Like many deans, Monte Finkelstein did not plan to be a leader. He began as a history instructor, gradually took on more leadership responsibilities, and came to his division deanship at Tallahassee Community College through his desire for challenges beyond the classroom and the retirement of the previous dean.

“I had been teaching for 21 or 22 years and had sworn never to get into administration. The history program chair wasn’t doing such a good job, so the dean said, ‘Monte, why don’t you do it?’ I said, ‘Fine, I’ll try it out for a while. It will give me something to else to do’ because I was kind of getting bored with the classroom,” Finkelstein says.

Soon after, the division dean unexpectedly announced his retirement, and Finkelstein made an uncharacteristic spur-of-the-moment decision to apply for the position. Looking back, his career to that point had prepared him somewhat for the challenges he faced; as program chair he worked with adjunct faculty members and often dealt with student issues. He also served as faculty senate chair, which enabled him to see the big picture beyond the history program. “It showed me that there are five academic divisions on campus, each one with unique problems, and that gave me the idea that even as dean of history and social sciences, I would have to take those other divisions’ situations and problems into consideration,” Finkelstein says.

Some things he was not prepared for, such as the change in the way that others viewed him. “Within my first week as dean, we had welcome back workshops. I had participated in these workshops before, and people would listen to my comments—no big deal. When I opened my mouth as dean for the first time, it was like that E.F. Hutton commercial—everybody all of a sudden started looking at me as if anything I said was the gospel. I think that was the biggest challenge for me. People were looking to me for leadership, and it continues. I sit on a bunch of study groups, and the tendency is for others to look at me and listen to me closely,” Finkelstein says.

Another difficult issue has been managing the changing relationships with long-time colleagues. One of the advantages of moving from faculty member to dean is that Finkelstein knows everybody and the specific challenges that faculty members face on campus. On the other hand, familiarity with colleagues has posed challenges.

“There are people in the division who I’ve known for thirty years. Some were my roommates before we even worked here. I announced very simply that I was going to separate the personal from the professional. I told them, ‘If I come down to your office to discuss a professional issue with you, take it as such. I hope it doesn’t ruin the friendship.’ I also told them that I know the position I’m in and that I’m fully prepared to lose friendships. It wouldn’t be on my end. It would be on the other person’s end. It hasn’t happened yet. Luckily, I work with people who know that what I’m trying to do is for their benefit,” Finkelstein says.

Although relationships with long-time colleagues can be a challenge, when Finkelstein was a faculty member he never saw the relationship between administrators and faculty as an adversarial one, and he still doesn’t.

“I thought that sometimes the administration didn’t understand faculty issues or problems, but I always thought that we could work it out together. Now that I’m an administrator, I still see it that way. I don’t go out of my way to make trouble for anybody. As dean I go out of my way to run the division as best I can, get the faculty the resources they need, and, if there’s an issue, I try as hard as I can to resolve it at this level,” Finkelstein says.

Finkelstein also does not view other divisions as adversaries. When a new dean is hired, the deans serve on the screening committee. During his interview for the position, Finkelstein was told that the divisions do not compete for resources, and in his view, his dean colleagues have held to that philosophy.

“There have been times at the end of the fiscal year [when] divisions would have money left over and would give it to other divisions. We do so much planning and data collection here that [the resources] we get is based on data. [Recently,] we had to justify new positions, and it was all based on data. My division got one new position and another division got three or four. I know that these decisions were based on the data we turned over. Since the position criteria included enrollment numbers and data that we all shared, I know that the decisions were made honorably and justifiably, and that doesn’t spark my competitive nature,” Finkelstein says.

In addition to his dean colleagues, Finkelstein draws on the experience of the program chairs, teaching faculty who are given 40 percent release time to handle administrative duties such as hiring and scheduling adjuncts and addressing student complaints. “I’m with Dr. Finkelstein every day. Our offices are two doors apart, and because I’m the longest standing program chair, he relies on me to do a lot of leadership activities,” says Jeanne O’Kon, behavioral sciences program chair.

As program chair, O’Kon straddles the fence between administrator and teacher, something that she thinks all administrators should do. “I feel that all administrators should be teaching. I wish that even our president and vice president would teach one class a year just to keep their hands in the classroom and to know the kinds of things the teaching faculty are dealing with every day because it’s too easy for administrators to get out of touch with what really takes place in the classroom,” O’Kon says.

Finkelstein teaches one course a year. “I like to keep up with the technology and the changing student population…. It also reminds me what faculty deal with on a full-time basis.”

Finkelstein offers the following advice for faculty members making the transition to administration:

By Monte Finkelstein (finkelsm@tcc.fl.edu), From Academic Leader, December 2006

This article first appeared in Magna Publications' newsletter Academic Leader. If you are an academic dean, provost, academic vice-president, department chair/head or have any role in academic leadership, then Academic Leader is for you! But don't take our word for it--try it free for 3 months and make the decision for yourself!