Policy Making in the Middle: Developing and Implementing Departmental and Institutional Policies

When it comes to departmental and institutional policies, department chairs frequently find themselves literally in the middle, tasked with implementing institutional policies coming from above and obligated to develop departmental policies that are needed for the department below. These policies can concern themselves with an almost unlimited range of topics, including curriculum and faculty issues, problems involving academic dishonesty and student complaints, and institutional initiatives such as cost savings and compliance directives. Department chairs can find themselves having to lead a reluctant department into implementing an institutional policy not of their own making, or they can find themselves having to prompt an equally reluctant department to create a departmental policy that may be sorely needed but may not be universally perceived as necessary. This workshop will begin with a focus on departmental policies. Drawing upon the experience of participants, we will develop a list of departmental policies that are useful tools for the department chair’s toolbox, as well as policies that compliance requirements may make necessary. We will discuss how to go about developing these policies in a manner that combines transparency with efficiency. (Along the way, we will talk about departmental policies that may assist in the better functioning of departmental meetings.) We will also talk about times and places when departmental policies go wrong. We will also examine the challenges of implementing institutional policies that are not developed by the department. We will discuss strategies for bringing these policies to the department, as well as how chairs can use other department chairs as resources. For both of these topics, we will look at case studies, discuss ideas in small groups, and brainstorm together, with the goal of producing essentially a guide to policies – with a focus on which policies and how to implement – by the end of the workshop. Participants should bring a list of department and institutional policies that are relevant to them to the workshop. These policies can be policies currently in place in your institution/department, policies you would like to develop, or policies you would like to discard