A comparison of department chair tasks in Australia and the United States

Virtually every managerial book written lists and expounds upon the tasks, duties, roles and responsibilities of administrators. This paper reports a portion of the findings of the third phase of a study of Australian and U.S. academic department chairs in colleges and universities. In it, we seek to clarify how chairs in the two countries define the tasks that exemplify their role as chair. The driving question behind this inquiry is: Do academic department chairs, independent of country, define their tasks in the same way? And, if so, how might universities in both countries benefit from this knowledge?     

Factors influencing a secondary school physical education teacher’s role as a pastoral head of year

ABSTRACT

Utilising the occupational socialisation theoretical framework, this United Kingdom based case study explored how a secondary school physical education teacher fulfilled the head of year role and what childhood, university and on-the-job experiences influenced execution of this role. Data were collected from interviews, lesson observations and a self-reflective journal. Inductive data analysis and constant comparison identified that the participant attempted to be an ‘administrative finisher’ and ‘empower’ staff, parents and pupils. These aims were influenced by the de-prioritisation of physical education, a desire to retain control of administrative situations, and the influence of past and present teachers. To overcome the issues that the dual roles of head of year and subject teacher present, it is recommended that a ‘timetabled’ period at the beginning and/or end of the day be utilised for important head of year tasks, and greater formal responsibility is given to the assistant head of year. The findings of this study suggest further research possibilities. Firstly, there is a need to examine the influence of teaching other subjects whilst undertaking the head of year role. Secondly, investigating the impact of childhood and university socialisation upon teachers’ fulfilment of other pastoral and/or leadership roles such as head of department, deputy head or head teacher appears warranted.     

Academic work: Perceptions of senior academic administrators

This article reports on selected findings of the first stage of a qualitative study of academic work in Australian universities. This stage examined the perceptions senior academic administrators from the humanities, sciences, social sciences and professional areas hold of the work roles of academics. The article presents their perceptions of ‘research’ and ‘scholarship’ and the link between the two, as well as the interrelationships between research, scholarship and teaching. The findings show a high level of consensus and coherence in the views presented. The article examines possible reasons for such a unanimity of perception and raises further questions for investigation.     

组织学视域中的系主任分析

系主任职位是以系科为组织支撑的大学基层管理职位,它兼具学术性、教育性、学科性、行政性等多重特性。系主任的遴选是借助于学术权力与行政权力之间的彼此互动而实现的,因此系主任往往具有双重身份———它既是学者,又是学术行政管理者。     

THE DEPARTMENT CHAIR AS SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: SHARED AUTHORITY IN THE COMMUNITY COLLEGE DEPARTMENT

The department chair position is vital to the effective administration of both the academic unit and the entire college. Inherent in the roles and tasks of the individual position is a responsibility for consensus development, which in turn requires the involvement of faculty in decision-making activities. This consensual development dictates that faculty who are specialists in their particular academic disciplines be involved in decisions ranging from admissions and grading to institutional policy formation and cross-disciplinary curricula development. The current study was conducted to examine the perceptions of department chairs in the involvement of faculty in departmental decision-making.     

Describing and explaining research productivity

This article describes results from a study of academic productivity in Australian higher education. It estimates the output (in terms of quantity of publications) of individual staff and academic departments across different subject areas and types of institution. Concerning research productivity, Australian academics resemble their colleagues in other countries: the average is low, while the range of variation is high. Most papers are produced by few academic staff. Several potential correlates of productivity, including level of research activity, subject area, institutional type, gender, age, early interest in research, and satisfaction with the promotions system, are examined. A model linking departmental context to personal research performance through department and personal research activity is developed and tested. The results support the view that structural factors (such as how academic departments are managed and led) combine with personal variables (such as intrinsic interest in the subject matter of one's discipline) to determine levels of productivity. There is also evidence that research and teaching do not form a single dimension of academic performance.     

Responding to crises in transnational education: new challenges for higher education

This paper is based on a case study of an Australian university involved in the delivery of transnational programs in an educational environment that has been increasingly characterized by commercial considerations. The researchers conducted focus group interviews with both general and academic staff to ascertain the personal, academic and administrative issues affecting the delivery of educational programs in Asia that arose as a result of one particular crisis in 2003: the SARS epidemic. The findings indicate that both administrative and academic staff felt personally and professionally challenged by the complexity of the issues involved in interrupting the pattern of transnational teaching. Potentially conflicting rationales emerged through the focus group discussions, with administrative staff expressing concern with maintaining services, while lecturers articulated a preoccupation with the safeguarding of assessment standards.     

