Deans are hired with the goal of meeting a vision for their respective school or college to contribute to a greater framework of success for Syracuse University. But that progress can only be made if the needs of an on-campus entity are explicitly identified at the start.

The Hendricks Chapel dean search committee is poised to conduct an assessment of the chapel’s programs and policies after having not undergone a thorough review in more than 30 years. The committee will evaluate Hendricks’ facilities, finances and the chapel’s “current and emerging challenges and opportunities,” Hendricks Interim Dean Samuel Clemence said. The review will also compare Hendricks’ to the religious offerings of peer institutions.

The failure to comprehensively assess an on-campus entity for more than three decades is unacceptable. But what should be taken away from Hendricks’ course of action is the campus-wide measure to review a school, college or entity each time a dean search is being conducted.

The implementation of a routine assessment for university establishments would ensure that each component of student and academic life at SU is up-to-date, equipped for the ways in which industries transform and is aligned with the university’s primary vision and campus culture as closely as possible.

The evaluations would serve as an asset to dean search committees in highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the individual school or college and ultimately draw a conceptual outline of the candidate who would best serve the university community.

In the same way, familiarizing candidates with a comprehensive breakdown of the establishment they are hoping to lead will provide them with insight to the operations at SU and the current state of the campus climate. The assessment would also grant potential deans with a sense of direction and the opportunity to form a solid platform based on the institution’s sources of improvement.

The combination of these informed two perspectives would ensure that the selected candidate would be more likely to transition easily into the overall culture of SU and mesh well with current students, faculty and staff without disrupting the current atmosphere.

The College of Law, the College of Visual and Performing Arts, the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs and the School of Information Studies are in the process of selecting new deans. These schools, and the greater university, should acknowledge that institutional memory is often short-lived.

But if deans have the opportunity to be in sync with their respective entity from even before they are selected, fundamental progress can be made in the long term at SU.

Published on February 25, 2016 at 2:21 am

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