Department chair perspectives about contingent faculty in higher educationleadership theory

In times of recent budgetary constraints, one of the ways that institutions of higher education have attempted to respond to changing landscapes while still preserving their mission is b

The increasing reliance on contingent faculty in U.S higher education is an administrative problem that

is ripe for continued investigation Over 75% of new faculty appointments are off the tenure track, and more than half of all college courses are taught by contingent faculty (AAUP, 2013) While the intent

of the Affordable Care Act (2010) was to provide healthcare at a reasonable cost to all Americans, it

Department Chair Perspectives

About Contingent Faculty

has also, at least temporarily, instigated institutions of higher education to look for all possible ways

to keep more employees under a part-time status rather than a full-time status therefore reducing the institution’s overall cost for healthcare benefits The resulting impact on large numbers of contingent faculty affiliated with U.S institutions of higher education has been a reduction in the number of courses assigned to their load and therefore a reduction in pay in order to stay under the 30-hour/week federal definition of full-time work The divide between tenure-track faculty and contingent faculty has widened, with even greater inequities in working and living conditions, creating an increasingly unjust academic caste system (McHenry & Sharkey, 2014) The implications of this largely invisible and frequently itinerant instructional workforce reach widely – to students, parents, college administrators, taxpayers, and all concerned with promoting high-quality learning Yet, like all administrative problems within higher education, there may be opportunities to discover new pathways for innovative solutions A re-examination of contingent faculty working conditions, the complex diversity among these individuals and their needs, and their varying motivations and levels of commitment all add to fleshing out the context of this administrative challenge Many contingent faculty experience some measure of return

on investment for the sharing of their expertise, talents, time and energies with students Contingent faculty who continue to teach semester after semester and year after year, frequently for meager wages, obviously attribute substantial non-monetary value to the personal satisfaction they derive from teaching,

to the fulfillment experienced from working with students and being in the academic environment, and

to providing a needed service to society The sheer magnitude of the contract faculty workforce in U.S higher education has vast implications for policymakers in making better-informed decisions regarding the development of institutions of higher education in a time of rapid change, dwindling state funding, and global competition

Purpose

The purpose of this inquiry was to gain a better understanding of the functions, costs and benefits, and the rationale behind employing large numbers of contingent faculty from an administrator’s viewpoint, namely a departmental chair of a medium-sized Midwestern research university whose department routinely hired many contingent faculty This administrator was also questioned extensively concerning his leadership style, his experiences as a departmental chair, his responsibilities and duties, his orga-nizational philosophies, his vision for his department as well as his concerns related to the changing landscape of higher education Throughout this in-depth interviewing process, the aim was to gain more nuanced insights into the larger institutional issues related to contingent faculty (macro) by delving into

a particular context (micro) and analyzing the interpretations, perceptions, and understandings held by

an administrator

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE: THE ORGANIZATIONAL FRAMES MODEL

Bolman and Deal (2013) proposed a four-frame comprehensive model of organizational thought, which brings together insights from organizational research and leadership practices to produce a useful frame-work for understanding how organizational cultures work The rationale for using Bolman and Deal’s four frames for our study, rather than another leadership theory, was to capitalize on how a department chair thought about and acted on the issues related to the use of contingent faculty

These four major perspectives, or frames, for studying organizational life and the embedded leaders, include the structural, the human resource, the political, and the symbolic frames Bolman and Deal claimed that the best leaders have a full and active awareness of how these frames situate administrative problems and therefore draw a leader’s focus in particular ways Furthermore, they argue that learning

to capitalize on the vantage point of simultaneously using these four frames to analyze any situation and to, give leaders the best opportunity for effectively creating long-term solutions to organizational problems (Bolman & Deal, 2008)

The structural frame views the organization as a rational “factory” and emphasizes organizational

architecture with a highly specified and clearly defined division of labor and a pyramidal shaped hierarchy

of authority The structural frame is quantifiable, providing an objective accounting of organizational assets (Fleming-May & Douglass, 2014) The structural frame highlights the importance of achieving goals and objectives and increasing efficiency within the organization According to the structural frame, organizations work best when rationality prevails and personal agendas and extraneous pressures subside (Bolman & Deal, 2008, 2013) The structural leader can be thought of as the institutional architect who, through rational analysis, divides the workload along formal roles and relationships This leader oper-ates under the assumption that specialization increases efficiency and maximizes cost reduction The structural leader coordinates and integrates the diverse roles and efforts by individuals to ensure quality

as well as to align goals with the academic mission (Bolman & Gallos, 2011)

