Argues that English departments may have to eschew parochialism and in the very same move find a shared purpose not by looking to a national disciplinary mission or identity but rather by developing a very pragmatic, opportunistic sense of what a given set of faculty members in a given set of circumstances can accomplish in its local situation.…

Notes the author's experiences that led him to gravitate toward educational partnerships. Notes that partnerships signal an answer to the discontinuities in curriculum planning and in general awareness within and among institutions; and hint at the absence of communication (let alone planning) between educators at the university and college level…

Considers how deans look at departmental budgets. Presents 10 ways in which to think about English department funding that will enable department heads to build coalitions with the dean including: (1) keeping count; (2) reorganizing; (3) managing and capitalizing; (4) innovating; (5) investing; (6) generating; (7) connecting; (8) setting…

Suggests some of the roles required of English department heads and gives a few practical tips on how to cope with them. (AEA)

Discusses how to seek resources within the home institutions--from deans, vice presidents, provosts, and the like. Suggests that department chairs draw up an inventory of the department's strengths and weaknesses. Suggests that, when asking for more resources, department chairs offer administrators something instead of just asking for more. (PRA)

Describes the major changes made by the English department of the University of Louisville in terms of how they define themselves and their mission. Notes that in exchange for all full-time faculty teaching at least one section of first-year composition annually, the administration allocated seven new tenure-track positions in the English…

Offers advice to English department chairs: when talking to the dean, learn a new perspective, a new language (the language of college administration), and new skills; when talking to colleagues, be jargon-free and appeal to shared values; and when talking to students, be explicit about what the department has to offer. (RS)

Argues that faculty vitality is an essential element in all English departments, and asserts that basic changes in the English field over the last two decades can help create that vitality. (MM)

Relates some of the good and bad of chairing an English department. (HOD)

Proposes that writing teachers and administrators think, first, in terms of the truly political realities--the situated interconnections of interests, accidents, luck, and consequences--that constrain our abilities to realize utopian goals and, second, in terms of ethical constraints to which they are willing to be bound by. (RS)

Considers how Phil Smith has given much thought in his own department, and in the national deliberations, to the staffing crisis in English departments, and he has done so with attention to the highest values and to the needs of all, from undergraduate students in the general education courses to part-timers to tenure-track and tenured faculty…

Reviews various approaches and books on the subject of corporate management and assesses their usefulness to the English department. (SRT)

Discusses the problems of being a department head and how best to deal with them. (SRT)

Suggests two principles for successful evaluation of college faculty members: chairs should know their departments; and "always, always pay attention." Describes how the chair of the English department at Michigan State University developed and implemented these suggestions. (RS)