I, department chairman (part 2)
A subtitle for this post might be: “on saying ‘no’.”
In the last month, I have said “no” more often than I ever have since I was two years old. One difference between now and then is that when I was two, I imagine my “no” frequency probably owed a lot to having recently learned that “no” is a power word — a word that apparently contains much more influence than the mere sounds or ideological content associated with it. “No” makes a difference. “No” is a declaration of individual relevance.
Now, the reason I’ve been saying “no” so frequently is that I’m a department chair. More specifically, as a department, we (and also as an individual, I) have come up with some goals for how student registration should be treated so as to distribute teaching loads among our faculty. Part of the idea is that if students unable to enroll in their first choices for courses are channelled to courses that will satisfy their needs as far as graduation requirements, our faculty may have balanced teaching loads (within a factor of two or so). So when students not getting their first choices have been coming to see me, part of my responses to them has frequently been to say “no.”
“No” isn’t the end of my interaction with them, though. I try to find out what they’re trying to accomplish. In almost all cases, I have been able to help or direct the student to an alternate way (an alternate course, with available seats) to satisfy their primary interest: making progress toward their undergraduate degree.
In a very few cases (usually medically-related or students planning to graduate at the end of the current semester), I have, after exhausting the alternatives I tried instead, authorized them to what we call “overrides” into the courses they were trying to enter. I’d say this was in about 5-7% of the cases.
So my “no” is not generally “no.” It has been “no, but….” followed by a (frequently successful) attempt to accommodate interests, rather than positions. (For a good summary on the difference, take a look at Fisher and Ury’s Getting to Yes) I’ve done a lot of problem solving and facilitating. And although my job can be very wearing (more on that later, when I write about the tragedy of the commons), I feel confident I have provided a service — both to the individual students and to the department I work in — by saying “no.”
January 23rd, 2007 at 7:38 am
Great post! I guess it is what we could call a “thoughtful no.” I’m sure I can find many times I’ve said “no” and haven’t made the effort. Of course when you are talking about enrollments of 500, there is a practicality issue. But that of course brings up the issue of WHY we are talking about enrollments of 500 and WHY these students don’t seem to have faculty advisors to whom they can go when they hear “no.”
I all too often default to “no” as a matter of convenience and your post has made me think that I need to work on that.