What makes an excellent University department? LO23103

Steve Eskow (dreskow@corp.webb.net)
Tue, 2 Nov 1999 23:03:14 -0700

Replying to LO23096 --

Managing academics is no more difficult, and no less difficult, than
managing people in other organizations.

Some who come to the academy from other organizations--business
organizations, say--think they have learned things in business that will
improve the operation of a college, or a college department.

Since they do not understand what a college professor does, what his work
is, and how it differs from that of an accountant, or a salesman, or a
computer programmer, they are started at the hostility and resistance they
evoke.

And so they conclude that managing academics is like herding (pick your
animal.)

(My experience includes service as a department chair, a dean, and a
college president for 20 years.)

Steve Eskow

>>managing academics is like trying to make pigs fly

>Yeah, or like herding squirrels. ;-)

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