The Educational Leadership of the Academic Dean

HE college as we know it will find that it has no proper place in scheme of things, Jacques Barzun prophesied recently. It will find that secondary school has added a year or two to its present curriculum, that graduate school has kidnapped all college juniors and seniors into its own departments. All that will be left in colleges is dean, and he is most expendable of creatures. Barzun's irony is all more sobering because it underscores intimate, almost fated, relation between survival of liberal education as we know it and role academic deans play in college or university. Taking irony for what it is-a figure of speech, but not a predictionwe could argue that, far from being expendable, dean is ideal ''creature to assume educational leadership in the scheme of things. His office is situated in heart of academic microcosm. If his role is properly understood by all, including himself, he is in a better position than anyone else on campus to assure its vitality. Moreover, his actual or potential contributions to life of his college or university are such that they directly concern major problems confronting American higher education today. To develop this optimistic argument, we may posit a triadic model of academic leadership: president, dean, chairman. In this model

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