The basic premise behind the human resource frame is that investing in people and responding to

their needs are the essential elements to the successful working of an organization According to this frame, organizations need people for their energy, efforts, and talents; and people need organizations for the rewards and benefits organizations confer A good fit is required between the individual and the organization “When the fit between people and organizations is poor, one or both suffers; individuals may feel neglected or oppressed, and organizations sputter” (Bolman & Deal, 1997, p 119) Interpersonal relationships are the focus of the human resource frame By viewing the organization as an extended family, made up of individuals with differing needs, biases, skills, strengths, fears and limitations, human resource focused leaders are challenged to find a way to ensure that the work is done while simultane-ously assuring that workers feel good about themselves and their work and feel like they are valued in the organization Developing human capital is important in this type of organizational structure Relationships are crucial Capitalizing on each individual worker’s desires and strengths and accommodating for their weaknesses and quirks is a critical element of this family-inspired lens The leader who embraces the human resource frame understands the importance of open communication; individual empowerment; effective teamwork to facilitate problem-solving; engagement through support, coaching, and care; and hiring the right people to ensure fit between the organization and the person (Bolman & Gallos, 2011)

The political frame, on the other hand, focuses on the use and distribution of power (Bolman & Deal,

2003) This frame is founded on the premise that conflict and a struggle over scarce resources are ent in any organization Conflict and differing motivations permeate social and organizational life; and according to this lens, in order to develop a successful organization, leaders must “tame the jungle” by using their advocacy skills and political savvy By leveraging their bargaining and negotiating skills,

inher-by compromising and inher-by sometimes resorting to coercion, leaders working within this organizational framework can quell the competition for scarce resources, subdue the competing interests, and mollify the power struggles inherent in any organization Political leaders are adept at setting agendas, mapping the political terrain, networking and building coalitions, and bargaining and negotiating They respect

differences, value diversity, and compassionately manage the inevitable conflicts that arise within the organization (Bolman & Gallos, 2011).

The symbolic frame represents the spiritual side of institutions and maintains that an organization

and its culture are inherently linked Symbols permeate our social lives and in order to fully understand the workings of an organization and to make sense of organizational life, one must acknowledge that these symbolic actions convey meaning beyond the obvious People seek to make meaning out of life by incorporating the use of symbols, myths, rituals, ceremonies and traditions From this symbolic perspec-tive, cultural norms, values and symbols unite organizations, connect people, and help to bring about desired goals Symbols embody what it means to be a part of an organization and its culture (Phillips

& Baron, 2013)

While each of these frames offer a distinct vantage point from which to examine and understand human thinking and interactions within institutions it is equally as important to see these frames as part

of a larger whole operating simultaneously yet often within different proportions

EXAMPLES OF HOW THE FOUR-FRAMES MODEL HAS

BEEN APPLIED IN HIGHER EDUCATION

The four-frames model has been applied to various issues in the higher education setting as a means for developing greater understanding of how leadership and social relationships interact to shape group goals and ensure accomplishment of these goals For example, the educational leadership doctoral program

at Auburn University is a cohort program that has been analyzed through the four frames model This analysis found that the program was innovative and encouraged risk-taking, decision-making and effec-tive group interaction among cohort classmates, who were involved in creating a community of learners based on multiple relationships The program exemplified the political frame by promoting collegiality through “relationship among key stakeholders on a knowledge expedition with expert tour guides.” The structural frame was demonstrated through “relationship among key interlocking and specialized pieces

of a three-dimensional puzzle.” The human resource frame was illustrated through “a relationship of siblings with a common desire to see their family succeed.” And the symbolic frame was epitomized

as “a relationship of lifelong friends engaged within a community” (Bentley, Zhao, Reames, & Reed,

2004, p 44)

Another example of applying Bolman and Deal’s four-frames model to examine higher education issues was a study of academic librarians where the professional role, responsibilities and status of academic librarians in the university was investigated in the context of each of the four frames (Fleming-May & Douglass, 2014) The relationship between the position of the academic librarian and the academy can

be interpreted from the human resource frame, where the ideal is a mutually beneficial fit between the institution and the librarian, with a “shared philosophy and strategy for managing people” (Bolman & Deal, 2008, p 142) Viewed through the political frame, the relationship involves management of tensions due to finite resources and the common view that libraries are often viewed as huge money sinks The symbolic frame sees the library as the “heart” of the institution and speaks to the symbolic significance

of acquisition of doctoral degrees and the granting of tenure (Fleming-May & Douglass, 2014)

