Today is July 1, 2016, and it marks the start of my fourth year as a dean. In a few days (July 6) I’ll be entering my second year as the Dean of the SJSU College of Social Sciences. So since I’m not really a new dean anymore I’ll have to change the title of this blog! In the meantime, I found one unpublished post from last July, just after I started at SJSU. It’s about mistakes new deans make; I’ll paste that into this post. Thanks to everyone who helped me avoid these problems!
Inside Higher Education recently published an essay on the “5 Mistakes of Rookie Deans.” Although focusing on the experiences of business school deans, Dean Eli Jones’ advice is widely applicable. He notes that the following mistakes land deans in hot water:
- Underestimating the knowledge, skills, and abilities it takes to do the job well.
- Overestimating the power and influence one has in the role.
- Lacking sufficient knowledge about managing oneself.
- Lacking sufficient knowledge of how to generate and allocate resources across the enterprise.
- Underappreciating the art and science of relationship building.
A comment from “stinkcat” adds two more mistakes: “Before you make significant decisions take time to understand the culture of the place. Also, in the minds of faculty you work for them, they don’t work for you. Forget that at your peril.” I would add one more that’s informed by my social science background: do not forget the importance of social structure in enabling success. If one wants to build a truly collaborative environment, for example, s/he needs to create mechanisms that bring folks together and make sure that action items get accomplished. For example, here at the SJSU College of Social Sciences the department chairs will have two regularly scheduled collective meetings per month, one with the dean group [dean, associate dean, “decanal fellow” (last year’s interim dean who is assisting me with the transition), and the college’s budget manager] where we address issues that are usually externally imposed, and one without the dean group present where the chairs can share best practices and also generate new ideas without worrying about the initial reaction of the dean before polishing them to take to the next chairs/dean group meeting.
Dean Jones notes that deans are asked to “chart a course for our organizations in the midst of continuous change, to train and motivate our employees, and to develop innovative solutions for a constantly evolving marketplace.” Mistakes are bound to happen, but we deans can minimize them by keeping the above guidelines in mind.