President-Faculty Relations: A Dean’s Dilemma?

The situation: You are an academic dean. Your president is one of the new-breed leaders, a nonacademic administrator whose expertise is in business management, alumni affairs, social life, or development. Further, your faculty is a highly organized cohort of professionals who have the security of a tenure system and the strong leadership of a faculty senate. Now your president, in an effort to establish better communication and rapport with faculty, is meeting with individual faculty members, academic departments, and the faculty senate. Do you see a dilemma in your future?