This book presents 11 contributed papers which examine communication aspects of the department chair position in academia. It is noted that most academic department chairs are not trained in management skills, including communication strategies. After an introductory chapter by Christopher H. Spicer and Ann Q. Staton, the following papers are…

Departments of linguistics in Australian universities and their interdisciplinary characteristics are discussed. (PG)

The study presented in this article evaluates the relative scientific contributions of 180 psychology departments in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States based on the citations of and the publications by the faculty members of those departments. Data are presented for the top 100 departments. (Author/EB)

Envisions the university of the future as one in which departments cast off their insularity and embrace interdisciplinary communication. Discusses present problems and barriers and proposes a future interaction center. (PD)

Reviews reasons for teaching statistics to students in social science courses on the college level through a statistics department. Suggests, however, that universities can just as successfully offer statistics through discipline departments where instructors possess expertise in statistics and in disciplinary research. (Author/DB)

Argues that lack of faculty consensus, combined with a multiplication of university programs, has convinced the public that universities serve secular needs and that their priorities should be established by the marketplace. Argues the key to preserving faculty control is for the faculty to take the agenda of practicality and remake it in a…

Uses data-envelopment analysis to investigate UK university economics departments' technical efficiency as producers of research, highlighting the role of external funding. The data set is an extended version of that employed by the 1989 Universities Funding Council peer review. DEA contributes positively to developing meaningful indicators of…

Johnes and Johnes demonstrate use of data-envelopment analysis to construct an efficiency frontier comparing different UK university economics departments' efficiency without having to assign uniform weights to inputs and outputs. Since desirability of departmental goals cannot be compared, DEA's usefulness is limited to comparing relative…

The article examines the ways in which rationalities of risk currently work to produce the academic as a self-managing worker within the 'post-welfare' university as a risk-conscious organization. It explores how risk minimization as audit (individual, departmental, organizational), engages all individuals within the university in doing particular…

A serious problem exists in the academic world, namely doctoral education attrition rates that approach 50% in some disciplines. Yet, calls for action have generally been "ad hoc" rather than theory driven. Further, research has not been conceived and implemented with sufficient breadth to integrate factors influencing the outcomes across the…

The 2002/2003 Seton Hall University (SHU) ELMP (Education Leadership, Management and Policy) Department objectives included developing a "learning community" or Community of Learners (COL) framework for ELMP to advance a research and scholarship culture and have a "researchable" element. The Department developed a framework and…

Increasing attention on quality assurance, a decentralisation of responsibilities and need for quantitative data in accountability and decision support led to the development of a student satisfaction monitoring instrument at Utrecht University (UU). Initially marketing worked as a catalyst activity to prove the added value. At a later stage the…

A comprehensive history of physiology in America can be obtained from the records of physiology departments. This supplement to "The Physiologist" contains departmental histories of nine institutions. Featured are the physiology departments at: (1) State University of New York at Buffalo: 1846-1986; (2) University of California at Berkeley; (3)…

The effect of subunit power on resource allocation decisions in one university is examined. Measures of departmental power in a university are found to be significantly related to the proportion of the budget received, even after statistically controlling for such universalistic bases of allocation as work load of the department, national rank,…

Provides an introduction to the chemical engineering department at North Carolina State University. (BB)