One of my colleagues voiced some surprise that I hadn’t posted the news that it is indeed official that Tom Venner will be the next Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. I figured everyone already knew this, but what the heck, I’ll post it again.
I did find this kind of interesting though: according to the official announcement, Venner is the first dean that comes from “the arts” in more than 50 years, and, as another colleague pointed out to me today, he’s the first one that has been from the humanities in general in a long long time.
Congratulations to Tom Venner! I look forward to working with Dean Venner for the mutual benefit of the college and faculty. He is from the “fine arts”. He’s a nice guy.
But Steve, our last Dean, Linda Pritchard (who served from 2002-05), is an historian, and history is commonly classified in the humanities. Sometimes it’s termed a social science, but I’ll not get into that debate now.
Linda’s term as dean came between two interim deans — one, Nina Contis, was on the job for a year, and she’s a chemist, and Linda’s successor, Dr. H. Hoft, came from the computer science dept. Prior to Nina, we had a long serving Dean, Barry Fish, from psychology. Barry was a good dean; Nina was a place-holder; Dr. Hoft was a wrecking ball.
Does anyone know what Dr. Hoft’s professional plans are? One colleague says he’s returning to computer science as dept. head. Another says he’s retiring, after taking a year long full pay “administrative leave”. Nice work if you can get it — especially if you get the Interim Dean job without one bit of faculty input, as Dr. Hoft did, and then hold it for three years.
That’s true, Mark. I had forgotten about Linda.
It’s pretty standard for administrators to get a year’s worth of leave before coming back to faculty. I don’t know exactly what happens if Hoft takes a year’s worth of leave and then retires.
Professor Hoft has told the computer science department that he will be taking a leave starting July 1 and plans to return to the computer science faculty in January or September 2009. He had been a valued, energetic member of the department for over 20 years, much admired by students and colleagues. His widened vision should be a great advantage for us.
I also don’t get the whole administrative leave perk. For interim appointments, it is especially eyebrow-raising. Shouldn’t COSC’s interim department head of three years also be given administrative leave? In fact, what about all those interim department heads and assoc deans (over a third of the administration) in CAS? The argument that a former administrator needs the time to become current in the field is, IMO, specious. I can see giving a former administrator a reduced load for a semester, or only elementary-level classes. I can’t see a sabbatical to learn the fundamentals of their own field.