This qualitative case study (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005; Creswell, 2013; Marshall & Rossman, 2011) was built using a semi-structured interview protocol (Patton, 1990) with one department chair of a medium-sized Midwestern research university whose department hired many contingent faculty A multi-faceted, in-depth interview with a central member of a complex organization of higher education provides an opportunity to understand the interaction between organizational theories (Bidwell, 2007) and leaders who receive, respond, and create actions in relation to an institutional and larger economic context (Del-aney, 2007) This serves as the rationale for building this study around a single-individual who holds the perspective of a department chair; a first-person perspective rarely documented in the literature The interview data were collected in four one-hour audio-recorded sessions and were transcribed verbatim by the first-author In addition to the goal of developing rich-thick descriptions (Geertz, 1994), preparing a highly detailed audit-trail, and a member-checking process, the authors maintained an active process of reflexively examining the raw interview data with the existing literature in order to increase the overall trustworthiness of the study (Lincoln and Guba, 1985; Lincoln and Guba, 1990; Marshall, 1985)

After securing informed consent, the department chair was asked to complete Bolman and Deal’s

Leadership Orientations Survey (1990), which was acquired online at http://www.leebolman.com/

Leadership%20Orientations.pdf (see Appendix A for survey results) This survey instrument asked the respondent to describe himself as a manager and a leader; scores were then computed by adding up the number of “structural,” “human resource,” “political,” and “symbolic” phrases denoting the four different conceptions of organization and of leadership Scores were plotted on a scale which had been adjusted to represent percentile scores The participant, who has been the department chairperson for the past 23 years, scored highest (with a score of 22) on the human resource frame, and his next highest score (with a score of 15) was in the political frame As has been found in other studies, administrators with many years of experience are more likely to identify themselves as working primarily from the human resource frame or the symbolic frame (Welch, 2002) The researchers then devised interview questions based upon the two frames to which the participant most identified to inquire more deeply into his organizational style and leadership preference, as well as his thoughts concerning the function

of contingent instructors within his department

When combining the human resource frame, with its emphasis on family and on developing human

capital by making the most of each individual’s strengths and ensuring that workers feel fulfilled, with

the political frame, viewing the organization as an arena of competition, coercion, domination and power

struggles, one can look at an issue from multiple perspectives to gain a broader understanding and greater clarity of the phenomenon at hand By combining multiple perspectives and reframing them, the hope is that novel ideas and new strategies can be developed which can bring about innovative solutions to prob-lems According to Bolman and Deal’s four frame’s model, successful leaders of effective organizations draw upon elements from all four frames in an effort to work most productively within the increasingly competitive and logistically complicated global society Successful leaders frame and re-frame, taking advantage of the strengths of each perspective and borrowing from the multiple perspectives, to gain the best possible outcome for the occasion at hand This chapter explores how a departmental chairperson combined elements of each lens in his facilitation of departmental operations, with a focus on the com-plex issue of the roles and functions of contingent faculty within the department

CONTINGENT FACULTY

According to the Non-Tenure-Track Faculty of the Association of American Universities (2001),

The mission of research universities is to expand human understanding through the discovery and semination of new knowledge, and to preserve the accumulated knowledge of past generations and apply that knowledge to current and future societal challenges The principal means by which universities ac- complish these important endeavors is through the teaching, scholarship, and creative work of faculties

dis-of exceptional talent and commitment (p 3).

In times of recent budgetary constraints, one of the ways that institutions of higher education have attempted to respond to changing landscapes while still preserving their mission is by hiring an ever-increasing number of adjunct, non-tenure-track, contingent contract faculty (Nelson, 2010) This method

of permanent cost restructuring involving the replacement of full-time faculty with part-time faculty is a widespread strategy for reducing costs in higher education (Wellman, 1999) Beginning in the 1980s, the academic labor force underwent a transformation from being primarily composed of tenurable, full-time faculty to an instructional force that is now predominantly part-time, semester-to-semester contracted faculty (Ferrara, 2015) There are over fifty different terms that have been used to describe this group of instructional faculty Many of these terms reflect a lesser-than nature as compared to regular full-time faculty (Lundquist & Misra, 2015) Some of the value-laden, distasteful terms to describe this teaching faculty numbering nearly one million include: unranked, peripheral, non-standard, non-line (not having

