Two Thunderously Trivial Thoughts on "Transformative Deans"

Thanks to a colleague's tip, I came across Brian's interesting post  where he identifies nine transformative deans during the last decade. (I guess it's the mid-summer doldrums that prompt this collective navel-gazing!) Anyway, as usual, he has some acute observations about who's been able to shake things up effectively, and certainly he's correct in his assessment of FSU's wunderkind dean...unlike Brian, I am happy to be objective without being neutral :-)

But I want to register a small point of caution related to something I wrote last year about one of these transformative deans (whom I happen to love). While it's true that effective deans can do a lot to win faculty retention challenges, I think we need to avoid overstating how much credit deans can take regarding the hiring of high-quality faculty.

Faculty hiring at most schools is a very collaborative process, and in most cases, it should be. While deans at some schools can appoint who sits on the hiring committee, other schools leave that decision to the faculty itself to vote on.  Even at schools where the dean appoints the appcomm, the dean cannot be assured that the committee will read/invite/approve those people the dean wants (assuming the dean even specified who she wants).  Nor can the dean, at most schools, expect to have all the non-appcomm cats herded on voting days and have them vote as she wants. This may not be true in DVZ's world, where he is said (on what I take to be spectacular authority) to have fined people who didn't fall into line with his vision, among other aggressive tactics. But most schools do not have deans that are so, um, empowering of (or susceptible to) the unitary executive...and at least in some cases, the deans who assert such authority are regarded as rapscallions and worse.  In light of this complex sausage-making reality of faculty hiring, one has to be cautious with praise in this dimension, just as one should be careful with criticism that deans are "responsible" for the failure to hire libertarians or women or any other group. After all, and put simply, faculty hiring is a they, not a s/he.

A second minor point worth mention: when it comes to noting the spending habits of deans, one has to also be aware of whether the successors (and the other stakeholders) are as thrilled with the resulting balance sheets as those who made the decisions. A law school's transformation that is built on shaky financial ground may share the same half-life as an O'Connor or Brennan opinion.

Last, Brian didn't open up comments on his post. So feel free to weigh in with your own thoughts here, but bear in mind the usual rules of the road here.