Are you facing the professional challenge of serving as department chair?

From  July 15-16, 2019, the AHA will offer our second annual  Chairs’ Workshop  in Chicago. Experienced chairs will lead sessions and host collaborative breakout conversations addressing a wide range of issues specific to chairing in our discipline and across a variety of institutional contexts. We will discuss broad leadership issues; strategies for balancing workloads in teaching, research, and administration; and take up issues of curricular innovation, enrollment, and assessment.

Location and Time

Check in at the Aloft Chicago Mag Mile (243 E. Ontario St.) on the evening of Sunday, July 14. The workshop will run from the morning of Monday, July 15, through the afternoon of Tuesday, July 16. All meetings will be hosted in the offices of the American Bar Foundation (420 E. Superior St., Chicago, IL 60611).

Registration

We can accept a maximum of 30 participants. Registration is now open on a first-come, first-served basis at historians.org/myaha. Registrants will have the option of securing their place in the workshop by making full or half payment at that time. A limited number of spaces will be available for deferred payment of registration fees, since we are aware of the different ways in which institutional budgets work.

Fees

AHA institutional members: $975 
AHA institutional nonmembers: $1275

Fees include:

• Registration for all workshop events
• Two nights’ accommodation (July 14 and 15) at Aloft Hotel Mag Mile (243 East Ontario Street, Chicago, Illinois, 60611)
• An all-participants’ workshop dinner

• Onsite lunch and breakfast for each day of the gathering

* Travel expenses to and from the workshop are the responsibility of participants.

Any questions about the workshop can be directed to Megan Connor at  mconnor@historians.org

Below you can see the details and agenda from our first annual Chairs' Workshop in 2018.

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2018 Chairs' Workshop Agenda

Informal Meetup (June 26, Optional)

Check in at Cambria Hotel and Suites (166 E. Superior St., 60611) and have dinner on your own

8:00-9:00 pm: Informal gathering of participants and facilitators in hotel lounge at Cambria Hotel

Day 1 (June 27)

**From 8:15, coffee service and continental breakfast available in meeting space

9:00-9:30 am: Welcome and Introductions

James Grossman, Kevin Boyle

9:30-10:15 am: Plenary: Being a Chair: Beyond the Job Description

Rita Roberts, James Sweet, Elizabeth Lehfeldt (five minutes each of intro/reflection, includes issues of women/minorities in leadership roles and time for Q&A)

• Managing teaching, research, and administration
• Negotiating new identity as an administrator/becoming a leader on campus
• Mentoring faculty & advocating for faculty with upper administration
• Role of chair on broad administrative ecology: level of authority and power in department and within institution

15 min break

10:30-11:30 am: Breakout Session I: Institutional Context and Administrative Imperatives

Breakout out by institution type

• PhD-granting: James Sweet and Katrin Schultheiss
• Public non-PhD granting: Elizabeth Lehfeldt and Jeffrey McClurken
• Private undergraduate: William Kerrigan and Rita Robert

Topics to discuss:

• Assessment and reporting
• Accreditation/external review
• Institutional Research

15 min break

11:45-12:45 pm: Breakout Session II: Topics Tailored by Institution

Some topics may be moved to Breakout Session. Facilitators tailor as they see fit:

• Being chair at a resource-scarce institution (William Kerrigan)
• Digital Pedagogy (Jeffrey McClurken)
• Alumni and Fundraising (James Sweet)
• Parent relations (Rita Roberts)
• Career Diversity for Historians (TBD)

1:00-2:00: Lunch (provided onsite)

2:00-3:15 pm: Plenary: Personnel and Departmental Culture

Elizabeth Lehfeldt, Kevin Boyle, Katrin Schultheiss

• Sexual harassment
• Civility
• Power dynamics
• Faculty/staff relations
• AHA to provide draft sexual harassment policies

15 minute break

3:30-4:45 pm: Breakout Session III: Care and Management of Faculty

Breakout out by institution type

• PhD-granting: James Sweet and Katrin Schultheiss
• Public non-PhD granting: Elizabeth Lehfeldt and Jeffrey McClurken
• Private undergraduate: William Kerrigan and Rita Roberts

Topics to discuss:

• Contingent faculty: management, mentoring, etc.
• Mental health
• Review process: hiring, promotion, tenure

15 min break

5:00-5:45 pm: Group Lightning Round

Kevin Boyle & James Grossman

An open-ended lightning round in which everyone is encouraged to throw out creative ideas about any relevant topic even if they are just ideas with no implementation plan. Two minutes per speaker. Contributions will be used to generate break out topics for Day 2.

Break

7:30-10:30 pm: Workshop Dinner (Reserved Room: Quartino Ristorante, 626 N. State St.)

Day 2 (June 28)
**From 8:00, coffee service and continental breakfast available in meeting space

8:30-8:45 am: AHA Programming-How Can We Help You?

James Grossman, Kevin Boyle, Emily Swafford

8:45-9:45 am: Plenary: Diversity

Rita Roberts and James Sweet

Topics to discuss:

• Recruiting and training faculty
• Students
• Role of department chairs in expanding pipeline

15 min break

10:00-10:30 am: Introduction to Enrollments

Elizabeth Lehfeldt

15 min break

10:45-11:45 am: Breakout Session IV: Enrollments

Breakout out by institution type

• PhD-granting: James Sweet and Katrin Schultheiss
• Public non-PhD granting: Elizabeth Lehfeldt and Jeffrey McClurken
• Private undergraduate: William Kerrigan and Rita Roberts

Topics to discuss

• Cross-disciplinary initiatives/creating flexibility within the major
• AHA Tuning and recruitment

12:00-1:00 pm: Lunch (provided onsite)

1:00-2:00 pm: Breakout Session V: Topics Suggested by Lightning Round

15 min break

2:15-3:00 pm: Closing Plenary: Professional Identity & Career Paths

Elizabeth Lehfeldt and Jeffrey McClurken