Department Chairs

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As leaders of their academic departments, Department Chairs foster a sense of cohesive team building within their units and represent their departments to other areas of the University. Chairs direct and motivate faculty efforts to explore new directions for their departments as well as exercise oversight to ensure the academic quality of their departments’ existing programs. Toward these ends, major responsibilities of the chairs include attention to curricular and programmatic issues and the professional development of the faculty. Additional information on Department Chairs can be found in the Faculty Bylaws, Article XI.

Chairs keep abreast of developments in the content and pedagogy of their disciplines to ensure the currency and appropriateness of curricular offerings. Chairs oversee those further activities (advising, student organizations and/or honor societies, events for majors/minors, etc.) which complement the curricula of their majors to ensure students a complete and high quality educational experience. Chairs coordinate their departments’ strategic planning in these curricular and programmatic areas and ensure that assessment of goals is conducted and used in ongoing planning.

Chairs assist departmental faculty in the creation and implementation of individual professional development plans and engage in formative evaluation of the faculty, the primary purpose of which is to advance professional development. Chairs also assist Deans in matters of hiring, contract status, salary, promotion, and tenure.