Chair Roles
Without doubt, the department chair has one of the most demanding jobs on campus. Some roles required are being a gate-keeper, a role model, a mentor, a liaison, and a visionary, all while serving as a model teacher, scholar, and researcher. The passages below from the University of Memphis Faculty Handbook delineate a chair's many responsibilities.
After you read the 'official' list of duties, we'll address some chair survival strategies.
Some of the chair's specific administrative responsibilities include:
- Organizing the department in such a way that the total program will be served effectively
- Developing a set of department policies, supplementary to and consistent with those of the college and University
- Providing leadership in departmental planning
- Assisting in developing a continuing education program
- Developing and administering the department's budget
- Supervising the department's secretarial and support staff
- Preparing class schedules and teaching assignments
- Supervising and managing the physical facilities under the department's jurisdiction
- Promoting positive interpersonal relations
- Serving as a link between the department and the university administration
The chair's faculty responsibilities include:
- Recruiting capable faculty members (in concerted effort with the faculty and with the concurrence of administrative officers)
- Encouraging and rewarding excellence in teaching, research and creative endeavors, and service
- Assisting and encouraging faculty in securing outside funding for research
- Evaluating faculty performance annually
- Recommending faculty members for tenure, promotion, salary adjustments, continuing education assignments, and graduate faculty memberships
- Serving as a link between faculty and University administration
The chair's student responsibilities include:
- Establishing an effective advising system
- Ensuring that students meet degree requirements
- Administering a graduate assistantship program
- Conferring with students about policies and practices of the department, the college, and the university
- Assisting students in solving problems relating to academic matters
- Assisting in student recruitment
