The Education Deanship: Who Is the Dean?

Overview & Synopsis

This study identifies the personal, professional, and job-related characteristics of deans of schools, colleges, and departments of education. The study was organized to identify and describe: (1) personal characteristics of current deans; (2) professional background characteristics; (3) current professional activity data regarding practicing deans; (4) perceptions and role expectations that superordinates and subordinates have of deans; (5) characteristics of persons who recently left a deanship; (6) characteristics of prospective school, college, and department of education leaders; (7) behavior of leaders; (8) characteristics of deans in fields other than education; and (9) the interrelationships of the findings of this research with those of Clark and Guba regarding universities as complex organizations. Questionnaires were sent to 271 schools, colleges, and departments of education. Data from the 181 respondents indicate that American deans of education today are most commonly healthy and energetic, middle-aged, married, male, white, protestant, democrat academics from a relatively non-college-educated, lower middle class, non-professional-managerial, native-born, small-town, multi-child family background. They hold the doctorate degree, have had some training in educational administration, entered the profession through public school experiences, advanced from there to the university faculty, and took the deanship directly from a position in higher education. (DMT)