Department Chairpersons Research Articles

MLA Sessions on Children's Literature

MLA Sessions on Children's Literature Anita Moss The growing scholarly and critical interest in the serious appraisal of children's literature was manifested in the number and quality of the sessions devoted to various aspects of children's literature at the 1979 meeting of the Modern Language Association. The nine sessions on children's literature were well-attended, and each of them raised significant issues about the role of children's literature as a humanistic discipline, the social, political, and psychological implications of different forms of children's literature, and the relationship between children's literature and literary criticism. The Children's Literature Association sponsored several of these sessions. In the session "Children's Literature: The Writer as Critic," author and critic Eleanor Cameron appeared with panelists Ruth K. MacDonald, Peter Neumeyer, Douglas Street, and John Cech, to discuss her views on criticism and children's literature. She suggested that the critic of children's literature should be widely read in both literature and criticism and mentioned Alfred Kazin and Edmund Wilson as critics she admired. She raised and addressed some serious questions about current directions in the criticism of children's literature, emphasizing her concern about increasingly récherché critical approaches, some of which she finds pretentious, pedantic, and opaque. Francelia Butler moderated a major session entitled "Children's Literature in the Humanities," which featured such outstanding humanists as Leslie Fiedler, Peter Beagle, Jonathan Cott, Alison Lurie, John Seelye, and Rachel Fordyce. The panelists presented their views of the importance of children's literature, discussing its impact in their personal and professional lives and commenting upon its place in the humanities. Some controversial issues emerged from the session. Leslie Fiedler, for example, spoke out against the "ghettoization" of children's literature, insisting that it should be taught in the context of literature. Alison Lurie suggested that children's literature inspires humanistic impulses in children because of its "subversive" capacity to undercut adult authority and rules. Central questions came out of this sessions "What is children's literature?" (Answers to this question were surprisingly confused and ambiguous.) "Where does children's literature belong in the curriculum: In a separate course? Blended into other literature courses?" John Seelye discussed "Adult Literature as Children's Literature" with the noted fantasy writer Peter Beagle, who commented on the nature of his fantasy and features of it which have appealed to children. Beagle mentioned such children's writers as T. H. White and Mary Norton as strong influences upon his own writing practices and described his experience with elementary school children who had read his fantasy. Rachel Fordyce presided over a forum, "Children's Literature: The Experience of Department Chairmen," where Marilyn Apseloff presented the findings of her survey of English Department chairpersons. Her results suggest a dramatic increase in the number of courses offered in children's literature in English departments around the country, as well as marked and favorable changes in the attitudes of department chairpersons towards the course. English department chairpersons, Arthur M. Eastman of Virginia Polytechnic, David H. Stewart of Texas A & M, and Mary Louise Briscoe of the University of Pittsburgh, each presented his or her experience with children's literature. While these chairpersons [End Page 8] obviously supported and encouraged the study of children's literature, they also frankly suggested that problems remain. Some staff members still view children's literature as an essentially popular subject and thus inferior to "main line" literature. Others, according to these chairpersons, question the methods by which the course is taught and regard it as sociology or education rather than literature. Still others, plainly worried about declining enrollments, are simply jealous of the popularity of the course. In this session, once again, confusion arose over the definition of "children's literature." This session was especially valuable because it focused sharply upon problems which many teachers of children's literature face in attempting to forge an acceptable professional identity for themselves and their courses amidst lingering biases and misconceptions about the nature of children's literature and its status in the context of the English department curriculum. Panelists, Jack D. Zipes, Herbert Kohl, Jan Bakker, Jerome Griswold, and K. Narayan Kutty, along...

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1977 National survey of support in space and dollars for departments of obstetrics and gynecology from their medical schools

A questionnaire was sent to all chairpersons in obstetrics and gynecology departments in United States Medical Schools in the fall of 1977 seeking information on the school's support of that department for the year 1977 in terms of space and dollar commitments. A total of 113 schools were contacted; 106 responded (93.8%) and the data were tabulated. There were no significant differences between the private and state school resources. The average space commitment was 9,277 +/- SEM 709 square feet and the average school budget was 441,023 +/- SEM 24,265 dollars/year. These data were adjusted for class size and provide the first data base for assessing the adequacy of a medical school's commitment to a department of obstetrics and gynecology.

