Intra-University Collaborations or

How to Win Friends, Influence People and Get Resources?

Hal Stern Department of Statistics University of California, Irvine sternh@uci.edu

Workshop of Department Chairs Salt Lake City JSM, July 27-28, 2007

Background
My experience: 5 years as Chair of new department at UCI Previously on the faculty at Iowa State, Harvard
Your mileage may vary!

Working with the Administration

Planning (strategic and otherwise)
Strategic Planning (especially as top-down administrative exercise) can be a hard sell But strategic planning is important
Hiring priorities Programs (undergrad, graduate, joint) Research areas Space and infrastructure

Involving the Dean

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Working with the Administration

Dont be afraid to ask for resources
Examples
unique hiring opportunities resources to support teaching initiatives administrative support or matching funds for grants pilot money for research centers

You will often get no but occasionally get yes

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Working with the Administration

(Self) Promotion is important
Especially true for a field like statistics (contributions may not be known to all) Pursue ASA, IMS Fellowships (and other recognitions) and then publicize them Make sure folks know about
Grants Media appearances Significant publications

A key point is that other Departments do this well!

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Working with the Administration

External Reviews
One important mechanism for having the administration learn about the department Not without risk

Key issues
Identifying the committee (usually candidates) Selling the Departments strengths Identifying where the Department can use help (opportunities not currently addressed because of need for more resources)
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Collaboration across Departments

Key in the current research environment (big science grants in both NSF and NIH) There are often others willing to step in on the quantitative side of a project
Mathematics Computer Science

Need to
Encourage faculty to collaborate Help them succeed Value collaborative research in reviews
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Collaboration across Departments

Rainmaking 101
Chair (or other senior faculty) can play a key role in helping junior faculty get involved Find out what campus colleagues are doing and look for connections (Chairs have many opportunities) Involve junior faculty (mentoring) Ideally they will run with it

Collaboration across Departments

Consulting Center
Subject of Academic Reps session last year Positives
Can provide access to problems and identify potential collaborations Can be a resource for training students
STATISTICS

Negatives
Can be a real (unrecognized) drain on resources
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Collaboration within Departments

Communication
Meetings
Agenda Invite comments from all (especially junior faculty)

Informal
Learn the best way to communicate with people Email works best for many but not all Alternatives include drop-in visit / scheduled meeting / phone
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Collaboration within Departments

Hiring
Have the fight before the interviews are held (rather than after)
Position description Creating the medium list (anyone should be able to identify someone for this list) Creating the short list (try to create a comparable group or subgroups)
Not just one senior person to be interviewed Not just one genetics/bioinformatics
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Collaboration within Departments

Hiring
The interview visit
Remember the interview is about selling your Dept as well as exploring candidates Solicit input from everyone who spent time with the candidate

After the interviews

Non-binding, anonymous vote/poll Lots of discussion (lessons of CRLT (UM) Theatre Program) If no clear choice, then
Discussion Additional information Can meet more than once

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Collaboration within Departments

Promotion
Mentoring (informal / formal) Frequent reviews
Many universities have formal periodic reviews Equally important to have annual informal review (review of CV, meeting)

Identify issues early

Non-productive junior faculty Disagreements among senior faculty
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Collaboration within Departments

Service
Ideally addressed at the hiring stage Senior faculty are key (culture of service) Strive for even workload Ideally faculty have different interests (computing, space, undergrad program, grad program) The poor team player is a difficult problem at most universities due to limited leverage
Merit reviews Discretionary funds Teaching assignments

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