a budget line), non-regular, non-academic, non-ladder, casual, ad hoc, non-remunerated (Worthen & Berry, 1999) Contingent faculty have been described as the “hidden professoriate” or “faculty at the

margins” (Thedwall, 2008) As defined by Webster’s dictionary, the word “contingent” is an adjective

that means “likely but not certain to happen” or, alternately, “a happening by chance or unforeseen causes.” Hence, a contingent faculty member is employed, or not employed, as needed, in an environ-ment which is ever-changing This constant change is due to fluctuations in the economy which impact unemployment levels and enrollment rates, to the course load needs of the full-time academic staff, and to institutional-wide budgetary constraints Notwithstanding the lack of job security or stability or the overall precarious nature of the contract position, non-tenure-track (full and part-time) faculty now number over 800,000 within the United States college system (Osborn, 2012)

According to a November 2008 report by the American Federation of Teachers, contingent faculty members taught 49% of the more than 1.5 million undergraduate courses taught each term in U.S public colleges and universities This proportion did not include graduate student teachers or doctoral candidates teaching courses as part of their training, which the American Federation of Teachers estimates to be another 16-32% of all courses taught at the undergraduate level The American Federation of Teachers also reported in March 2010 that the percentage of contingent faculty teaching the majority of courses is even higher at community colleges, with contingent faculty representing nearly 70% of the instructional

workforce in the community college arena The Busting the Myths: The Annual Report on the Economic

Status of the Profession, 2014-15 report by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP,

2015) revealed that by 2015 only 20.35 percent of instructional faculty held full-time tenured (19.51 percent) or full-time tenure track positions (7.37 percent) The majority of full-time tenured faculty po-sitions have been replaced with part-time instructional staff and graduate teaching assistants Another

2010 AAUP report, Tenure and Teaching-Intensive Appointments, reported that this reliance on a system

of temporary faculty appointments is detrimental to student learning and is in opposition to the visions

of most institutional missions

The prevalence of contingent faculty also varies depending upon the academic field The educational field has the highest percentage of part-time to full-time faculty at 48.7%, and the field of education also has witnessed the largest increase in part-time contract appointments, with a 27.7% increase from 1987

to 2003 (Kezar & Sam, 2010b) Clearly, contingent and part-time faculty play a vital and important role

in educating the nation’s college students These statistics indicate that tenured and tenure-track faculty handle at most one-third to one-quarter of the undergraduate teaching load in American colleges and universities The increase in contingency is also witnessed by the fact that between 1975 and 2011, the number of tenure-track and tenured instructors in the U.S increased by only 35.6 percent; simultane-ously, the number of part-time instructors increased by an incredible 305.3 percent (Hoeller, 2014).57% of part-time contingent faculty report significant commitment and passion for teaching by in-dicating that they are in their jobs primarily because they like teaching and not for the money; however, there is a high level of dissatisfaction with working conditions among contingents, and 57% report that their salaries are too small for the amount of work that they do 35% of contingent faculty earn less than

$2,500 per class, with 42% making more than $2,500 per class, and faculty from two-year institutions usually making less than those from four-year institutions The average per course pay is $2,758—only

a quarter of what average full-time (tenured and tenure-track) faculty members receive on a per course basis if their full salaries are divided by the average number of classes they teach While the average full-time faculty member earns an average annual salary of $58,306, or $11,051 per course (American Federation of Teachers, 2010), the average pay for contingent, part-time employees who teach on a semester-to-semester basis, typically without benefits, is $20,000 (Ferrara, 2015) These salary discrep-ancies are less extreme than the differences in pay of contingent faculty and the college presidents who hire them, whose annual salaries reached nearly $290,000 (plus perks) during the 2014-15 academic year (Ferrara, 2015) Granted, one must acknowledge that full-time, tenured faculty are responsible for more than just teaching They have service and research obligations to fulfill as well This accounts for some of the pay discrepancy noted From the perspective of the contingent faculty, the competition for their share of the finite scarce resources has left them in a powerless, disrespected, insecure position Contingent faculty work is undervalued and underappreciated as evidenced by their designation by such derogatory terms as mobile professors, freeway fliers, and moonlighters (Brown, 1967), as well as ghosts in the classroom (Dubson, 2001), migrant farm workers, vampires (Nelson, 2010), and indentured servants (Hoeller, 2014) The likelihood that any given college student’s course is taught by a full-time, tenurable professor is only 23% (Ferrara, 2015) Most students (and their parents), however, are unaware that the majority of their courses are taught by contract, non-tenured, contingent instructors hired by the university on an as-needed basis, making half the pay of full-time faculty and accorded few benefits or job security (Hoeller, 2014; Swift, 2012)