Building good relationships between self-instructional language programs and departments of foreign languages

Recently at a seminar of the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages held’at the State University of New York at Albany, there was a discussion of the less commonly taught languages and the implications of the role of Asian languages in United States education in the 1980’s. During this discussion one department chairperson asked the question: “But aren’t we promoting these other languages at our own peril?” The idea that students must choose between the commonly taught languages (French, German, Italian, Latin and Spanish) and the less commonly taught ones (such as Arabic, Japanese, Mandarin Chinese, and Russian) is one which frightens many faculty members in traditional language departments. This idea of a choice either/or on the part of the students is one which language teachers must resist, however, for it behooves us all to become more linguistically oriented and to encourage the study of foreign languages in general and on all levels, without being prescriptive about which languages are being studied. In other words, we must leave our linguistic provincialism and call for a language awakening on the part of the American people. The MLA Task Force on the Less Commonly Taught Languages has prepared a report on the status of such languages. These uncommonly taught include those “spoken by over 80% of the world’s population, and several of them have for many years been classified as ‘strategic’ or ‘critical’ from the point of view of the national interest of the United States.“’ Rather than less commonly taught, they should be termed “neglected languages” languages that have in fact been neglected by language teachers themselves that is those who teach the traditional languages. In the realization that the study of foreign languages will grow to meet the needs of the future, the MLA task forces have prepared the MLA/ACLS Task Forces Five-Year Pfan. Among the proposals in this plan is the development of Self-Instructional Language Programs (SILP). Advocates of SILP offerings hope to see courses given in 100 different languages. Support of this report requires that we change our attitudes and that language teachers realize that we will all flourish together or sink together. When one notes that there are 100,000 teachers of English in the Soviet Union and only 27,000 students of Russian in the United States, it becomes immediately apparent that our language programs are not meeting our national needs. Although many schools can offer some of the less commonly taught languages in regular classroom settings, small schools may be unable to set up regular classes in any of these

The education deanship: A further analysis

This article expands and extends the analysis of data previously reported in a study of the education deanship. The data were collected from national samples of deans, central administrators, department chairpersons, and faculty. Multivariate statistical procedures used were factor analysis with rotations, multivariate analysis of variance, and canonical discriminant analysis. The purposes of the retreatment of the data were to: (1) identify factors that were produced from the responses and compare them with the semantic “factors” described in the original analysis; (2) compare differences among respondent groups; and (3) assess commonality of responses within each group. New and unique factors, relationships, and group differences were found. Perceptions and acceptances of the dean's role were not uniform, with department chairpersons being the most heterogeneous.

Modern Mathematics: Perceptions of Secondary Mathematics Department Chairpersons

Modern Mathematics: Perceptions of Secondary Mathematics Department Chairpersons

Anti-Nepotism's Ghost: Attitudes of Administrators Toward Hiring Professional Couples

Laws and policies are often the formalization of attitudes. The attitudes that originally led to the policy continue even when the policy no longer exists. We felt the anti-nepotism policies, declared discriminatory by HEW's Office of Civil Rights, were still in effect in the attitudes of college and university faculty. To test this, we surveyed the chairpersons of departments of psychology and sociology concerning their attitudes toward hiring a professional couple in their department. Responses to the question “Overall, how likely is it you would support the hiring of a professional couple?” indicated opposition by 37% of the chairpersons, neutrality by 25%, and support by 38%. When asked to list comments under four headings—advantages to department, disadvantages to department, professional advantages to couple, and professional disadvantages to couple—we found that supporters were more likely than opposers to mention advantages to the department and to the couple and that opposers were more likely than supporters to mention disadvantages to the department and to the couple. The types of comments made by the chairpersons may be useful to academic couples wishing to work together. “When James J. Gibson, a psychologist, moved from Smith College to Cornell University in 1948, his wife, Eleanor, also a psychologist, applied for a teaching job in her husband's department. Sixteen years later, she was hired.… “When Janet Taylor Spence went to the University of Texas in 1964, she had to forego teaching in the psychology department because her husband was already employed there. Instead she moved into the educational psychology department… In 1967 her husband died and she moved into the psychology department. A year later, she was named department chairman.”

So You Want to Be a Department Chairman

This short piece is a departure from the type of article usually published in this journal. It does not report research on the teaching of economics, but attempts to identify the real costs and benefits involved in becoming a department chairperson. This fascinating application of cost-benefit analysis and the opportunity cost principle could be used to illustrate some basic economic concepts to students, and it will certainly interest those who contemplate departmental administration. Now if Dr. Buckles would only make the same kind of study for deans ….

