What’s It Like to Be a Department Chair? Takeaways From a Candid Conversation

Few people pursue a Ph.D. or a research position so they can chair an academic department someday. Many faculty end up in the department chair role because they are asked to do so, or out of a shared sense that it’s “their turn.” To complicate matters, the skills that help chairs succeed as researchers and teachers may not be the same ones that will help them run a department. In the best of circumstances, faculty navigate these learning curves to become successful, even “joyful” chairs. 

To learn more about this transformation, I facilitated a conversation at the Department & Unit Leaders Retreat with three seasoned chairs: Hai (Helen) Li, Tom Nechyba and David Page. Here’s what we discussed.

Few people pursue an academic career so they can chair a department someday. What does chairing a department mean to each of you, in relation to your academic identities and career trajectory?

Tom shared a perspective that might surprise many faculty ambivalent about taking on the chair role: it was, he states, “truly a joyful experience.” He was quick to explain, however, that it wasn’t “party-type joy” but rather “a deep sense of satisfaction [in] the meaningful change we can create in people’s lives.” He also described the intellectual joy of learning more about his discipline and the work of his colleagues.

David’s experience in the first months of the role did not seem so “joyful” at first (largely because it coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic), but he relished a deepening sense that he was “making a difference.”

Helen shared her satisfaction at the opportunity to “work at a larger scale,” focusing on other people and programs beyond her own research. In that way, it “broadened, not replaced” her core academic identity.

As chairs, you value the opportunity to make a difference, but there are constraints on a chair’s power as well. How have you been able to exert agency and influence in your roles?

Early on in her chair role, Helen set aside the notion of “control” and instead curated a more collegial approach — enabling colleagues, facilitating mutual understanding and communication, moving things forward rather than leaning into top-down management. For David, financial and resource constraints served as a reality check early on, and he came to see his agency as “talk[ing] to everyone — from other faculty across campus to my dean — to try to pull strings and get things to happen.”  

“Our power,” added Tom, “comes from trust. If we don’t have the trust of our faculty, we don’t have power.” He noted how the quality of the relationship underlies everything, as tenured faculty in particular cannot be coerced into doing things a chair’s way.

Few people get training in how to chair an academic department. What did your learning curve look like as you assumed the chair role, and what strategies and resources helped you navigate that transition?

David emphasized the importance of identifying mentors — both more seasoned and former chairs, as well as other people around campus who can provide resources and perspective. Tom and Helen both emphasized the benefits of rethinking assumptions that had guided them earlier in their careers. Helen, for example, found value in shifting from an individual problem-solving perspective (as an engineering researcher) to one where her role as a facilitator and consensus-builder guided groups of people toward joint solutions, “not one person’s opinion.” And while dealing with challenging personalities comes with chair territory, Tom eventually realized that “people are doing the best they can given their circumstances … after that shift [you can] truly step into their shoes and see the world the way they see it and try to meet them there and then start the conversation.”

Chairs can’t make everybody happy, and that can be a difficult part of the job. At what points do you have to say “no” to people or push back on something?

Just because it can’t be a yes doesn’t mean it has to be a hard “no.” “It could be no at this moment,” explained Helen, “or no in this format and we can work together and find some workaround or other way to support someone.” For David, a chair listening carefully and thinking creatively can help preserve a good dynamic, “even if we end up getting to a no.”

And there are steps a chair can take long before a faculty member comes with an ask. Tom, for example, found enormous value in working with his colleagues early on to develop a shared vision for the department. “Because once we have that shared vision, then when someone comes … with what sounds to them a perfectly reasonable idea … it’s much easier to say: this is what we said we were going to do. Does this fit? It’s a great idea, but it doesn’t fit what we all agreed we were going to do.”

Faculty Advancement Resources for Chairs

Current department chairs are welcome to join in one of four chairs conversations (three of them hosted by either Tom, Helen or David) this academic year. These dinners will be capped at a relatively small number for candid, confidential discussion and held at a venue off campus. Take advantage of mentorship from a seasoned chair host, as well as perspectives and support from chair peers over a meal. If you do not receive more details directly from Faculty Advancement via email in September, please email facultyadvancement@duke.edu.

Incoming and current department chairs have access to free and confidential 1:1 leadership coaching sponsored by the Office for Faculty Advancement. Please email Maria LaMonaca Wisdom (assistant vice provost and ICF-credentialed professional coach) if you are interested in this resource. If there is sufficient interest, OFA will also pilot group coaching for chairs in Spring 2027.

Maria LaMonaca Wisdom is assistant vice provost for faculty advancement at Duke.

Main image: Maria Wisdom, Hai (Helen) Li, Tom Nechyba and David Page at the Department & Unit Leaders Retreat