Leadership Development Series: Working Effectively With and Mentoring Faculty and Staff

One of the most crucial roles a department chair plays is as a ‘supervisor’ – chairs oversee the work that their faculty and instructional staff do in their classrooms and in the design of the curriculum, they organize and evaluate the work of the department’s staff, and they oversee the annual reviews, tenure packets and the post-tenure reviews of the faculty.

Along with the organizational and evaluative work, the chair is also a kind of mentor-in-chief, leading by example by providing support and counsel for faculty and staff at all ranks, helping to lift up people’s work and to find work-life balance even if they can’t quite find it for themselves, and to work with colleagues to locate resources and set up networks that are useful for their teaching and research.

This session will focus on how chairs can effectively mentor and work with their colleagues, both faculty and staff, how to get past obstacles to mentorship and the roadblocks every department has, and what chairs can do to make their departments as supportive of an environment as possible. The conversation will be led by faculty and staff who have significant experience as mentors and are excellent role models as supportive supervisors.

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The Leadership Development Series, sometimes known as “chairs chats,” offers a variety of workshops and seminars for department chairs and academic center directors, along with associate deans and others in management positions. The sessions – some of which follow the peer-to-peer (“chat”) model, and some of which will be led by experienced chairs and other academic leaders – emphasize the development of aptitudes and skills associated with academic leadership. The offerings can be categorized into four main areas:

• Strategic planning
• Supervision and management
• Budgets and finance
• Climate and inclusion

View all Leadership Development Series workshops.