Selected characteristics,roles, goals,and satisfactions of department chairmen in state and land-grant institutions

Chairmen at 38 state and land-grant institutions were found to be involved in three major roles: academic, administrative, and leadership. The academic role consists of duties of student involvement and research activities. Chairmen enjoy this role and report high emphasis on concurrent goals but feel frustrated in terms of time to pursue commensurate activities. The administrative role requires the majority of time and also contains some of the less desirable duties. In addition, administrative goals are seen as over-emphasized. The leadership role involves tasks related to academic personnel and program development. It is a major satisfaction realized by accepting the position of chairman. Developing abilities of faculty members and maintaining academic freedom are the two most important goals in this role. The respondents also made suggestions on changes and development programs which would improve their effectiveness.     

“Re‐placing” Scholarship

A reconceptualization of the role of “academic scholar” is put forward in an effort to define a more balanced and comprehensive perspective for recognizing and rewarding the multiple roles currently undertaken by academics in the late Twentieth Century. The scientific paradigm has dominated universities for decades. However, the pendulum is beginning to swing, albeit slowly, to a more balanced view that recognizes that scientific research is but one aspect of many tasks undertaken by academics. This article proposes a new conception of the interrelatedness of academic endeavours and suggests a “re‐placing” of scholarship on the higher education agenda.     

Academics’ Views of the Relative Roles and Responsibilities of Teachers and Learners in a First‐Year University Course

University teachers often see first‐year as a training ground for students, acculturating them to university expectations and requirements following their secondary school experience. By later years, students are typically expected to know what is required of a ‘university student’. However, the assumption behind this is that different academic staff hold similar views of university teaching and learning and that those teaching first and later years would be in agreement on what is expected of a student at different levels — an assumption which was implicit in the university department described in this article.

The aim of this article is to present the range of views shown by academic staff within one department about the relative roles and responsibilities of staff as teachers and of students as learners at first‐year level. This is of interest because, at least in this department, the degree of variation which was found was unexpected, generating unrealistic expectations and assumptions about students. This led‐to‐the generation of departmental strategies for improving communication about such issues amongst staff, with the intention of making differing views explicit. The lesson which may be of general value is the importance of ensuring structured opportunities for staff within departments to share their views and expectations about teaching and learning.     

The academic researcher role: enhancing expectations and improved performance

This article distinguishes between six tasks related to the academic researcher role: (1) networking; (2) collaboration; (3) managing research; (4) doing research; (5) publishing research; and (6) evaluation of research. Data drawn from surveys of academic staff, conducted in Norwegian universities over three decades, provide evidence that the researcher role has become more demanding with respect to all sub-roles, and that academic staff have responded to increasing external and internal demands by enhancing their role performance.     

The role of head of department in the pursuit of excellence

This article discusses the role and functions of heads of departments as analysed in the literature with particular reference to heads in one Australian university. Data on staff's expectations and perceptions of their head's role are examined.Staff from eight departments of the University of Queensland filled in a questionnaire designed to give feedback to heads. The results show clearly that staff attach great importance to the head's encouragement function: staff wanted their head to encourage good teaching in the department, to stimulate research and publication, and to take account of each staff member's special talents and interests.This was supported by data obtained from over one hundred structured interviews conducted with staff. They were asked, inter alia, what encouragement was given in their department to excellence in teaching and in research; what they would like to see done to encourage teaching and research more and what barriers to excellence existed in the department. Responses indicate that the majority of staff experienced no encouragement for excelling in teaching, whereas most departments and department heads encouraged active participation in research and publication by overt approval, funds, assistance with obtaining outside grants and a variety of other ways. Staff made suggestions on how to overcome the barriers to excellence; these were mostly realistic and practical and, in fact, implemented in those departments where staff felt encouraged in their pursuit of excellence.     

Administrative service and research performance: A study of chemistry department heads

This study explores the effect of administrative service as department chair on the scholarly careers of academic chemists through an analysis of their publication and doctoral student productivity records over a two-decade period. A longitudinal experimental design is employed with a control group of academic chemists who have not served in an administrative capacity throughout the equivalent time period. The results of the study indicate no significant difference in the publication and doctoral student productivity levels of the experimental and control groups. These results suggest that universities have been successful in attracting and retaining the services of productive scholars as department heads and that such service does not diminish their long-term scholarly productivity.Presented at the 24th Annual Forum of the Association for Institutional Research, Fort Worth, Tex., May 1984.     

