Every dean knows how important it is to have good department chairs. The Modern Language Association also knows how important it is for chairs to develop their professional skills in key areas such as managing a budget, dealing with personnel issues, running an assessment plan, and recruiting and evaluating faculty members. The Association of Departments of English, an organization sponsored by the MLA, arranges seminars each summer to help English department chairs do a better job by enhancing their management and leadership skills. The ADE seminars are built around the critical issues facing English departments, such as revising the major, managing the growing number of part-time faculty members, avoiding legal challenges, and working most effectively with deans.

The meetings include a special workshop for new chairs and one for graduate directors. The seminars also provide the opportunity for department chairs to meet and talk with peers from around the country. As a dean, you know how valuable it is to hear what administrators in comparable institutions are experiencing and to learn from their perspectives. College deans from a variety of institutions routinely fund the chair of English to attend the ADE Seminars. We believe that the opportunity to attend is one all chairs should have.

Good chairs make the work of your office simpler because they process personnel matters in an orderly, fair way that wards off grievances and law suits. Good chairs know how to manage their budgets to get the most out of them. Good chairs know what the dean’s office can realistically do to help them with program development. You also know the kind of headaches and trouble naive and ill-informed chairs can create.

As former chairs of English who have benefited enormously from attending ADE Seminars, we urge you to make available to the chair of your English department the funding to attend each summer. We believe that you, as dean, will benefit as much from the skills and perspectives your English chair gains as the English department will.

Anne Breznau
Dean of Academic Affairs
Elizabethtown Community College, Kentucky

Katie Conboy
Academic Vice President and Dean
Stonehill College

Iain Crawford
Dean of the School of Liberal Arts
University of Southern Indiana

Elizabeth Langland
Dean of Humanities, Arts, and Cultural Studies
University of California, Davis

Linda Pratt
Former Acting Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences
University of Nebraska, Lincoln