institutions of Higher Education

Communicate to Minimize Conflict

Turning a Conflict into a Problem to Be Managed

Conclusion

Chapter 5: University-Wide Responsibilities in Promoting a Collegial Campus

Changing Dynamics of Higher Education

University-Wide Responsibilities for Fostering Collegiality

Conclusion

Chapter 6: Structural Realignment, Budgetary Support, and Cyberbullying

Structural Misalignment That May Damage Collegiality

A Vision Defeated by Misalignment of Role with Negative Impact on Collegiality

What Might Have Happened Instead

Correct Alignment That Promotes the Academic Core Mission

Misalignment That Places the Academic Mission at Risk

Consequences of Not Choosing Collegiality as the Guiding Principle and Outcome

Misalignment of Results Due to Misplaced and Inauthentic Collegiality

Faculty Members Suspicious of Success in Other Units of the System

Chair Role Is Ambiguous but It Can Be a Guiding Light to Advance the Mission of the Department

Chair Can and Should Be Privy to Discussions as a Partner in the Academic Vision

Chair Not Being Consulted: Dire Consequences Due to Noncollegial Environment

Point of Service Effectiveness

Reiterated Strategies to Facilitate Collegiality Among All Reporting Structures Within Academic Affairs

New Strategies for the Academy

Misalignment

Rebuilding Alignment

Implications and Conclusions

Problems with the Role of Deans

Difficult Lessons for Leaders

Doing More with Less: Why It Doesn't Work

Role of the Chair Living with Retrenchment

Honest, Effective Budgeting Key to Collegiality

Shared Leadership with the Chairs

Strategies to Suggest for Working with Chairs

Redesign for an Upside-Down Alignment to Create Collegiality

Use of Varied Campus Professionals to Develop Collegiality

Search Process

Advisement That Really Enhanced the Chair Role in Unanticipated Ways

Successful Advisement Realignment

Overuse of Electronic Communication

Chapter 7: Case Law Regarding Collegiality in Higher Education

What the Courts Have Ruled—An Overview

The Courts’ Decisions

Professional Rights and Responsibilities

Universities and the Courts

Breach of Contract Argument

First Amendment Argument

Ability to Cooperate

Collegiality Statements—Selected Universities

Creating a Collegial Department

How Is Collegiality Reflected in Your Department?

Collegiality Recap

Conclusion

Conclusion

Appendix: A Four-Year Study of Department Chairs

Results of the 2008 Survey

Modification of the Survey Instrument—2009

Collegiality and Challenges—2010 Survey

Demographics of Department Chairs

Pleasant and Unpleasant Tasks

Skills and Competencies

References

Acknowledgments

The Author

Index

Copyright © 2011 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cipriano, Robert E., date

Facilitating a collegial department in higher education : strategies for success / Robert E.

Cipriano; foreword by Jeffrey L. Buller. – 1st ed.

p. cm.—(Jossey-Bass resources for department chairs; 130)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-470-90301-8; 978-1-118-10763-8 (ebk); 978-1-118-10764-5 (ebk); 978-1-118-10769-0 (ebk)

1. Universities and colleges—United States—Administration. I. Title.

LB2341.C546 2011

378.73–dc22

2011014359

To the Eight Women Wonders of the World:

To my precious daughters, Michele and Jennifer— two of my dearest friends in life

To my two equally precious granddaughters, Amanda and Julia— both bring immeasurable joy to me on a daily basis

To my loving wife and life's partner for forty-eight years, Raffaela— she remains my dearest friend and loving companion

In loving memory of my grandmother, Theresa; my mother-in law, Angie; and my mother, Rose—not a day goes by that I don't remember their gift of love

Foreword

If you browse through the program of almost any conference devoted to administrative development today, you're likely to be amazed by the sheer number of sessions and presentations dealing with collegiality (or the lack thereof). Deans and department chairs are constantly challenged by the need to engender greater civility in their professional environments, no matter whether they're working at institutions large or small, public or private, newly created or blessed with a long tradition. We're all striving for good, open, and transparent communication as a means of achieving our goals in education and research and helping our programs succeed globally. Academic disciplines thrive when diverse perspectives can be shared without differences of opinion becoming the basis for rancorous personal attacks and when colleagues work together harmoniously without succumbing to group think. The big question, of course, is, How in the world can you do that?

In the chapters that follow, Bob Cipriano—one of the foremost voices in the area of administrative leadership today—provides a great deal of insight into where a lot of academic departments go wrong in their efforts to achieve civility, what works best, and how case law has affected the way in which collegiality is addressed in higher education today. There's not a page in this book that didn't teach me something important, and I'm coming away from it with a lot of great ideas for my own program that I can't wait to start trying. If you haven't yet had the privilege of experiencing Bob in person at a workshop or in a consultancy, that's a pity, but this book is the next best thing. You'll have a lot of opportunities to see his wit in operation, to benefit from his data-driven analyses of what works in academic leadership today, and to gain insights from his vast experience. If that's not enough, Bob's colleague Ellen Beatty has created a truly useful resource in Chapter Six, where she examines the issue of collegiality within the larger institutional environment, offering a wealth of practical advice about how chairs can partner with other administrators to improve the professional environment more broadly than is possible in the department alone.

If you're a regular reader of The Department Chair—and if you're not, then shame on you: you should be—you're already familiar with the surveys Bob conducts each year with Richard Riccardi. Those studies have been invaluable in giving administrators accurate information about how department chairs view their positions, what they regard as important, and what types of training they value most. You'll find the fruits of that work in this book as well, and it consistently demonstrates the importance that administrators place on good communication, making a positive difference in their disciplines, and creating an environment in which ideas can be explored civilly and collegially. But how those goals can be achieved and how they can best be incorporated into the structure of roles and rewards found throughout higher education today . . . that is a task that has so far eluded colleges and universities of all sizes and missions. In the pages that follow, Bob makes a major contribution toward filling this gap. Whether your interest is in discovering what case law has established about the proper role of collegiality at institutions of higher education, creating a practical plan for promoting collegiality in your own department, or developing a university-wide strategy for promoting positive and collegial discourse, Facilitating a Collegial Department in Higher Education: Strategies for Success has the answers you're looking for.

But what I think Bob's greatest contribution in this book is something that goes far beyond the topic of collegiality itself. By the time you reach Chapter Three you'll be discovering ways of not only avoiding something negative (incivility, uncollegial behavior), but also of building something positive (enthusiastic, collaborative progress). The department chair who's a genuine academic leader is someone who's interested in creating an environment in which students learn best, faculty scholarship is innovative, and the entire campus community is fully engaged in the mission of higher education. This vision becomes possible as more and more chairs incorporate into their daily activities the ideas that are explored here. Its title, after all, is Facilitating a Collegial Department in Higher Education: Strategies for Success, not Rescuing an Uncivil Department. The goal is always to keep our eyes on the affirmative.

Now if we could only find some way of making Bob a bit more collegial himself . . .

June 2011

Jeffrey L. BullerDean, Harriet L. Wilkes Honors CollegeFlorida Atlantic UniversityJupiter, Florida

Introduction

Incivility and lack of collegiality are on the rise in institutions of higher education. This phenomenon can range from disputes and tension at one and to violence at the other. There are many departments that suffer from noncollegial, uncivil, and nasty encounters between faculty members, faculty members and staff, and faculty members and students. Department chairs must deal with these types of encounters on a regular basis. If you are a department chair, you may feel that this is just the way it is, that you must struggle on your own to deal with a noncollegial and downright nasty faculty member or a department culture in which civility is compromised. Don't!