Department Chair as Academic Leader

IRENE W. D. HECHT, senior associate, American Council on Education (ACE), is director of ACEs national programs for department/division chairs and deans. She is also president of Higher Education Associates, an independent higher education consulting organization. A former professor of history, Hecht has served as associate dean of faculty at Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Or.; dean of the college for Mary Baldwin College, Staunton, Va.; dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Sangamon State University, Springfield, Ill.; and president of Wells College, Aurora, N.Y. Her Ph.D. is from the University of Washington.
MARY LOU HIGGERSON is a professor in the department of speech communication at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, IL. She is a seasoned academic administrator with 19 years of experience as department chair, associate dean, and associate vice president for academic affairs. Higgerson is the author of Communication Skills for Department Chairs and coauthor of Complexities of Higher Education Administration: Case Studies and Issues. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Kansas, Lawrence.
WALTER H. GMELCH is dean of the College of Education at Iowa State University in Ames, IA. |He is one of the leading researchers in the study of academic leaders in higher education and has written numerous articles, books, and scholarly papers. Gmelch holds a B.A. from Stanford University; an M.B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley; and a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara.
The late ALLAN TUCKER was director, Institute for Academic Leadership, and professor of higher education, Florida State University, Tallahassee.