How to dean

Being the Dean – a manifesto reflected and revised In this post I will reflect about the time of being the dean of the faculty of sustainability. After some thinking and recent events I wrote down 10 rules in the very beginning that I consider relevant to me. You might wonder now, why you should read them? Are you a dean? Do you consider becoming a dean? Even if not, the following might be of relevance for you, maybe not to learn something I learned, but to learn something about the academic system, and your part in it. I can say I learned some lessons. The guidelines I defined early on a written in bold. The revisiting of the guidelines six months into the deanship is written in plain text. The revisiting of these texts 2 months after my six year term as a dean are written in italics.

Being the Dean #1 – Developing the faculty The dean works on the coherent triangle of management of the faculty, research in the faculty and teaching of the faculty, together with the other deans.

Management: Many consider that management is the central theme of being the dean. It is simply boring admin, and why would a true researcher or teacher bother at all? Well, it is admin work, I will not fool you here, but maybe we can change the admin system, if only step by step. I learned a lot about admin tricks during the last 6 months, but more importantly, I altered the mode of admin surrounding me. How I did that you ask? First, I observed for 2-3 months. During this time, only emergency changes were made, beside that I sticked quite to the structured I found, which were after all very good. After 2-3 months, I increasingly asked people, what they would change. Then I took the ratio and rational out of the intel, and started implementing changes. It was actually fun, not only for me, but only (I hope) for others. Fact is, that most people want responsibility and trust. I think it is vital to help people reach their peak, and through the efforts of my tremendous surrounding, I actually feel I get closer to my own peak. Admin is actually much much much better than its reputation. I think people do take the time to reflect how good the system actually is. If baffled by admin and procedures, it is best -I learned- to take a step back and look at the whole picture. With some context, I believe to have learned that hardly anyone is harmful, and no one is evil in admin. People are just overworked, and misunderstood. Structured and solution-orientated suggestions for imporvement are what’s working best.