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Adventures in Chairpersoning
Why I Enjoy Being a Department Chair.
For the past three years, I’ve been a Department Chairperson. Even though these years have mostly been characterized by the impacts of COVID-19, chairing has almost entirely been good, enjoyable work. And I think I’m generally pretty good at the work, too. So I thought I might spend some words this week on thoughts around my experience of being a Chair, and why — for me, at least — it’s a great gig.
Some part of why I like Chairing has to do with the particular way in which I came to the role. Prior to moving to my current school, I was in a similar role back in New York, having moved into a Director-level role for Science & Technology during the last two years that I worked in my former district. That role (technically a “Curriculum Associate”) was okay. It wasn’t hard, but over the two years that I held the position, it got super boring. How boring? I mean, I have an entire moth-balled blog devoted to considering the particulars of the work. Basically, the flaws in the role were a combination of being the district point person for administrative compliance around state testing and state-mandated teacher evaluation, combined with an almost total lack of the kind of creative work that is typical of classroom teaching. When the opportunity to move to my current school and return to actual teaching came along, I eagerly took it (that the particulars of the salary and benefits of my current position were far superior to the prior role certainly didn’t hurt at all 🥳).
During my first year in the current job I taught full-time, which was absolutely the correct thing for me to do. I had moved into a staff role that was occupied by the prior Department Chair, who had moved on. The Department Chairperson role during my first year was temporarily occupied by a colleague who was doing it, essentially as a stop-gap favor for the year. I have since come to understand there was an understanding that as long as I demonstrated that I was not an asshat, I would be highly considered for the role starting in year two. So it appears that — as far as being able to Chair goes — I am not an asshat.
I think this path is a large part of why I really enjoy serving as Chair. The role allows me to do the kinds of work that I enjoyed doing back when I was a…
