Department Chair Review

[Vid]

Hi all,

we will have our department chair review and a committee is formed to conduct the review. we are asked to provide comments and feedback on an evaluation survey.

I have some comments and suggestions to provide but I feel my comments may upset the chair and his circle. How do you guys approach this?


All responses in the survey are anonymous since we are a small group of faculty they may find out who made such comments.

Thank you.

   

[AJ_Katz]

First of all, since it's a small department, you should simply operate under the assumption that the chair will eventually know these comments are yours.  After that, my recommendation is to try to structure your feedback in the following way:

1) Strengths – describe what is working well and this will help to establish your credibility as someone who can recognize the positive and productive efforts that the chair is making.
2) Challenges - this category is used to capture factors that are outside of the control of the chair, such as, "New changes to the hiring of teaching assistants will create additional administrative burden for the chair". 
3) Opportunities - this could include "weaknesses", but a better way to deliver that critique is to describe this as an opportunity. Even the touchiest of subjects can be broached this way, for example, a criticism might be "the chair is not receptive to new ideas" and the corresponding way to write it as a challenge is to say "many of the faculty are eager to become more involved in the direction of the department, which represents a unique opportunity for the chair to more rapidly advance our progress towards meeting the institutional goals."

I think the one drawback to this approach is that it really tempers the feedback, but I think it is a more professional manner of delivering a critical perspective that won't risk degrading your own personal reputation in the process.  On the other hand, if it is a truly egregious mismanagement of the department by the chair, I'm not sure this survey is the right way to convey that feedback and, depending on the situation in the college, I might instead suggest directly communicating that feedback to the Dean -- but that depends on what is going on.  Hopefully that's not the case here and you are just looking for advice for how to avoid any blow back and still be able to see a positive change in the leadership of your department.

[Hibush]

Katz' comments provide an excellent outline. To make it a bit easier to reformulate some of the thoughts, consider that you and the chair share an interest in having the department succeed. How would you phrase what might originate as a gripe to fit that frame?

[AJ_Katz]

Katz' comments provide an excellent outline. To make it a bit easier to reformulate some of the thoughts, consider that you and the chair share an interest in having the department succeed. How would you phrase what might originate as a gripe to fit that frame?

Yes, exactly.  You're on the same team.  To provide a critique here is to want the person receiving the feedback to be able to succeed. 

[Vid]

Excellent points, guys. Thank you.

I 100% agree with Katz suggestion when Katz said "...delivering a critical perspective that won't risk degrading your own personal reputation in the process", particularly in my case. I am well known in my department as a person who shares his point of view and observations :)

Our Chair has a good heart but sometimes needs some pings and directions!

Thanks again.

[Ruralguy]

Frankly, this sort of thing would be considerably more useful if it came from a group of faculty who collaborated to develop an evaluation rather than a bunch of individuals giving comments. Such an approach would also preserve anonymity, since its coming from a team. Maybe a spokesperson write something up, but it should be very clear that they are speaking for the group.

[fizzycist]

If you want to give feedback to your chair that you hope they will act on, give it to them in person in a friendly way, embedded within some other enjoyable discussion. But it only works as long as you aren't seen as selfish or lazy when it comes to dept affairs and service--if you are pitching in and helping the Chair out, it has a better chance of being recieved the right way.

If you can meet 1:1 without a formal record, you can be more honest without coming off as aggressive/threatening.

Writing the super watered down stuff Katz advises is a waste of time IMO. But I def agree that writing some super honest negative feedback is likely to create conflict and animosity but unlikely to result in the Chair acting in the way ypu want.

[Ruralguy]

That might be a good first step (an informal discussion), but as part of a formal reviews its probably not productive.