Inaugurates a new column addressed to those in language arts leadership positions, particularly the English department chair and the district and state supervisor or consultant, but also other English education administrators. Describes scope of the column and solicits suggestions for articles. Discusses the role of chairs and consultants in…

Argues that faculty vitality is an essential element in all English departments, and asserts that basic changes in the English field over the last two decades can help create that vitality. (MM)

Relates some of the good and bad of chairing an English department. (HOD)

Offers advice to English department chairs on the behavior of academic departments. (AEA)

Suggests and discusses four strategies for English departments to consider in the 1980s: technology, standards, consolidation, and leadership. (AEA)

Questions survey results which find oral communication education alive and well in higher education. Argues that those outside the discipline need to be educated about the nature of speech communication education and that a concerted effort must be made by faculty and administrators to reinforce the academic credibility of the discipline. (PA)

Discusses conflict resolution and describes the experiences of dealing with conflict encountered by a new chair of the foreign language department at the University of Nebraska. (six references) (VWL)

Maintains that one of the most difficult problems faced by English department chairpersons arises from the widely divergent theoretical or ideological positions of faculty members. Argues for faculty to stop abusing one another and illustrates departmental discord in an imaginative fiction involving "Roger" and "Rose." (HB)

Considers how Phil Smith has given much thought in his own department, and in the national deliberations, to the staffing crisis in English departments, and he has done so with attention to the highest values and to the needs of all, from undergraduate students in the general education courses to part-timers to tenure-track and tenured faculty…

Explores and describes (from the standpoint of a retired department chair) the paradigm change, one of Copernican proportions, that has occurred in English departments from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. Compares Modern Language Association bulletins from 1978 and from 1994. (TB)

Reviews various approaches and books on the subject of corporate management and assesses their usefulness to the English department. (SRT)

Describes one method of peer review used by a secondary school department head when asked to evaluate teachers in her department. Visits to individual classrooms included observation and notetaking, a narrative response to each teacher, and a final conference during which each teacher could respond to the narrative. ( NKA)

Changes in the status of the British "chair" or professorship in the twentieth century are examined, with focus on the types of changes, the reasons for them, and the administrative, educational, and intellectual results. (MSE)

Develops several perspectives of the discipline of college English teaching that include local, state, regional, and national levels of involvement as well as viewpoints of others outside the discipline. (AEA)

Suggests that the most important piece of advice for the survival of English departments is that all faculty members, especially chairs, learn to collaborate effectively. Discusses the kinds of collaboration required for the retention of faculty lines. (RS)