Nationally, only 28% of contingent faculty received health insurance as a part of their benefits, and only 39% state that they have retirement benefits through their employment 41% of contingent faculty report that they are concerned with job security and 62% believe that their opportunities for full-time teaching are slight (American Federation of Teachers, 2010) Furthermore, according to a report released

in 2012 by the Coalition on the Academic Workforce (CAW) entitled “A Portrait of Part-Time Faculty Members,” more than three-quarters of part-time faculty members said

they have sought, are now seeking, or will be seeking a full-time tenure-track position, and nearly quarters said they would definitely or probably accept a full-time tenure-track position at the institution

three-at which they were currently teaching if such a position were offered (p 2)

The working conditions of contingent faculty in our nation leave a great deal to be desired Most contingent faculty are not new to the field of education and they do not consider part-time teaching as a temporary position CAW (2012) reported that part-time faculty appreciated little, if any, wage premium based on years of experience or credentials More than 40% have been on their campuses for over 11 years and 32% have been at their job for 6 to 10 years, highlighting the fact that the majority of contract faculty have considerable experience and are committed to teaching (American Federation of Teachers, 2010) The largest proportion of part-time, contingent faculty is between 56 and 65 years of age; they are midcareer professionals Contrary to popular opinion, most are not teaching as a side job, but teaching is their primary occupation and source of income More than half have been employed in their contractual positions for more than six years, which is considered the usual amount of time it takes to earn tenure, yet 76% of the instructional workforce in American institutions of higher education is ineligible for the benefits accorded by tenure (CAW, 2012)

CHANGING ORGANIZATIONS IN A COMPLEX HIGHER EDUCATIONAL ARENA

Understanding how leaders operating from perspectives embedded within these four frames requires a deeper look at the context of higher education as an important economic driver within the U.S economy Consider this claim made recently within a U.S government report by the Department of the Treasury and the Department of Education (2012)

Higher education is a critical mechanism for individual socioeconomic advancement and an important driver of economic mobility Moreover, a well-educated workforce is vital to our nation’s future economic growth American companies and businesses require a highly skilled workforce to meet the demands

of today’s increasingly competitive, global economy Higher education is provided through a complex public-private market with many different types of individuals and institutions participating (p 2).

As Heraclitus said, “Nothing endures but change.” The economic pressures since the financial crisis

of 2007 have necessitated that organizational change occur within higher education The politics of globalization, the advancement of technology, the growth of for-profit and online institutions, as well

as tightened budgets and decreased state funding have left institutions of higher education in a state of perpetual flux In the past thirty years, the higher education system, like American society in general, has become more market oriented and corporate The corporatization of higher education, involving a shift from a service orientation to a profit orientation, has resulted in a transformation of the academic workforce The casualization of the faculty workforce has brought about a “permanent lack of perma-nence” which affects all aspects of higher education (Berry, 2005, p 4) Traditional institutions, being restructured to more immediately serve the needs of private business and being more dependent on federally-subsidized tuition assistance, have come to view students more as customers to be trained for work than as citizens to be educated (Berry, 2005)

Skillful leaders need to have an awareness and appreciation for how these external events affect their internal operations “Change capability has become a core managerial competence Without change management skills, individuals cannot operate effectively in today’s fluctuating, shifting organizations” (Cawsey, Deszca, & Ingols, 2012, p 5) Change facilitators understand the processes of change and use the strength of their relationships and interpersonal skills to work through change issues by fostering support and alleviating resistance An accomplished change leader shows a rich understanding of his organizational system in particular and shows keen insight into the degree to which strategic change is appropriate, understanding “which tasks are key at this point in time given this environment and this organization strategy” (Cawsey et al., 2012, p 23) Change leaders understand that organizations are made up of people; and change is produced by people Successful change leaders support people and promote a culture that not only endures innovation but embraces innovation “If you want to improve

an outcome, don’t spend your time thinking about the outcome itself Spend your time improving the culture that produces the outcome” (Buller, p 217)

