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Enhancing Department Climate: A Chair's Role©
A Workshop Series for Department Chairs

Recent research shows that "climate" — the extent to which an individual feels personally safe, listened to, valued, and treated fairly and with respect — plays an important role in people’s job satisfaction, effectiveness, productivity, engagement, and decisions to remain in or leave a department or area of study.

A recent survey of 4,500 tenure-track faculty at 51 colleges and universities found that faculty place great value on departmental climate, culture, and collegiality and that these qualities are critical to faculty retention.[1]

Department chairs/heads can play an important role in developing and sustaining a positive, productive, and welcoming departmental climate.[2] WISELI has developed a series of three workshop sessions for department chairs seeking to improve climate in their departments.

The workshop series is described below:

Description of the workshop series

WISELI's workshop "Enhancing Department Climate: A Chair's Role" is offered as a series of three sessions. Each session engages small groups of department chairs in discussions about climate in their own departments and provides them with opportunities to learn from each other’s experiences and ideas. A brief departmental climate survey administered between the first and second sessions allows chairs to identify specific issues of concern for their own departments. Participating chairs and facilitators work collaboratively to develop plans to address these issues. Each of the three sessions and the goals of the series are described below.

Goals:

Session 1:

Department chairs will engage in a general discussion of climate and the importance of fostering positive climates. Topics to be discussed include:

Introduction to web-based departmental climate survey.

Session 2:

Chairs will receive survey results for their individual departments, spend some time reviewing these results and have the opportunity to discuss survey findings. They may share with each other some positive results of the survey and comment on what they are doing to achieve these results. They may describe a negative result and solicit advice or suggestions from other chairs, from the facilitator, and/or from provided resource materials. Chairs will also learn about resources and people on campus who can help them in their efforts to enhance climate.

Session 3:

Chairs will meet to discuss how they shared survey findings with their departments and how they identified what areas of department climate need to be improved. Discussion will concentrate on development of an action plan to address areas of concern. Participating chairs and discussion facilitators will share expertise, ideas and resources to aid in developing this action plan. Chairs will also address specific topics such as the influence of strategic planning, leadership styles, organizational structure, and decision-making styles on departmental climate.

Workshop Schedule

When:

Registration:

Registration is required. To register for this workshop series, please contact us.

Resources

Evaluation

Climate Workshops for Department Chairs

UW-Madison Campus Climate

Endnotes

1. Fogg, Piper (September 29, 2006). Young Ph.D.’s Say Collegiality Matters More than Salary. The Chronicle of Higher Education 53(6), A1. (Find in your library)

2. Bensimon, E. M., Ward, K., & Sanders, K. (2000). The department chair's role in developing new faculty into teachers and scholars. Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing; Carroll, J. B., & Gmelch, W. H. (1994). Department chairs' perceptions of the relative importance of their duties. Journal for Higher Education Management, 10(1), 49-63; Lucas, Ann (1994). Strengthening Department Leadership: A Team Building Guide for Department Leaders. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. (Find in your library)