Dean Donald Hall undergoes required review

Donald E. Hall, the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, talks with his secretary Wednesday, Mar. 25, 2015, in Maginnes Hall. He is currently being reviewed by a faculty committee, which evaluates deans every three years. (Zhuojun Xiao/B&W Photo)

Donald Hall, the dean of Lehigh’s College of Arts and Sciences, is undergoing a dean review process, a procedure that was implemented in 2010 by Pat Farrell, the provost and vice president for academic affairs.

Provost Farrell decided to implement the dean review process in order to assess the achievements and areas for improvement of Lehigh’s deans. The idea behind this process was not to evaluate the deans, but rather find a way to provide feedback for the future.

“One of the biggest challenges of being an administrator is receiving straight forward feedback,” Farrell said.

Farrell initially came up with this idea because of the broad array of responsibilities a dean can have. According to Farrell, a dean interacts with so many people on a college campus that a review committee allows for the ability to gather input from any and all directions.

In previous years, a smaller committee of two or three members would gather to review the dean. This small committee did not seek the inputs of others on campus.

“Now it is useful to let folks who wish to, or who are asked, to share their comments and their feedback,” Farrell said. “That is the most helpful way to improve things.”

Farrell also stressed the importance of understanding the true purpose of the reviews. He said this process is much different from the typical professor review. Reviews for professors are one-on-one with the department chair, and they go over a summary of what has been accomplished over the year.

“The dean review is not about giving the dean an overall grade,” Farrell said. “It is more about where we can begin to understand how to start doing things differently.”

Farrell is in charge of forming the committee. His typical committee structure contains four or five professors from the college of the dean, at least one or two staff members and a faculty member from another college that will head the committee. Dean Hall’s committee includes: Stephen Pessiki, a professor of structural engineering; Allison Gulati, the associate dean and director of strategic initiatives; Marilyn Jones, associate professor of design; Ken Kodama, a professor in the department of earth and environmental sciences; Jack Lule, the journalism department chair; Pam Pepper, a professor in the department of theatre; Vicki Ruggiero, the administrative secretary in the department of biological sciences; Vassie Ware, professor of molecular biology; Edward Whitley, an associate professor of English; and Pat Mann, the administrative director for the office of the provost and vice president for academic affairs.

“The review is a really good practice Lehigh has put into place,” Lule said. “The idea is to provide feedback to the dean. It is not a review of judgment of the dean’s performance, it more says how things are going, and what we can get done.”

The goal of the committee members is to reach out to all members of the Lehigh community that interact with the dean. That includes other deans, faculty, department chairs, staff, graduate and undergraduate students, alumni and the advancement office.

Hall has been at Lehigh for almost four years. He began in the summer of 2011 after leaving his position as chair of the department of English at West Virginia University.

Hall said he feels the review process is a wonderful opportunity for improvement. In his opinion, it is great that every three or four years, the administration gets to chat with those around them and across campus about what is going great, and what can be better.

“I want to work in the best way I can to advance the college and meet the needs of the university,” Hall said. “The review committee has some people inside the college and outside the college, the system is set up to give a good broad view of how I am doing.”

When Hall came to Lehigh, his plan was to focus on internationalization, diversity of faculty and interdisciplinary studies. Through the review process, he hopes to learn if these ideas are still main priorities of the college. He is eager to hear about reviews of his management style and getting advice on new things the college should begin doing, and old things it should consider stop doing.

When it comes to the scheduling of dean reviews, the university typically aims to review each dean after three years. The main reason why Hall’s review did not occur last year was because the university was in the middle of a different dean review.

Farrell said the university avoids doing more then one dean review per year. In addition, the university works to ensure the review does not occur too closely to the dean’s reappointment decision, which occurs every five years.

Farrell said the information from the review is not used to decide whether or not the dean will be reappointed. Rather, different information is gathered for that purpose.

Anyone who has an experience that they would like to share about the dean is encouraged to reach out to a committee member and share his or her story.

“There is no way for the committee members to reach out to every person in the college who has corresponded with the dean,” Farrell said.