Status of Department Charipersons as Perceived by Academic College Deans, Department Chairpersons, and Faculty at Western Michigan University

Status of Department Charipersons as Perceived by Academic College Deans, Department Chairpersons, and Faculty at Western Michigan University

A responsive evaluation of a graduate seminar

It was in the late sixties when the formal evaluation of teachers and their courses by students in their classes first became routinized at the University of Illinois at Urbana. Students and teachers alike were told that the purpose of the evaluations was to improve college teaching. The instruments were advocated on the basis of being vehicles for student expression in the higher education process and as part of the whole move towards accountability. In practice, however, the evaluations were used by department heads or chairpersons as part of the basis for decisions about salary, retention, promotion, and tenure. Thus, the need for a new approach to course evaluation, concentrating on improving instruction was recognized. This paper is an account of a course evaluation using the responsive approach.

Paradigm development and leadership style of university department chairpersons

This article develops and tests the argument that leadership behavior in organizations can best be understood within a contingency technology-environment model. The major premise of this model is that one of the most influential intervening factors between organizational performance and leadership behavior is either the technology that the organization utilizes or the environment with which the organization interacts. Building upon this premise and the work of Kuhn (1970), four hypotheses are tested concerning the relationship between the effectiveness of natural science and social science departments in American universities using factor analysis. The data supports the conclusion that differential leadership styles are predictable in different scientific fields.

Staff Development Needs of Public Community College Department/Division Chairpersons

Abstract No administrative position appears to be more pivotal in facilitating grassroots change in the community college than that of the department or division chairperson. However, no one, until the present effort, has systematically assessed two-year college chairpersons to determine what they perceive their staff development needs to be. The results of the present study indicate that preservice and inservice training received by chairpersons was generally nominal, and that self-improvement activity appears weak. Further, the respondents reported extensive and serious needs related to knowledge of the community college, managerial skills, personnel matters, administrative matters, curriculum and instruction, student personnel services, and some 18 other possible training needs ranging from the law and higher education to the effective use of a secretary. Chairpersons were also asked to indicate what they consider to be the most convenient times and conditions for inservice training. They suggest that they would seek out substantially more training than they do if better funding, time, and site configurations were made available. Finally, concrete recommendations are made to increase the availability of training of two-year college chairpersons.

The interrelationship of job satisfaction and similarity in philosophic view within academic departments

This study used a questionnaire to determine the effect on job satisfaction of the similarity in philosophic view between faculty members (N=198) and their department chairperson (N=30) in four-year colleges and universities in the Midwest. On the basis of the data collected in this study no relationship was found between level of job satisfaction and similarity in philosophic view between the faculty members and the department chairperson of an academic department.

How Much Does a Department Chairperson Cost?

How Much Does a Department Chairperson Cost?

Are Psychology Departments Dealing with the Tenuring-in Problem? a Survey of Department Chairpersons

The issues of steady-state staffing and the regulation of tenured faculty positions represent significant concerns for psychology departments. 171 chairpersons responded to a questionnaire surveying the parameters and possible solutions to the “tenuring-in” problem. The results indicated that two out of every three faculty members in psychology departments hold tenured positions and that the most common step being taken to deal with this situation is to set more stringent criteria for the granting of tenure.

New tenure and promotion guidelines produce growth pains

Traditionally administrators routinely determined tenure and promotion decisions. Few faculty members were denied either tenure or promotion if they had put in their time. Today, however, the old system has been scuttled and the new one is characterized by strict adherence to well-delineated guidelines and procedures developed by faculty members and administrators. For a faculty member to receive consideration for tenure or promotiod, his credentials must usually be scrutinized by a departmental peer committee, departmental chairperson, a college committee, college dean, and vice president for instruction before final recommendation to the president at the university level. At each step along the way the candidate may receive either a negative vote or a positive one with the president having the last vote before final approval by appropriate state authority. Should the candidate fail to receive tenure and/or promotion he may appeal that decision before a university appeals committee. The process has been systematized; it has become an inevitability in the growing-up of colleges and universities; it is also one requiring deep soul searching and professional commitment among the decision makers. For some time now faculty have wanted more control over policies governing themselves. New guidelines generally have produced this result as faculty committees have become part of the evaluative process. Professionally speaking, a faculty member is expected to make valid, unbiased decisions as he serves on tenure and promotion committees to which he has been elected by peers or appointed by administrators. This task is difficult, and the opportunity to serve in this capacity we may approach with some ambivalence. To decide negatively about a colleague is painful, and many faculty now say administrators can decide more objectively and calculatingly from their particular vantage point. This is particularly true when faculty committees are charged with the responsibility of evaluating the candidate for tenure and/or promotion in light of departmental, college, and university goals. Does the candidate offer the unique type of professional preparation and experience needed by his department? Or should his position go to an individual with specific competencies that would further the university's goals? This new system of evaluation has created several ramifications both for the game and the people playing it. It has led to dismissal of some faculty and created considerable unrest and distrust among others. Among many faculty of marginal ability, anxiety and fear have become manifest as they experience the new growth pains. These new procedures also have led to a more productive faculty as the emphasis has shifted from passive mediocrity to scholarship and