Perceptions of rewarding excellence in teaching: motivation and the scholarship of teaching

This article explores the challenges presented in using the scholarship of teaching as a model of teaching excellence when devising an appropriate approach to reward. It argues that the complexity of staff motivation has to be addressed by a critical evaluation of institutions' commitment to the scholarship of teaching. An expectancy model of motivation drawn from organizational behaviour literature is suggested as an approach to analysing the distance between espoused commitment to the scholarship of teaching and academic staff perspectives. The context of the discussion is set against the background of the UK Government's approach to funding incentives to promote reward for teaching excellence in higher education and the literature related to practices employed in HEIs. The views of academic staff drawn from seven focus groups across all subject areas in one institution demonstrate the need to take account of the motivation process and the need to have a shared understanding of what constitutes excellence.     

The evolving role of the science department chair

Working from a historical perspective indicates that there are four periods over the last 170 years through which the role of the science chair has developed. This evolution has progressed from the administrative need to implement the agenda of the newly professionalised science of the nineteenth century, to a greater emphasis on the role of the chair as an instructional leader in the latter half of the twentieth century. The growing complexity of the role has also resulted in chairs becoming conflicted between their roles as specialist teachers and middle-level school administrators. From the earliest days of school science departments, the role of the chair has been heavily invested in two main areas. The first of these is a fealty to the discipline. The second is the need to attempt to balance the competing demands of the discipline, science education and educational reforms. Given the ongoing pressure for the reform of science education, the evolution of the role highlights the potential need for chairs to become actively engaged in maintaining links to the academic, professional, and school communities in which they serve.     

ROLE AND PROBLEMS OF HEADS OF DEPARTMENTS IN PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL

The formalisation of reviews of academic performance, whether it be during probation, for promotion, or for feedback to tenured staff, has put a formidable burden on heads of departments who tend to be involved in all review processes concerning staff in their department.

This paper will present and discuss some data from a current study on the role and functions of heads of departments in Australian universities. Information obtained from heads as well as from staff highlight the difficulties of heads who have to make evaluative statements on departmental staff which may further or slow down their career. Regular performance appraisal of tenured staff pose particular problems as heads have few resources at their sole disposal to reward in any tangible way excellent performance, and indeed also command few, if any, measures to ensure adequate performance. Heads may have positional authority, but academic conventions often prevent heads from exercising it. Clearly heads need leadership qualities and the ability to create a positive departmental climate so that performance reviews are experienced as constructive and rewarding.     

Promoting a culture of scholarship among educational developers: exploring institutional opportunities

Educational developers tend to be located in centres and units of teaching and learning outside the academic mainstream. They have little opportunity to engage in scholarship. Through an overview of the literature on educational development and educational professional roles and responsibilities, the author suggests that promoting a culture of scholarship among educational developers will contribute significantly towards their pedagogical professional development. It will enhance the quality of professional consultation between educational developers and academic staff in the faculties. The discussion concludes with suggestions for implementing innovative strategies to promote a culture of scholarship within the higher education academic mainstream.     

VALUING ACADEMIC RESEARCH: TOWARDS A POLICY FOR HONG KONG'S FUTURE UNIVERSITIES

This article makes a preliminary assessment of the general strategies required to foster and evaluate research and scholarship in Hongkong's higher education sector.

It is particularly concerned with the means to be used in the measurement of research productivity in the ‘emerging universities’, namely the two Polytechnics and the Baptist College.

In recent years a number of Polytechnic‐style institutions in Australia have undergone a process of ‘becoming universities’ and It Is proposed that Hongkong may be able to learn from their experience.

An Important focus in this paper Is on the development of equitable and realistic indices of performance that will be accepted by academic and administrative staff In calculating the merit and worth of their efforts in relation to research — which for a number of Polytechnic and College staff has not been a significant aspect of their overall academic role.     

Evaluating the performance of academic department chairpersons

The investigation was conducted to determine who should evaluate the work of university department chairpersons and what criteria should be used in evaluating their competencies in their administrative and academic roles. To elicit that information, 46 of the 62 college deans in the seven universities in Saudi Arabia were asked to complete a survey instrument designed for this study. Four sources were identified to be used in evaluating department chairs' work. In addition, 17 criteria were specified, which respondents rated according to their importance for use in evaluating chairs' administrative roles, and 17 criteria were rated for use in evaluating chairs' academic roles.