Ask the Expert: How Do I Cope When the Department Chair Who Hired Me is Leaving?

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Question: I started a new job recently. This is my second semester in this role, and now the chair who hired me is leaving. How can I deal with new expectations from a new chair?

Answer from Emily Allen Williams: You have been in your much sought-after tenure-track faculty position at the institution for one semester. After interviews at several institutions, you have found an academic space that meets your present goals for success in teaching, research, and service.

Eureka!

And, then it happens…the department chair that hired you — and that you looked forward to being mentored by — announces at the end of your first semester that they are moving on to other opportunities.

Change…already?

As other faculty — some more seasoned at the institution than you — look around the meeting room with varied facial expressions, you start to worry.

What will this mean for you?

How often do faculty tell their students that ‘change’ is not only necessary but good for growth?

This change in departmental leadership provides you [as new faculty] with a reversal of advice in what presents as an uninvited but necessary next step in successfully navigating change within your academic career. Whether this is your first teaching/research position in the academy, or you have come to this position after some years at another institution, this can be an academic moment of growth through artful navigation.

There are at least two foundational means of navigating your success with the new leadership of your academic department:

1) Reflect on the position which you were recruited for and ultimately hired, and

2) Review the institution’s specific guidelines for the responsibilities of a department chair.

In reflecting upon your hire, consider the following questions toward embracing the change in department leadership:

• What created [your] hiring opportunity in the department?
• Is yours a newly minted position based upon program expansion or are you filling a void left by a previous faculty member?
• How often did you meet with the outgoing department chair during your one semester in residence?
• Were the meetings primarily formal and/or scheduled or were some informal and/or impromptu where you had the opportunity to talk with the department chair about your teaching, research, and service ideas?
• Do you have a mentor as a new faculty member? One assigned or someone you have chosen for support? (Hint: more seasoned faculty members may also be feeling challenged by the change in leadership, so don’t feel like you are an outlier in navigating leadership change.)

Take some time to reflect (solo, with a mentor, and/or another trusted faculty member) on the responsibilities that a department chair holds and those qualities that you saw as ‘good’ in the department chair that is exiting the building:

• Provides clear and cohesive leadership of the unit through promoting and clarifying policies and procedures of the institution to maximize faculty and student success;
• Hires, evaluates, and advises faculty on their progress in meeting their annual teaching, research, and service initiatives and goals;
• Mediates conflict toward resolutions that create synergies for the unit’s students, faculty, and staff; and
• Knows how to build consensus and create collaborative strength.

While these are just a handful of the beacons of light of the ‘good’ department chair, they may be those areas that you fear are walking out the door with the person who brought you into the department.

Now it’s time to look back at the questions about your role as faculty in the department. As a new faculty member, it is all about building relationships within your core department faculty, students, staff — across campus and most definitely with your department chair.

Consider ways to be present in the life of the department such that your new leader will recognize your work as essential to the success of the unit:

• Show up to classes, departmental meetings, and related functions regularly and on time;
• Engage with students in the activities of the department; and
• Avoid engaging in the “what-ifs” about the new department chair around the “academic water cooler.” (The water cooler is both a literal as well as metaphorical space and has become iconic in academic and corporate structures as a place where employees gather to share information about the workplace.)

Finally, embrace the timeless art of communication!

After the new department chair has convened their first few meetings and explained their visionary platform and workstyle, ask for a brief meeting (fifteen minutes is enough!) to provide a personal welcome and give your new leader an overview of your teaching, research, and service initiatives.

Just as you are navigating the academic landscape as new faculty, the incoming department chair will be navigating their new space of leadership. Your new department chair will be learning the complexities of managing faculty, students, and staff — major responsibilities — within a realm of limited authority in the institution’s leadership hierarchy.

As a new faculty member, remember the incoming department chair is feeling “newness” as well. Grant your new leader some grace within the academic space of change as a means of navigating the inevitable and, when in doubt, embrace the need for enhanced communication.

Change is inevitable.

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