In the Room Where It Happens

The career path for posttenure academics is never straight and narrow. But one of the major decisions you must confront, regardless if that choice is thrust upon you or arrived at willingly, is whether or not to become an administrator. The job can, of course, take many forms: from department chair to running a university committee to upper administration -- and it’s never an easy choice.

We believe if faculty want to reclaim the university, we must be willing to take on some leadership roles. One of the major problems is that there’s no training for it. As graduate programs across the disciplines begin to rethink how they do things, there’s little consideration for what the work of the professoriate actually is. Too many of us are still trained as if we’re to become 19th-century white men at elite schools.

We’re still too often told to worry about our research, do a bit of teaching and try to get out of any and all service. But that helps contribute to the above problems, shunting service loads to the most vulnerable, the most marginalized in the academy. And that leads to (among other things) the gendered dynamics of “standing still” at the rank of associate professor and the disproportionate burden of service that falls on colleagues of color. Certainly, not all of these pressures come from within the faculty. We’re all also aware of the continuing erosion of shared governance at the university, the arrogation of faculty prerogatives by professional staff and the sharp decline in tenured faculty positions.

So, how can faculty members fight back? Partly by being in the room when decisions are made, being willing to use your tenured position to work for the benefit of others and remaining open to learning new skills.

Leadership positions for faculty members aren’t unicorns, and some of what we suggest could be applicable to any situation. A large part of moving into a leadership position as a faculty member is learning how to lead. It’s also about deploying “no” strategically, declining the types of service that are unnecessary to the real work of higher education, and being smart about how you use your time when you decide to say yes.

Though by no means exhaustive, here are some ways that you can be an effective leader while also protecting your own and your colleagues’ well-being.

Remember what it is to be a faculty member. The first thing you can do to combat how overburdened faculty members are is to not add to the burden. The pressures you have felt are felt by others. Try to start with kindness and think that your main role is to work for people, not against them. Look for ways to support them and to make things better. Be labor, not management (as much as possible). That can mean asking questions, looking for bureaucratic spaces between things that give the department/committee more room to operate, and taking the heat to shield more vulnerable colleagues.

Respect other people’s time in person and via email. We are deluged with meetings and emails, so as a committee or department chair, use them sparingly. Meetings, including regularly scheduled faculty meetings, should only be for issues that need discussion and collaborative decision making. Set an agenda ahead of time and ask others to contribute. If you must share information to facilitate the discussion, do that in an email beforehand. Better yet, using shared record keeping such as Google Drive, Sharepoint, Office365 or simply your campus’s learning management system allows people to access the information.

Indeed, if nothing needs to be discussed in person, cancel the meeting. But then don’t simply redirect others’ time from a canceled meeting to answering a slew of emails. Triage all those emails you get. Use discretion in forwarding, combine various emails into one for the whole group and signpost like your life depends on it. You can even use bullet points!

Most important, make it clear (in the subject line, if possible) when you need a response on something and how quickly you need it. Your colleagues are juggling distinctly different kinds of work at once -- teaching, scholarship and administrative tasks -- and are responsible for managing their own time. As a result, they probably have their own work planned out with little wiggle room. Being clear about what is needed and when is particularly important so that no one feels compelled to answer on the weekends or during breaks, when they are focused on their personal lives.

Build toward a team. Academe most often rewards individual work and individual achievement, and as a result, functioning as part of a team may be unfamiliar terrain. But one of the key tenets of shared governance is allowing people to have a voice, and a great deal of work can be accomplished more effectively and efficiently by a team rather than by a group of people operating as individual agents. Helping your colleagues see the advantages of teamwork, compromise and collaboration can make everyone’s life easier in the long run.

Further, leadership positions in large bureaucratic structures, such as department or committee chairs, come with power. Acknowledge that, but don’t be a Sulla and create a dictatorship to save the republic. Empower others by saying “yes!” to good ideas, use your position to help them accomplish their goals and give credit where credit is due. Help your colleagues see how everyone is benefiting from collaboration.

Often, this kind of leadership means listening more than you speak and being transparent about how decisions in certain situations must be made. Faculty tend to want consensus, but sometimes that won’t be possible. In those cases, it’s vitally important that when making a decision, all voices are heard -- no one is shut out. Aim for equity, not equality. This last item is especially important to remember as you work to support untenured colleagues and those whose identities are underrepresented in leadership roles.

Deal with the missing stair. Differences within your team are good. Make use of those differences, praise those differences, empower those differences -- and help everyone see how the team’s diverse perspectives and skills are an advantage. But don’t accommodate a missing stair.

For those unfamiliar with the term, “missing stair” applies to a person who is poisonous to a group but whom that group has grown accustomed to working around, often because it’s simply easier to do so. We all know those colleagues. And we all know that, too often, no one is willing to address the missing stair, so that successive generations of faculty wind up having to manage the same difficult situation.

Instead of passing on the problem, step up and address it. Admittedly, that means confrontation, so be sure to know your own tendencies and style when it comes to conflict resolution and what resources you actually have at your disposal. Confronting the problem will be difficult in the short term but will lessen the burden on everyone in the long term.

The landscape of higher education is rapidly changing in sometimes alarming and often exhausting ways. Faced with such challenging terrain, you may be tempted to step aside and allow administrators to cope with the challenges. But effective and sustainable faculty leadership can and should be a mode of solidarity with our colleagues, and a way to change the landscape by building together.