Outsourcing of services is one method that organizations have traditionally practiced in an effort to save money and increase efficiency Great business thinkers caution, though, that there are dangers im-minent in outsourcing the “core” components of an organization The “on-shore outsourcing” of college and university teaching by contingent faculty within higher education is rarely considered as outsourcing, however, it clearly is; and furthermore, this is outsourcing the commodity that educational institutions value most highly – the teaching of students This political stance infers that this conflict over scarce resources benefits some and sacrifices others Some contingent faculty, operating from a political frame, clearly view the function of contingents in the higher education system as “academic sharecroppers” (Fountain, 2005) This view is not shared by all contract faculty, as they are a diverse group of individu-als with vastly different motivations and experiences; but that this unfavorable interpretation of the role

of contingents is held by any is a clear indication of the severity of the problem

The fabric of American faculty has changed dramatically within the past forty years (Nelson, 2010)

It is important that this change in the academic workforce be analyzed, that we understand who the new faculty are, what their experiences are, and what their growth means for undergraduate instruction and students The expansion of the body of contingent faculty impacts the various stakeholders in diverse ways and they experience its impact in differing degrees Contingent faculty are a heterogeneous mixture

of individuals Contingent faculty members are responsible for teaching the majority of undergraduate students and for encouraging them that education is the key to future economic success and a fulfilling life Though highly educated, these same faculty are oftentimes so poorly compensated that they do not display evidence of the economic benefits of education When a contract faculty member can be hired and fired at will, they will “generally teach what they are assigned, shy away from experiment and in-novation, and avoid risk-taking in their teaching and their scholarship (if they have the luxury of research time)” (Kolodny, 1999, p 77) When contract faculty feel it necessary to avoid contentious subjects in their teaching and research endeavors, the notion of academic freedom is under fierce attack (AAUP, 2009) The opportunity for creative intellectual inquiry and critical student learning will diminish The freedom to pursue cutting-edge, controversial research initiatives will necessarily fade away These conditions, unless constrained, are progressively damaging the entire fabric of the traditional purpose of higher education, the core purpose of which is to stimulate intellectual curiosity and to learn to examine ideas critically (Kolodny, 2008)

As contract faculty teach the majority of students in the higher education system, they are the “key

experiences and impact of contract faculty are analyzed to identify the policies needed to more fully represent the current educational reality The fundamental change in the academic workforce that has occurred within the past forty years necessitates that we challenge the perceived status quo that pretends tenure-track faculty are the dominant force educating our students (Kezar & Sam, 2010a) Part-time contingent faculty appointments are no longer supplementary to tenure-track appointments; they are the new norm The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has referenced the rising number

of contingent employees as the “new majority faculty” (Bousquet, 2008) Kezar and Sam (2010a) tion that too often “decisions about faculty hires are made mindful of the financial bottom line without acknowledging or being able to reconcile the impact these decisions have on students, departmental health, or faculty composition (p xi) They admonish that shifts in the academic workforce result when

cau-“market logic becomes more important than educational goals” (p xi) Care must be taken to ally plan for how state budget cuts will affect the academic labor force to ensure that the concerns of all stakeholders are addressed

intention-The proceeding overview of the macro-level context of higher education related to contingent faculty issues helps set the stage for the current micro-level investigation of the sense-making a particular leader

in higher education, namely a department chair, undergoes when faced with these macro-level realities

RESULTS

Planning and Leadership within the Department

The researchers began the interview portion of this research project by asking the department chairperson

a series of questions regarding his planning and leadership within the department When asked what type of leader he perceived himself to be, the chairperson stated

I perceive myself as a facilitator I try to connect people with resources and help them succeed in the different things that they want to do I try to get consensus whenever possible on different major deci- sions that affect the department (personal communication, February 16, 2012)

He went on to say, “I don’t perceive myself as boss; and even with the clerical staff, like an istrative coordinator or the department secretary; even in that instance I still want to be perceived as more of a facilitator.” He envisioned his role within the department to be very consistent with the hu-man resource frame, saying he tries to promote working together within the department When asked how well he thought the faculty in the department interact and collaborate, he said, “We’ve got a really great cohesive department It’s more of a family than a department.” He went on to say, “everyone is very supportive of each other” and “it’s a very close-knit group.” He mentioned how he plans for social events and parties for the department faculty and that other faculty members take an initiative in orga-nizing social events, too “The socialization piece is really important I think that’s what kind of forges the initial relationships and it keeps those going,” he shared

admin-When asked about how his leadership style impacted the general workings of the faculty, he said, “I think quite a bit, because I’ve got kind of a laid-back style I don’t think anyone sees me as a threaten-ing type of figure; nobody is afraid to come in with a problem that they might have.” He discussed how

he had learned from a department chair at a previous university what type of leader he did not want to