Gatekeeping within the university

[financeguy]

I prefer something like this 1000% over the much more common situation of people who simply do not respond to emails at all. Someone who waits longer than 24 hours to respond to a legitimate inquiry from me loses my confidence to go to them at all. Some percentage of this is relate to increased contact based on the ease of email vs other methods. I struggle with people texting me all the time despite my wishes that they do not do this for something they would not call for. These requests may as well be for a golden unicorn to fly me to Paris for pastries. I still get an unending supply of unnecessary photos of people's daily lives or articles/youtube clips.

[Katrina Gulliver]

As others have said, not an unknown set up to have an EA read the emails - but the OP's comment of "not allowed" to email or cc sounds like dept chair wants some kind of plausible deniability for what's going on in the dept.

For a big dept at a major university, I'm sure the chair gets an absolute tsunami of messages, most of the type "Dear professor, I wish do phd in [unrelated subject] at your esteemed university. I demand you admit me and give scholarship", peppered with faculty complaining about their research budget, and students who are pissy their prof didn't reply to their email in 2 hours on a Sunday night [interthreaduality].

[Hibush]

For a big dept at a major university, I'm sure the chair gets an absolute tsunami of messages, most of the type "Dear professor, I wish do phd in [unrelated subject] at your esteemed university. I demand you admit me and give scholarship", peppered with faculty complaining about their research budget, and students who are pissy their prof didn't reply to their email in 2 hours on a Sunday night [interthreaduality].

Have you been snooping in my inbox? I'm not even a chair!  The only thing missing is the review request from a new MDPI journal.

[Cheerful]

We have a new department chairman.  We were recently informed by his administrative assistant that we were not permitted to e-mail him or cc him on any relevant conversations within the university.  Apparently his secretary reads all the e-mails and decides what he needs to see.  If we require a decision on something, we are to e-mail her and she will brief him and get back to us.  What is this?  Severe personality disorder?  Something that's common somewhere else?  I don't think I have encountered anything quite like this in a university before.  It feels disrespectful to the faculty, many of whom have been working at the uni for several years.  It seems like a violation of faculty governance or something -- but is it really?  It feels as though we have all been demoted and it sure as hell doesn't feel 'collegial'.  Any thoughts?

This would not fly in my dept., happy to say.  Our chair is a colleague, not insulated UpperAdmin.  The chair receives extra pay and other benefits precisely to do bureaucratic work and be responsive to dept. colleagues with questions and concerns.  We rely heavily on email communication, especially during pandemic.  Some emails should not be read by support staff.

That said, some chairs are more collegial than others, some seek to expand their power.

Is it possible your chair has a disability that makes processing emails difficult?  If not, sounds like they think they are Provost.

[Morris Zapp]

Hmmm... if all emails for His Majesty the Chair need to be shepherded by his secretary, does this also mean His minions, the faculty, are not welcome to knock on his door?   Do they need to acquire an appointment from the sec?

Yes.  They do.

[Harlow2]

Agree with Clean and Cheerful. We funnel nuts and bolts stuff through our secretaries, but the wording bespeaks a kind of C-suite mentality, is uncollegial, and could jeopardize privacy.  We are a union shop though.

[Hibush]

Hmmm... if all emails for His Majesty the Chair need to be shepherded by his secretary, does this also mean His minions, the faculty, are not welcome to knock on his door?   Do they need to acquire an appointment from the sec?

Yes.  They do.

In many places, Department Chairs' first duty is to the faculty, Department Heads' first duty is to the dean. What's the practice at your university?

[pgher]

Hmmm... if all emails for His Majesty the Chair need to be shepherded by his secretary, does this also mean His minions, the faculty, are not welcome to knock on his door?   Do they need to acquire an appointment from the sec?

Yes.  They do.

In many places, Department Chairs' first duty is to the faculty, Department Heads' first duty is to the dean. What's the practice at your university?

Many but not all. At my university, we have chairs, but their function and hiring is more like a head. I think it has gradually shifted over the years and the title just hasn't been updated. May be the case for Morris Zapp as well.

[polly_mer]

I wonder how many people posting here have been in the position  of actually needing an executive assistant to deal with the sheer volume of emails, calls, and visits.

If you haven't done it, then you can't imagine.  I remember the first time I came back from a half hour meeting to 50 emails, several voice mails, and a line of people in the hall waiting to see me for 'just a couple minutes'.  My 200 emails a day and twenty hours of meetings per week now is a light pleasantry compared to those days.

[Katrina Gulliver]

I wonder how many people posting here have been in the position of actually needing an executive assistant to deal with the sheer volume of emails, calls, and visits.

I've been the EA.

[kaysixteen]

I get the sheer volume part, but emails from dept colleagues should be read, and appropriately responded to.   All emails are not the same.   And, someone finally did get around to mentioning that having the secretary have to read them first eliminates any possibility of 'for your eyes only'-style private ones.

[Hegemony]

Why doesn't the administrator just have an official email address (seniordean@university.edu or whatever) and have his secretary read that inbox for him? It would be a lot simpler than trying to coax everyone into never emailing the administrator directly.

[Descartes]

Why doesn't the administrator just have an official email address (seniordean@university.edu or whatever) and have his secretary read that inbox for him? It would be a lot simpler than trying to coax everyone into never emailing the administrator directly.

Because you seem to be suggesting that there would still be the option to e-mail him on another, private e-mail account; thus, he will still be getting large amounts of e-mails and it defeats the purpose.

[marshwiggle]

Why doesn't the administrator just have an official email address (seniordean@university.edu or whatever) and have his secretary read that inbox for him? It would be a lot simpler than trying to coax everyone into never emailing the administrator directly.

Because you seem to be suggesting that there would still be the option to e-mail him on another, private e-mail account; thus, he will still be getting large amounts of e-mails and it defeats the purpose.

This is what is common practice in lots of situations. For instance, when a faculty member becomes the undergrad advisor in my department they get an email like "advising@marhsu.ca".  Since that is the published email for advising, that will get the bulk of the advising email. The vast majority of what comes in on their personal email will be the same as before; i.e. stuff that has nothing to do with advising. Most people won't have a clue who is the chair of some specific department at some specific institution, and if the published email for the chair is "chair_somedept@some.institution" then that's what most people will use. This will be especially true for the spammiest emails, since those will be from people who aren't doing any significant research to figure out who they are actually trying to communicate with. Since the email isn't person-specific it can be on all websites, letterhead, etc. in perpetuity, and all that will change is who ultimately reads it.