Orientation allows new department leaders to gain knowledge, support

Imagine coming into work in the morning and the following things are taking place simultaneously:

• There was a leak overnight in a lab that makes half of your building's classrooms unusable.
• The department's budget is due to the dean and it's only partially ready.
• Your department administrator has the flu and will be out of the office for a week.
• A top faculty member received a job offer from another university and would like to talk to you about a retention offer.
• A major donor stopped in unexpectedly and the development director would like you to meet with them about funding a strategic research area.
• And you already have a day's worth of meetings (including carving time out to get a major research paper submitted on time). Oh, and you need to leave a bit early today to catch a flight for a conference.

Are you feeling overwhelmed yet? Welcome to a day in the life of a department chair.

While every day for a department chair may not be filled with such stress-inducing activities, that kind of juggling act is not uncommon. That is why many consider it one of the most challenging jobs in the academic enterprise (it was even the subject of its own television series on a popular streaming service a few years ago).

To help those new to this multifaced role succeed, the Office of Academic Affairs held an orientation for new department chairs before the fall semester. It was one of three such orientations the office organized this summer (there were also orientations for new faculty and new graduate assistants).

Christopher Lyons, vice provost for faculty affairs, organized the orientations, and focused a lot of his efforts on revamping the chair training this year - making it more efficient while focusing on building support.

"Chairs often feel overwhelmed, so we want to give them the opportunity to share amongst a community and build a cohort," he said.

Lyons, a professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology, has been in the Provost's Office since January and was given a charge to put increased focus on remaking the orientation provided for the department chairs since the job comes with literally no manual.

"Usually, there is no training," he said. "So we ask leaders to do things they aren't trained to do."

To remedy that, new chair orientation spent a day and a half (compressed from three days in the past) focusing on a wide variety of issues that chairs must handle: managing staff; navigating relationships in a new role; mentoring faculty; promoting a positive department culture; research support; student support resources; supporting and recruiting graduate students; working with unionized workforces; milestone reviews; threat assessments; and budget and finance.

One important addition this year was an ice-breaker activity at the beginning to help chairs get to know each other.

"A cohort allows chairs to learn their connection with others," Lyons said.

The hope is that chairs will utilize this cohort throughout the academic year when issues arise.

"We want them to realize they don't need to go it alone," he said. "They have support in each other."

Although the role of department chair may vary depending on the size and nature of the department, there was also a discussion that defined just what the role of a chair is. Some of the characteristics included a chief academic or executive officer of a department or program; a mix of management and leadership; someone responsible for fostering a positive culture; a good internal and external communicator; and someone who must follow departmental, school/college, and university policies.

The focal areas for a chair were identified as ensuring the success of both faculty and students, as well as serving as an administrator (managing staff, budgets, compliance, fundraising, etc.).

Han Li has been a faculty member for nine years in the Anderson School of Management and this semester is taking on a new role as department chair of Marketing, Information and Decision Sciences, leading 17 full-time faculty.

Although UNM and the department is familiar to her, the chairs' orientation was valuable.

"I learned a lot particularly about evaluations, policies, as well as budgeting," Li said.

Belinda Wallace, who has been at UNM for 16 years, is also taking on the enhanced role in her department this semester as director of Liberal Arts and Integrative Studies.

Wallace said all the content was valuable, but a few areas stood out.

"The ombuds representative taught me a lot, and I would like to have more information about that and the CARE [Campus Assessment Response and Education] program and how I can use them," Wallace said. "And the fiscal information is always good to hear about. I also really liked the information that was presented on department culture and how to be proactive with culture."

Although the chair training is held only once a year before fall semester begins, Lyons said he is planning a host of activities to keep the connection and learning alive. During the fall semester, the Chairs Colloquium will be held each month for chairs, academic program directors, and associate deans. Academic Affairs will provide additional information about topics closer to each date, but these sessions generally serve as a way to check in with chairs throughout the year.

And perhaps there is currently no official "how-to" manual, but Academic Affairs is in the process of building a toolkit that chairs as well as deans will be able to refer to - a "don't panic list" for chairs, as Lyons refers to it.

"This effort will start in Academic Affairs but we will take it to the deans and associate deans in each college so it can be adapted in a way that is appropriate for each area," he said.

The new chair orientation was held with the cooperation of a variety of partners around campus. The Advance at UNM Faculty Climate Survey results from a couple of years ago guided content surrounding providing a positive culture.

"We can't cover everything, but we try to cover some key things that chairs need to know and promote the idea that supporting chairs matters to the overall culture of the university," Lyons said.