This program is sponsored by the College of Literature, Science and the Arts at the University of Michigan for LSA faculty and staff. For more information, contact Isis Settles, LSA Senior Faculty Advisor for Inclusive Excellence.
If you are interested in hosting this kind of resource at your institution, please contact us or browse our online catalog.
The following workshops are available at no cost to LSA faculty and staff as part of the college’s ongoing commitment to healthy departments. Recordings of these workshops are available to LSA faculty and staff only. To request a link please contact diana@kardagroup.com.
A resilient department is able to respond to challenge and change, engage effectively in disagreement and conflict, and meaningfully invest in the success of the department and the career and development trajectories of faculty, staff, and students. Resiliency promotes individual and organizational health and reduces dysfunction and harm. A resilient department is dynamic and connected, able to weather adversity, loss, and threat. In a moment when many disciplines and most academic institutions face increasing pressure, resilient departments are more important than ever.
In the first hour of this workshop, Diana Kardia identifies key barriers to departmental resilience and describes five levels of resilience that clarify current strengths and weaknesses within a department. Based on this assessment, participants will focus on specific next steps to build departmental resilience with their colleagues (faculty, staff, and students). Strategies will include those best enacted through formal leadership roles and those available to any member of a department through everyday interactions. The first hour will be followed by an optional 30-minute session for Q&A and application of these principles to specific situations or contexts.
Faculty meetings can be a primary means for setting the tone of the department, addressing difficult topics, and focusing the attention and capacity of faculty (and sometimes staff and students, as well) on the collective needs and realities of the department. However, when a department is struggling or tensions are high, faculty meetings can become the site for that struggle. Factions get created as alliances are drawn or broken, issues become personalized, and the meeting can become a battleground between forms of structural power and the power of voice, position, or personality.
In this one-hour workshop, Diana Kardia describes 9 specific meeting behaviors that keep faculty meetings on track, proactively prevent unproductive escalations, and invest in the full participation of a wide range of perspectives. To address those moments when conflict does escalate, we’ll also explore 2 additional conflict-specific behaviors and how to use them effectively.
What do I do when departmental tensions reach a boiling point? What can I expect of others?
In this one-hour workshop, Diana Kardia presents a toolkit of productive ways to de-escalate departmental situations that are nearing (or have passed) a tipping point. We will analyze case studies drawn from Diana’s capacity-building work with departments at other universities to examine what can be done by those in formal leadership roles (such as – but not limited to – chair/director, DGS, senior faculty) to effectively calm, redirect, or contain departmental interactions and communication. We will also consider how informal forms of influence (known as leadership-in-place) can contribute to these outcomes.
Organizational climate is how individuals and groups experience the environment. A positive climate is one perceived as supportive, respectful, welcoming, and inclusive. Research finds that a positive climate promotes the success of individuals in the unit by promoting satisfaction, mental health, and productivity.
Yet, climate is a multi-faceted and complicated aspect of the environment. It is shaped by historical legacies that communicate who belongs, the demographic composition of the community, structural factors such as policies and practices, and interpersonal treatment (e.g., respect vs. disrespect).
An analysis of exit interviews from the U-M ADVANCE Program found that a poor department climate was the most common reason that faculty gave for leaving (46% mentioned it as a factor). The Dean’s Office is committed to providing LSA unit leaders support for fostering a positive climate.
Kardia Group’s department climate resources provide LSA faculty and staff with the language, awareness, and foundation to strengthen two vital aspects of academia: collaborative engagement and participatory governance. Climate consultations are available to chairs and directors.
This program is sponsored by the College of Literature, Science and the Arts at the University of Michigan for their employees only. If you are not enrolled in this program and are interested in these kinds of resources at your institution, please contact us or browse our online catalog.
