Roles and responsibilities of Deans

Roles and Responsibilities of Deans

The role of Dean of a Faculty is a critical one within any academic institution. The new senior management structure (as proposed by the Vice-Chancellor after extensive consultation and as approved by Senate at its August 2007 meeting and Council its September 2007 meeting) very clearly puts Deans at the centre of determining the direction of the institution and positioning of Rhodes University within the Higher Education (HE) milieu. Given this change, the role of Deans will evolve and mature over time but for the moment are conceptualised as follows:

1. Providing intellectual and academic leadership of the faculty,
2. Contributing to overall institutional leadership and direction,
3. Effectively representing the faculty,
4. External networking, and
5. Management of processes and people and associated administration.

 Intellectual and academic leadership:

The Dean’s academic role is premised on the basis that the Dean is elected by peers.  The Dean strives to uphold the principle of collegiality through consultation with members of faculty. Deans are charged with the responsibility of ensuring the growth and development of the faculty through its departments, encouraging and ensuring good teaching and research by faculty staff, ensuring the maintenance of academic standards, offering leadership and support to Heads of Departments, encouraging particular research niches and managing the sometimes divergent interests between the careers of individual staff members and the overall exigencies of the faculty and departments.

Contributing to overall institutional leadership and direction:

The Dean’s role is to actively participate in executive management to ensure that academic matters are catered for and prioritised within the university, and to ensure sound strategic planning and implementation for the academic endeavour. In addition, the Dean is responsible for ensuring the implementation of strategic decisions within the Faculty. This requires ongoing consultation with departments and staff and advising staff of decisions taken.

Effective internal and external representation (including networking) of the faculty:

The Dean is charged with the welfare of the Faculty and is therefore, responsible for representing the needs of the Faculty and ensuring adequate infrastructural and staff provisioning for departments.

Deans should be in touch with what goes on at other universities, and meeting occasionally with their counterparts.

Management of processes and people and associated administration:

The management role should support the academic leadership role, ensuring the smooth functioning of the Faculty in respect of inter alia, the following: admissions, registrations, exclusions, interaction with parents, graduation, examinations, staffing appointments, probation, promotions, student queries, academic staffing problems, changes in regulations, publicity and marketing and so on. This role is very critical to the ongoing operations of the faculty with demands placed on the Dean throughout the year with high volume periods such as student registration in the first semester and budgetary and staff processes in the second semester.

Electing a Dean

In the election of a Dean, consideration should be given to the suitability of an individual to fulfil the above roles and responsibilities. This is likely to be a person who, interalia:

• enjoys the respect of his/her peers,
• demonstrates academic scholarship and leadership,
• understands the challenges faced by HE institutions and who can contribute to the effective resolution or management of these,
• understands the myriad of academic student and staff processes, having participated in senior level fora in the institution,
• is able to build commitment and consensus amongst staff within the Faculty,
• represents the Faculty’s needs and interests but is able to balance these with institutional priorities and needs, and
• has the ability and resilience to cope with the management and administrative demands of the post.

Written by Sarah Fischer, Director of HR, October 2007.

Based on discussions and a document produced by the Deans in the course of 2007