The mystery and confusion surrounding this vital position in academe are why I wrote my new book, How to Chair a Department, out next month from the Johns Hopkins University Press. While writing it, I stored the files for various chapters in a folder called “Chairsplaining.” The book attempts to survey the wide landscape of a department chair’s or a program director’s job, and to provide broad principles to support a strategic approach to the role.

Sometimes, however, those principles can seem difficult to apply to the prickly, particular situations that arise in our own departments, among colleagues and even friends. So I’m pleased now to launch this monthly advice column, “Ask the Chair.” I’m here to try to fill in some of that training you never got and to provide a Guide for the Perplexed.