The purpose of this paper was to determine faculty perceptions about the role a department chair does and should play in a faculty member's movement toward tenure. A group of 485 full-time, tenured, and tenure-track faculty from 13 U.S. doctorate-granting universities participated in the study. Answers to the following questions were solicited: (1) which department chairs' role are perceived as facilitating tenure acquisition? (3) Do chairs' roles in facilitating tenure vary by discipline (when classified according to the Biglan model of disciplinary differences)? and (3) Do tenured professors and tenure-track professors differ in their perceptions of chairs' roles that would facilitate tenure acquisition? Results of the study indicate that faculty believe that the department chair can and should play an important role in tenure acquisition, although some felt their department head may lack the knowledge and/or authority to do so. Faculty also expressed the need to have their department heads secure funding for various events, such as professional meetings. It was found as well that perceptions of faculty members reinforce the belief that the department head both could and should serve as a mentor for junior faculty. Other findings showed that the role of the department chair in facilitating tenure acquisition varied by type of discipline (e.g., hard-pure, soft-pure, etc.) and that tenure-track faculty more acutely perceived the importance of the chair's facilitative roles than did tenured faculty. (Contains 49 references.) (GLR)