🚀 go-pugleaf

Kurt Grosshans suggests that department heads should only administrate,
be separated from teaching duties, and their time used "for conducting
the business of the department".

What exactly _is_ the business of the department, besides curriculum
development and teaching?  Now, I know that's probably an extreme way of
asking the question -- I don't mean to be jumping down Kurt's throat
here.  But still....teaching _should_ be what is on a departments mind
(I think I'd classify research as something of a teaching enterprise, if
students are involved in the work, but let's keep that a separate issue
for the moment).  And how can a person lead their department of teachers
adequately if they are divorced from the hands-on-work in the classroom?
 I don't respect administrators who can no longer contribute to the full
life of a department.

Lili Fox Velez
Rhetorician in Residence
Department of Biological Sciences
Carnegie Mellon University