Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Find Me the Perfect (decanal) Match

• Publication year: 2008
• Citation: Vol. 31 No. 04

UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND LAW REVIEWVolume 31, No. 4SUMMER 2008

Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Find Me the Perfect (Decanal) Match

William B.T. Mock(fn*)

I. Introduction

I have been asked to address the question, "How do you know which deanship is the right one?" Since I am the only panel member never to have served as the dean of a law school, this naturally involves some speculation on my part. I have interviewed for some decanal positions, and have even had my name forwarded to university presidents more than once, but I have never found the right fit premised by the panel's topic. As a result, a little further into this essay, speculation even ventures into fiction or, as law professors like to call it, a hypothetical exercise.

Here is my roadmap. Being unable to speak about the substance of the assigned topic from experience, I have two choices. My first choice, learned from watching generations of students and politicians, is to answer a different question than the one that was asked. My second choice is to employ the academic's familiar ploy of talking about process rather than substance. I propose to do both in this short essay, and in that order.

II. Answering the Unasked Question

While I cannot answer the question, "How do you know which deanship is the right one?," I can certainly do a great deal to answer its unasked counterpart: "How do you know which deanships are the wrong ones?" I have experience on this issue, both from my own professional life and from observing many successful deanships and many less successful deanships around the country over the last quarter-century.

As with any important pairing, it starts with the parties themselves. Among the questions you will need to ask yourself are the following:1. Are your day-to-day interests well matched to the kind of focus you will need to have if you become this law school's dean? 2. Does your mature skill set meet the law school's needs for decanal strengths in the near and middle terms? 3. Can the law school afford to be tolerant and patient of the professional and related personal areas in which you hope or need to grow in the next few years? 4. Is the law school located in a place where you would be happy to live for an indefinite term, perhaps permanently, or are people who have made this community their home going to realize that you are just passing through? 5. Do you have problem areas in your personality or professional profile that are going to be brought to the forefront by circumstances in this new law school or university setting?

Unless you can provide good answers to these questions, you have found the wrong deanship for yourself. Furthermore, if you are always providing the wrong answers to these questions, especially the first three questions, then you may want to reconsider your decanal aspirations altogether.

If you can honestly give the right answers to these questions, does that mean you have found the right decanal position for yourself and the law school can end its search for a leader? No. These answers are necessary conditions for accepting a deanship, but are hardly sufficient. It is a bit like finding out that a potential mate is, by whatever definitions matter to you, smart, reasonably attractive, solvent-to-rich, and acceptably clean. Those are all important characteristics, no doubt, but what about little matters like religion, politics, sex, and how they squeeze the toothpaste? The list goes on and, in all likelihood, there is no perfect match at this level of information. Indeed, what matters most, once a strong basic fit has been found, is probably the good humor, flexibility, and willingness to adjust as circumstances change and one partner morphs.

Good humor, flexibility, and willingness to adjust also appear to be central features of successful decanal candidates. Some deans, possessing fine technical skills with budgets, programs, personnel management, fund-raising, and the like, seem to founder by becoming fixated on pet projects or by squandering their political capital by taking small tensions too seriously. Such inflexibility is probably more related to an overall temperament for deaning than it is related to deaning at a particular institution.

Finally, there are the technical skills and personal style that each candidate will bring to a potential match. Is fund-raising your strong suit? If so, how do you go about it? How do you handle staff development under tight fiscal conditions? Are you a hands-on manager or someone who delegates? Do you like meeting new people in crowds or one-on-one? There are hundreds of such questions, the answers to which could help place your candidacy in context. Additionally, an institution's answers to a similar set of questions could help you to determine whether you have found the right fit.

III. What Process Do Other Fields Use to Identify Perfect Matches?

To find new deans, law schools typically put out announcements, some times hire search firms, and seek nominations (and "self-nominations"), talk with candidates, hold "airport interviews," call references, weed out the least acceptable candidates (to all major factions), invite a handful of candidates to campus for one-day campaign stops, and have them meet with the president for an hour. The president then chooses from the names the faculty sends up. Negotiations begin.

How successful is...