Citrus College Faculty Researching Return of Dept. Chairs

Department chairs, which have been absent from Citrus College for many years, may return if the full-time faculty has its way.

The Academic Senate at Citrus began researching the return of the department leaders since last year, according to Robert Sammis, director of human resources.

"They're looking for the opportunity to bring faculty more clearly into a leadership role in certain conditions," Sammis said.

According to Sammis, the district is not opposed, but the main question is how, when and where such an endeavor would be implemented and in what capacity.

Right now, the department chair position is being looked at as a liaison between the faculty and the deans, Sammis said.

According to a 2007 faculty newsletter, department chairs were slowly eliminated beginning in 1997.

According to Terry Miles, author of the newsletter story and current professor, the board found it difficult to enforce expectations of the chairs and because the district had been issued a grievance due to a dispute between a chair and a professor.

"My understanding is that some Chairs didn't perform their expected duties and were often absent on days where the District expected them to be on campus and/or at meetings," Miles said.

According to Miles, the board felt that since the chairs could not be grieved, they would pose a problem to the district.

Efforts to contact members of the Board of Trustees were unsuccessful.

Department chairs evaluated full and part-time faculty, oversaw curriculum, and provided mentorship, according to the Faculty Newsletter.

“Rather than refine it [the system] and clean it up, my understanding is the district just eliminated the system,” according to Bruce Langford, chief faculty negotiator.

Once gone, the Associate Dean Structure was implemented, a precursor to the current Area Dean Structure.

Some faculty felt the associate dean structure worked better since they were required to teach at least 40 percent of the time, giving them direct interaction with students and a better feeling of department issues.

When former Superintendent/President Dr. Michael Viera entered in 2003, he chose to institute Area Deans without faculty input, according to Miles. Area Deans no longer taught courses and other forms of accessibility lessened, according to the newsletter.

Feelings were mixed with the new system.

"Most of those that liked the chair system seemed to feel that the faculty lost some control in shared governance once the system was replaced," Miles said.

Some were happy that chairs were eliminated.

"Administrators are at-will employees and can be terminated if they fail to perform. Faculty were stuck with their chair and if they were bad, it really affected the department," said a dean who did not want to be identified.

Langford said that there is no effort to usurp the deans’ authority, but rather to help run things more efficiently. The faculty would like to test the implementation of chairs in key areas over time to see their efficiency.

“We’re looking at what’s the most efficient way to run it, because in the end that is what’s going to serve students the best,” Langford said.

Sammis said that the faculty association is considering implementing a pilot program to test the waters of how it would work.