Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/63444
What Was Your Position Before Becoming Dean? In Government 2.5% Other (in academia) 1.5% Business 7% In Dean 16% Faculty member 17% 4% University administrator 6% Program director (does not total 100% due to rounding) What Was Your Academic Background? Quantitative methods Production management Information sciences Business law 4% 4% 5% Accounting 11% Finance 12% 2% Other 7% Department chair 18% Interim dean 10% Associate/assistant deputy dean 17% ■ In Academia 89.5% are a dean's most valuable tools. Forty-four percent of them say that patience and persistence are required to be a good dean, and 26 percent rank communication skills as their most valuable ability. No other skills or sets of experiences ■ What Dahringer and Langrehr call "parenting skills" received any significant ranking. ■ They don't plan to do this forever. The 92 percent of survey respondents who hold the title of dean have been in their current positions for an average of five years; the eight percent who are interim deans have held that position for only four months. For 68 percent, this is their first deanship. Thirty-two percent have been deans before and stayed in those positions just over four years. They expect to be deans for another five years, either at their current institutions or elsewhere. However, it's possible they may soon be making a change in position since they have held their current dean- ship for five years and their immediate predecessors tended to be deans at their schools for just over six years. ■ A deanship isn't always the last stop in the job market. Only a quarter of respondents plan to retire once they've fin- ished deaning. Close to half want to return to faculty. The rest plan to take other jobs, most of them related to admin- istration or management. While some of the pieces of this portrait seem cast in Economics 14% Human resources 14% Strategy 14% Marketing 13% stone—it's unlikely, for instance, that deans will need to cultivate less patience over the next few years—some of the elements seem like they easily could be recombined. For example, there's no reason to think that the number of female deans can't eventually rise from 12 percent to a much higher figure. A 1999–2000 salary survey by AACSB reveals that 33.9 percent of new doctorates are women, and women account for 31.3 percent of the assistant professors and 22.8 percent of the associate professors in business school. Clearly, some of those women might begin looking toward deanships. Like their male counterparts, women deans are familiar with funding concerns and staffing issues—and many of them have already learned how to be patient and persistent. Respondents offered a wide range of advice to potential new deans, counseling patience above all things. They also noted that a dean who brings about change is likely to make some stakeholders unhappy and suggested, "Make sure you have a thick skin." Nonetheless, these respon- dents urged new deans to "act decisively" and "lead with great spirit and enthusiasm." Finally, one respondent offered this guidance: "Be optimistic and positive. Develop a strategic plan that fits the culture and reality. Create a team. Get lucky." ■ z BizEd MAY/JUNE 2002 39