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Essential Skills for Leading Departments

The Essential Skills for Leading Departments lunch series equips chairs with the knowledge and skills they need for success, including proactively working to enhance department culture and managing conflict to ensure the success and retention of faculty and staff, as well as of students.

Chairs who participate in the series will:

  • Build skills and discuss best practices and scenarios for managing conflict and promoting trust, respect, professionalism, belonging and community
  • Learn how to proactively promote faculty well-being and influence department culture
  • Gain information about resources for intervention when necessary

Topics will include Giving and Receiving Feedback, Managing Staff, Building Community and Well-being, and Improving Department Climate, among others.

Registration and Contact: Department chairs will receive emails to register for each session. If you have questions, please contact Joan Johnson, Director for Faculty, Office of the Provost, at faculty@northwestern.edu.

 

Essential Skills for Leading Departments lunch series schedule
Date and time Topic Facilitators
Sept. 8, Noon-3 p.m.

Giving and Receiving Feedback (Chairs Welcome Program)

  • Skills to hold difficult conversations with faculty colleagues, hear complaints and concerns, avoid shutting down conversation, and assess next steps
  • How and when to provide critical feedback
Sarah Klaper, University Ombuds
Oct. 12, Noon-1:30 p.m.

Managing Staff

  • Promoting a culture in which staff are valued and supported by faculty, and able to grow in their profession
  • Understanding staff motivation and best practices for keeping staff engaged and productive
Tracy Gioia-Walker and Julia Kyle, Human Resources
Nov. 30, Noon-1 p.m.

Building a Thriving Community: The Role of Trust and High-Quality Communications

  • Skills and tactics for building trust, communications, and community for faculty colleagues in your department
  • The components of high-quality communications and best practices for creating connections and respectful engagement
Gaurava Agarwal, Faculty Wellness Program Director 
Jan. 18, Noon-1 p.m.

Caught in the Middle: The Chair’s Role

  • Managing up, down, and across with peer faculty members
  • Understanding the chair’s role, including potential for action as well as limitations for a range of situations
Sarah Klaper, University Ombudsperson
Feb. 28, Noon-1 p.m.

Improving Department Climate

  • Improving department climate and belonging for BIPOC faculty and other underrepresented faculty to increase satisfaction, success, retention
Michelle Manno, Assistant Provost for Diversity and Inclusion 
April 5, Noon-1:30 p.m.

Managing Promotion and Tenure

  • Discussion of best practices in managing promotion and tenure process

Register online

Sumit Dhar, Associate Provost for Faculty
April 14, Noon-1 p.m.

Lunch with the Provost

Kathleen Hagerty