Grantsmanship and the community junior college

When we use the term grantsmanship to describe an attribute of professional leadership, no doubt a number of mental pictures slip into our minds. Prior experience may influence the value-feeling assigned to the word. It may be complimentary or even derogatory, depending upon the extent of success we may have experienced in the games we play. An element of hucksterism, raising money for its own sake, seems to dominate the reactions of some; on the other hand, others view grantsmanship as a lifesaving activity of resuscitation for drowning colleges. It is, of course, unfortunate if we accept either extreme as defining these activities. The function of college development is not only legitimate but necessary in colleges of the 1970s, and grantsmanship remains an important part of college development responsibilities. The person on a community college staff responsible for grants should function as an integral part of the development mission. Traditionally, many colleges have structured college administrative officers in a tiered bureaucratic series of boxes which follow specifically the basic five functions of collegiate responsibilities: The executive function usually centers in the president (with or without help of his closest advisers). This function carries the responsibility for operational activities and, when implemented into position categories, may require a number of assistants to in the organizational structure. In some colleges the person in charge of obtaining grants may hold one of these positions. The academic or instructional function often centers in a dean or vice president assisted by department or division chairpersons, a learning resources director, and the teaching faculty. The needs of these persons in carrying out their responsibilities are often greater than usual sources of college income will provide. The individual in charge of grants may be called upon to aid in providing these extra funds, although this part of the administrative structure seldom includes him. The student development function involves responsibilities the college accepts for identifying, recruiting, counseling, and assisting students themselves. Limitations upon funds available to carry out this function cause many colleges to seek special help through grants. The individual responsible for grantsmanship may find that the student development function will require a large portion of his attention, but again he seldom fits into this section of the administrative structure.

Time management in higher education administration: A case study

How do departmental chairpersons and deans in a major university setting manage their time? What are the major administrative activities and functions associated with such responsibilities? What relationships do these have with an ability to delegate, to control one's time for planning and self-initiated activities, or with a personal sense of productivity, enjoyment, and stress? This paper attempts to address these questions in the form of a time management case study, drawing on data from a staff development project for administrators in a college at a major American university. Through the use of a new sampling technique and traditional descriptive and parametric statistics, it is possible to identify, rapidly and with precision, a large number of variables that describe the work process as it relates to the above questions. The findings indicate that there is considerable commonality across individuals and that it is possible to deal with such issues as time management, job stress, and enjoyment on an organizational level.

A recent study of graduate assistants

University administrators, college deans, department chairpersons and directors, faculty members, graduate assistants, and undergraduate students were mailed questionnaires concerning the roles of and attitudes toward graduate assistants at the University of Minnesota. Basic agreement was found to exist among the six groups surveyed with regard to many aspects of graduate assistantships. Graduate assistants were found to have little knowledge of many departmental concerns that directly affect them. The number of formalized policies regulating graduate assistantships was found to vary with the classification of assistantship.

Preparing Teachers and Administrators for the Field of Religious Education

A considerable complexity surrounds the preparation of teachers and administrators for the field of religious education. If it's teachers you are thinking of, then you must determine which level of teaching you will be preparing them for: Primary, Intermediate, Junior High, High School, College, Adult. (6 levels)As for administrators there are five constituencies out there: Chairpersons of religion departments in elementary schools, high schools, colleges, Parish Directors or Coordinators, Diocesan Directors.Certain essentials will be necessary for everyone. Religious content such as Bible, theology, liturgy. Humanistic content such as behavioral science (counseling, developmental, behaviorist psychology and religious sociology), educational theory, some poetry and film study, administrative theory (Barnard and Brucker)—this last, of course, only for administrators—and lastly, method.Most teachers and administrators are receiving plenty of religious content, a fair amount of behavioral science, not too much educational theory, practically no management skills, and virtually no method.From what I can see, the weakest parts of college and graduate school preparation programs are in the area of management theory and practical educational method. It is to this question of method I wish to direct my remarks.Prior to launching directly into the topic I want to note that a consciousness of Parish Community should be uppermost in these varying preparations. The territorial parish, for the foreseeable future, will be the basic unit of Catholic Church life. It is the fundamental structure wherein most religious teaching and administrating will go on.