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New Department Head Orientation Presentations
Monday, August 24

 

Present:

Blankeneau, Breen, Canter, Cochran, Fenton, Gwinner, Krause, Lambert, Maatta, MacDonald, McHaney, Meredith, Meyer, Moore, Philson, Pickering, Ragar, Rintoul, Rolley, Singh

Absent:

Bridegam, Khan, Leslie

Special Guest:

Ruth A. Dyer, Interim Provost

Dyer’s comments:

  1. KSU as a decentralized institution
  2. KSU as a student-centered research university—the need to engage students early-on
  3. Quote from Academic Leader—departments are critically important to a university
  4. Overview of department head roles
  5. Attributes for a quality head:
    1. Caring attitude for all members of the university community
    2. Story about her youngest son’s business—“accountability to all”
    3. Make time to be reflective.  Ask questions like:
      1. What’s in the best interest of the students, the department, and the university?
      2. How will the department choose its future?
      3. What assets and liabilities exist within the department?
      4. Where is the department heading?
  6. Know and follow KSU’s Principles of Community; use them in your daily work
  7. Adhere to KSU’s Honor and Integrity Policy
  8. Importance of following and implementing all university policies.  Ask questions and use university resources.
  9. Use common sense and good judgment.
  10. Be proactive, not reactive, to the extent possible.  Use faculty members’ antennae to help guide you and your decisions.
  11. Five things to consider:
    1. Create a welcoming and inclusive environment
    2. Maintain the best student learning environment—strive for the best regionally and nationally
    3. Provide opportunities for everyone to grow intellectually and professionally
    4. Provide mentoring at all levels—all departments need to have faculty mentoring programs.  Contact Bill Meredith for help with this.
    5. Help everyone dream.
    6. Expand the entrepreneurial mindset.
    7. Recognize and seize opportunities; marshal and leverage resources; build effective teams; provide resilient and robust leadership.
    8. Remember the mission of the university—educate, discover and apply knowledge, and provide outreach and service
  12. University initiatives
    1. New administration, along with excitement and optimism
    2. Time of budget reduction—will require all our creative energy.  An opportunity to re-examine things.  “Creative destruction” perhaps an apt term, in some respects.  Departmental Committees on Planning (DCOP’s) will be important and this will form the subject of the upcoming 1st Tuesday Roundtable on September 8.  Suggestions from across the campus will require up to a 2-year implementation timeline.  Use departmental priorities, already established, as guides as we look to the future.
    3. Higher Learning Commission visit in 2011-2012—a great deal of work to do.  Subject of the September 1 retreat.  HLC wants results and demonstrated evidence of success, not flowery verbiage.  Departments have this evidence.  Three areas needing work were identified previously—diversity enhancement, assessment, and general education.
    4. KSU Olathe Innovation Campus (KOIC)—A design/build team has been identified, looking toward a goal of spring 2011.  Johnson County implemented a 1/8-cent sales tax, which yields $500K annually—half to be used for bonding obligation.  There exists the possibility to expand our offerings beyond animal health and safety and security. 
    5. Student success/retention—what are the best practices?
    6. Diversity agenda will move forward.
    7. International programs are important and will be emphasized.
  13. Driving images
    1. Blind musician who composes music extempore to re-cap the stories of individuals—he uses “driving images” as his key.
    2. Orbiting the Giant Hairball: a Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace, by Gordon Mackenzie (http://www.amazon.com/Orbiting-Giant-Hairball-Corporate-Surviving/dp/0670879835) MacKenzie was with Hallmark Cards and includes in this book a chapter on creative paradox stressing listening and encouraging.  At Hallmark’s request, he re-thought the corporate structure and found it to be pyramidal, which he found to be ill-conceived.  Rather, he suggested a “plum tree” structure <see handout> that includes resources, supporting structure, provide daily services, and achieve mission as component parts. 
  14. Two quotes:
    1. Richard Bach—“There is no such thing as a problem without a gift in its hands.”
    2. Leo Tolstoy—(summarized) “One can live magnificently in this world if one knows how to live and love.”
  15. ABC’s
    1. Act on passions
    2. Build community
    3. Create partnerships