TO RISE ABOVE PRINCIPLE

Describes the dean's role in tenure decisions, budgeting, affirmative action, and handling faculty demands, and shares a humorous look at academic life

Writing under a pseudonym, the dean of an American universityalso unidentifiedhere recounts good and bad experiences as an administrator in the groves of academe. Martin candidly admits that he finds it "exhilarating to be a dean" after being a professor: to be involved in the bustling activity of hiring and firing faculty, to deal with tenure problems and, perhaps primarily, to hone his skill for taking on the concerns of staff, students and their parents. What he describes, in a lighthearted way, is his on-the-job training to become a dean, which requires spending much time "with difficult people, in circumstances where no really satisfactory solution is in the cards." Martin ridicules shibboleths rampant in large American universities as he exemplifies the commonsense and practicality that, he concludes, are at a premium for deans.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Unlike Richard Berendzen's Is My Armour Straight? ( LJ 12/1/85), the diary of a university president, this is an anecdotal essay on academe from the dean's point of view. Academics are sure to recognize colleagues, if not themselves, as they chuckle along with the author. Martin moved up the professorial ladder to a deanship and now presents his view (up-down-sideways) of the university environment. Martin also maintains that true learning (educating) enjoys a diversity of opinions, and it is in this experience that members of academe should strive to participate in daily. Annelle R. Huggins, Memphis State Univ. Libs., Tenn.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.