The College Administrator's Survival Guide

by C. K. Gunsalus

Overview

Late one afternoon, as you are organizing your new office as department chair, one of the senior members of the department drops by. He affably informs you of his plans for the coming semester: that contrary to the published class schedule, he only teaches on Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday, and Thursday morning, so as to have the weekends free for travel; that he expects the office staff to start his coffeemaker by 10 a.m. sharp on his teaching days; and that since he hasn’t been assigned a research assistant, his teaching assistant will do research tasks, including errands. What do you say? What do you do?

Never mind budgets or curriculum reform: staff problems can be the most thorny of any academic administrator’s job. Every day, professors who have never run anything bigger than a seminar find themselves in charge of a complex and volatile organization called a Department of English (or Biology, or Sociology, or Textile Marketing). What should they do?

In this book, a widely respected advisor on academic administration and ethics offers tips, insights, and tools on handling complaints, negotiating disagreements, responding to accusations of misconduct, and dealing with difficult personalities. With humor and generosity, C. K. Gunsalus applies scenarios based on real-life cases, examples from negotiation, law, and child-rearing to guide novice (and experienced) academic administrators through the dilemmas of management in not-entirely-manageable environments.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674250987
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	09/30/2006
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	254
File size:	695 KB

About the Author

C. K. Gunsalus is Professor Emerita of Business and Director of the National Center for Professional and Research Ethics at the University of Illinois, where she formerly served as Associate Provost. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• 1. Embrace Your Fate
• 2. Know Your Colleagues
• 3. Negotiation
• 4. Complaints
• 5. Bullies
• 6. When Not to Improvise
• 7. Violations
• 8. Centering
• For Further Reading
• Credits
• Acknowledgments
• Index

What People are Saying About This

Where was this book when I was department chair? It provides an extremely useful and comprehensive set of tools and skills that would help almost anyone in academic administration--and in a conversational tone, with a good dose of humor. I found myself laughing one minute and shaking my head in recognition the next. Colleges should buy this book by the truckload and provide copies to all the poor souls who are about to be thrown into the abyss of academic administration. I learned a tremendous amount.

Editorial Reviews

With chapters such as ‘Embrace Your Fate’ and ‘Bullies,’ the author reveals a down-to-earth style. Gunsalus says budgets and curriculum planning are a piece of cake when compared to people management. During her years in university administration she has had to investigate myriad problems, including sexual harassment and financial improprieties. The upside of confronting such ‘yucky problems’ is her book, which reflects her hands-on experience with reworked procedures and managerial training.

University Business - Jean Marie Angelo

Tina Gunsalus has enormous experience as an administrator, and in this book, with the conversational tone that makes it so enjoyable to read, her knowledge and common sense shine through. The case studies she uses can be as funny as Richard Russo’s Straight Man. Unfortunately, what sounds like a novel can be a real-life problem, and her recommendations for finding solutions are very useful. She used the cases in a workshop on our campus, and the academic leaders who attended found her compelling and thought-provoking—just like the advice in this book.

Hal Irvin

Where was this book when I was department chair? It provides an extremely useful and comprehensive set of tools and skills that would help almost anyone in academic administration—and in a conversational tone, with a good dose of humor. I found myself laughing one minute and shaking my head in recognition the next. Colleges should buy this book by the truckload and provide copies to all the poor souls who are about to be thrown into the abyss of academic administration. I learned a tremendous amount.

Laura Schreibman

Tina Gunsalus’s seminar on administrative survival skills kept a crowd of academic administrators rapt for five straight hours, and eager for more. Her advice was lucid, practical, and remarkably shrewd; she adroitly showed us how to elicit the best from ourselves and our faculty even in the worst situations.

Michael Schoenfeldt

With chapters such as "Embrace your fate" and "Bullies," the author reveals a down-to-earth style. Gunsalus says budgets and curriculum planning are a piece of cake when compared to people management. During her years in university administration she has had to investigate myriad problems, including sexual harassment and financial improprieties. The upside of confronting such "yucky problems" is her book, which reflects her hands-on experience with reworked procedures and managerial training.
— Jean Marie Angelo

University Business