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Making a Case for Your Department

Improving Your Department's Standing at Your Institution

Notes from the 2014 Heads and Chairs Workshop discussion


We first discussed: "What does success (i.e. high visibility and good outcomes) look like?"

  • Given a tenure-track line when they are in short supply (new full-time position = investing in the future)
  • Monetary resources - e.g. "great issues" courses covered a huge % of student credit hours - Additional TAs
  • Resentment from other departments - pie is only so big
  • Before the dean showed up - alumni threw receptions all over the country, paid for dean, wine and dine - advocate for state-funding (major gains for faculty)

Other thoughts:

  • Raising visibility and making faculty more productive go hand-in-hand, because administration wants to hear about productive faculty
  • Smaller departments have fewer total accomplishments than a big department
  • Some departments have multiple degree programs, indisciplinary faculty - tend to be more visible
  • undergraduate programs may not be valued as much at higher (dean etc.) levels as graduate/research programs
  • There is a balance between faculty engagement in the program vs. the university as a whole.
  • Balancing among programs within a single department complicates this issue further - diversity with the department makes it hard to promote one area over another.
  • A department can be hurt by outspoken faculty who are "thorns in the side" of the administration. These faculty can harm the relationship between the department and higher level administration.

What can raise visibility?

  • Having a full time communications director - web page, Facebook, twitter feed. This kind of PR should provide immediate recognition of major awards to faculty, dean, students. The value of this type of immediate, active outreach was noted by multiple people, with or without a communications person (may fall to the chair).
  • Rather than a periodic newsletter (where departments "save up" news), it was recommended to keep an ongoing immediate electronic updates
  • Increasing personal visibility of director/chair by giving talks to diverse audiences (on campus and off)
  • Communication, communication, communication - the programs that toot own horn are easier to promote. (Deans, presidents, etc. are looking for programs to promote, but they need talking points... these must be provided by the department itself. If the department isn't sharing successes, they will likely go unnoticed)
  • Helps to have an alumni advisory board, with a chailr, vice-chair, secretary. Then the alumni are self-organizing (less work for department chair) and play a major role in raising the visibility of the department (and rasing $)
  • Celebrating anniversaries - like 20th anniversary of the department, or other major milestones.

How to change perceptions of a dean who does not value the department?

  • It was noted that disciplinary biases can play a role at the dean's level

What are people doing to increase research productivity within department?

  • Emphasizing Ph.D. over M.S. graduate students, this leads to a smaller program, but higher publication rate
  • Clarifying dissertation expectations of 3-4 published (or publishable) papers

Other ideas to raise visibility:

  • Having very-engaged alums - they work for industry, have $, passion for department, "money where mouth is" --> this type of engagement leads to leverage at campus level
  • One chair has monthly telecons with any alums who want to call in
    --> Used to highlight positive things within the department
  • When faculty get an award, send out immediately to all alums and copy the dean. Work with the university PR office, get it posted on university news if possible.
    --> Have a Facebook site that engages the entire department, including faculty and students (not just students, not just alums)
    --> Work with the Dean's PR office
  • When students get best-paper awards, send to the dean + entire department, faculty, students, facebook
  • For these successes, have the secretary of alumni advisory board spread the word to all alumni - this keeps the "alumni leading alumni" feeling and engages the secretary of the alumni board in promoting the department.
  • Do a lot of service to the university, in terms of classes that support other units, general education, things the dean feels valuable
    --> outcomes such as TAs, faculty lines, etc.
  • Dean's offices love assessment reports about student learning

Summary:
Overall, we had an active and productive discussion, with an emphasis on using social media for immediate communication (where the Dean is cc:d), building an alumni board to help work with the chair (this alumni engagement can be powerful with higher level administration), and playing to the strengths of the department in communicating with the dean (whether that is awards, publication rate, assessing outcomes, bringing in $, etc.)