Associate Dean Creep

Okay, so now that I'm not an Associate Dean of anything, I suppose I can ask these questions without looking like I'm trying to feather my own nest ...

I'm interested in how many schools have more than one Associate Dean position (i.e. positions held by faculty rather than senior staff) and what portfolios they are divided into.  I've worked at schools with many associate deans - including A.D.s for higher student research (in schools with LL.M. and Ph.D. programs), A.D.s for faculty research, A.D.s for student affairs, A.D.s for international affairs and/or foreign exchange etc.  And I know there are an increasing group of A.D.s for experiential learning and practical legal training these days.

I'm wondering if there is an optimal number of associate deans at any given school and how the portfolios might be most effectively divvied up.  This will obviously vary from school to school.  A lot of the Australian schools I worked at had MANY A.D. positions but also huge student bodies and varied academic programs, whereas a lot of the smaller U.S. schools have only one or two A.D.s  And when there are only one or two portfolios they seem to be academic affairs and research/faculty development.

Does anyone have any thoughts on whether multiple associate deans are a good idea and in what contexts it's most effective to have more than one?  Is it just a factor of how big the school is and how many student programs it offers or are there more issues to take into account?  (And I know I used lots of prepositions to end sentences with in this post but I'm taking a holiday from good grammar through sheer end-of-semester tiredness.)

 

Comments

[Bob Strassfeld]

Initially, I thought Creep was the last name.

[Bob Strassfeld]

We have, incidentally, added a Vice Dean to our bevy of demi-deans. We are assured that vice is not included in his portfolio.

[Jacqui Lipton]

I should have thought of "Creep" as a last name. That would have been an interesting post!
I think all vice deans should definitely have "vice" in their portfolios. Isn't that what's missing from the modern law school?

[Eric Muller]

Bob beat me to it: this was my nickname when I was in the administration at UNC Law, as I'm sure my colleagues will attest.

[Bill Turnier]

When Judith Wegner became dean she created an Associate Dean position that was new to our school and which I first occupied starting in 1990. The title was Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and my primary obligation was to arrange for faculty seminar presentations, brown bag discussions of scholarly interest, etc. I used to joke that the title could also imply that I was obligated to check up the romantic activities of my colleagues. My wife came up with a better title and started to call me as the Minister of Culture. I liked that one.

[MLS]

My sense is the proliferation of Associate Deans is quite common, and also a common management strategy where a Dean surrounds him or herself with allies. At our school, we now have probably a dozen Associate Deans and now Assistant Deans (when I started about 15 years ago, and we had a larger student body, there were 3 such Deans). It is expensive and Deans can get away with it because there is so little oversight.

[Jacqueline Lipton]

I guess I should start a new thread with the funniest Associate Dean titles as well!

[Eric Muller]

"a common management strategy where a Dean surrounds him or herself with allies."

What a paranoid vision, MLS.

A more charitable view is the deans choose to bring people into administration with whom they feel they can work effectively and collegially.

Incidentally, my dean made me Associate Dean for Faculty Development at a time when I was being quite critical of a number of things at my school, including decisions the dean had made. I think he felt that even though I'd been a critic, we would nonetheless work together effectively and collegially. That's exactly what we did.

[BWH]

"my primary obligation was to arrange for faculty seminar presentations, brown bag discussions of scholarly interest, etc."

That's what our Faculty Development Committee does. Why create a deanship for this?

[MLS]

In re Eric Muller's comments, I think you misunderstood. It certainly makes sense for Deans to bring in their own people, but then they would be replacing those who hold Deanships. Creating new Deanships is a way to expand one's influence and power, and within law schools the proliferation of such Deanships has been seriously wasteful and rarely productive.