Agenda

8:30 - 12:00 p.m.

Your registration for the pre-conference workshop includes the session below and materials as well as breakfast and lunch.

Embrace your role as a leader! This workshop delves into what it means to be a leader and aims to explore a series of questions that a department chair must answer for themselves, including:

• Am I a boss or a colleague?
• Am I faculty or administration?
• Do I focus on the day-to-day or the long-term?
• Which decisions are mine and which should go to a department vote?
• Should I have an “open door” or “by appointment” policy?
• Where does work end and my life begin?
• How do I balance the daily tasks with strategic and visionary planning?
• Where do I focus my attention: the “squeaky wheels” or the “silent types?”

The reality is that a successful chair must tailor his or her approach to the many problems, tasks, and issues at hand. The workshop helps you to identify your most comfortable leadership tendencies and then to grow that comfort zone to embrace multiple leadership modes and skills.

12:30 - 5:30 p.m.

Your registration fee includes full access to all conference sessions and materials, access to the networking reception on Monday, breakfast and lunch on Tuesday, and breakfast on Wednesday, as well as refreshments and snacks throughout the conference.

The initial session of this workshop will provide a series of practical and accessible tools regarding questions you may be asking, such as:

• Why serve as an academic leader?
• How do I develop as a leader?
• What is academic leadership?
• How long is long enough?
• How do I manage my relationships and my productivity (my management molecule)?
• What legacy do I wish to leave?

Success as a department chair requires not just knowledge and skills but the emotional intelligence to interact with others effectively. We will take a snapshot of your current level of emotional intelligence and also explore some strategies for how you can improve your management of emotions in order to lead and influence change effectively.

This informal reception is your chance to decompress, have some refreshments on us, and expand your network of connections. Our programs are intentionally designed for smaller groups, so this is a great time to catch-up with attendees and speakers whom you may not have connected with yet.

8:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

One of the skills essential to departmental leadership is the ability to work with others—both inside and outside of the department—to create a vision for the future and to energize others to focus their efforts to make that vision a reality. The key to success will be your ability to simultaneously manage up and manage down, ensuring that the department’s vision aligns with the dean’s vision for the college and with the overall strategic direction of the university. In this session, we will discuss creating a shared vision for the future, goal-setting at the department level, and aligning the department’s vision with other institutional priorities. We will review different types of department meetings and how to ensure that you are maximizing the potential of your face-to-face interactions with your faculty.

In this interactive session, we will dive deeper into “The Call” to academic leadership, while exploring the skills of effective departmental teamwork. Through simulation and discussion, you will develop strategies for shared leadership, consensual decision-making, constructive conflict, and collegiality and civility.

Although most faculty are conscientious, supportive, and hardworking, occasionally the chair must deal with a colleague whose behavior or substandard performance (whether in the classroom, in governance or service capacities, or in scholarship) presents problems for the department. This portion of the conference will provide tools for the department chair to identify the nature of the performance problem and to determine whether the faculty member can change the problematic behavior. We will also discuss strategies to follow if the faculty member resists attempts to improve his or her performance.

8:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

“Chairing the academic department is like herding cats!” We’ve all heard remarks such as this; the challenge of getting buy-in for departmental initiatives can be daunting. Our experts will discuss how to motivate others to work towards departmental goals (even when those goals may be in tension with individual professional goals), how to ensure voluntary compliance with external mandates, and how to inspire your colleagues to reach their own potentials. We will look at what research says about motivation and about how to harness these results to motivate your own faculty and staff. Finally, we will distinguish mentoring from sponsorship and discuss best practices for supporting your colleagues as a mentor or sponsor.

In this closing session, each participant will apply the previous sessions’ tools and techniques and develop a plan to guide them forward and continue their own professional development on your campus.

12:00 – 4:00 pm

Your registration for the post-conference workshop includes the session below and materials as well as lunch.

Addressing issues of civility among faculty can be a thorny issue. This workshop will provide an in-depth examination of this increasingly important issue, including concrete steps academic leaders can take to improve civility on campus and address issues as they arise. Session topics will include:

How free speech affects an institution’s ability to address incivility

Considering collegiality during performance reviews, tenure, reappointment, and promotion

The impact of “controversial” social media use

Recommended strategies for responding to an uncivil faculty member

Building a culture of civility in your department, college, or institution

This workshop will examine scenarios and concrete examples of managing incivility that will inform your own institutional policies and practices.