Department Chair, Public Health

Position purpose: The Chair of the Public Health Department is a leader who sets the vision and strategic goals/priorities for the Department. They are responsible for academic, administrative, and financial leadership and oversite. The chair works with the Dean, Sr. Associate Deans, and Assistant Deans to meet the needs of the Department and aligns all areas to the CPHS priorities. As a CPHS leader you will be expected to be collegial, collaborative, solutions focused, and bring a positive outlook to situations.

Job functions:

Department Governance and Office Management

• Responsible for all tasks supporting shared governance, from shaping the Department mission and building consensus around Department goals to conducting Department meetings and implementing long-range Department programs, plans, goals, and policies.
• Includes the faculty and staff within the Department of Public Health to invest in planning and uses a collaborative and inclusive process to develop and implement these items.
• Leads faculty in determining what services the Department should provide to the university, community, and state aligned with the CPHS strategic framework and the Department priorities, guides goal setting, implementation, and monitoring for the Department and in support of College and University goals.
• Supports a positive Department climate by striving for strong communication, conflict management, mentorship, team building, and facilitating group discussions.
• Supervises and evaluates staff and faculty, maintains essential Department records, assigns office space (in consultation, when needed by the Dean's office), and determines Departments' equipment and instructional support needs.
• Ensures faculty understand and adhere to research guidelines and campus policies on scientific standards.
• Represents the Department to external institutions, organizations, and agencies, enhancing the College mission

Identifies and grows areas for revenue generation and diversification.

• Maintains the responsibilities of a faculty member as a teacher, scholar and servant to the College, University, Profession, and Community.
• Continually engages in professional development and has an active leadership presence at state and national associations.
• Serve on the CPHS Leadership Team and other committees as assigned.

Curriculum and Program Development

• Responsible for leading Department curriculum and program development in teaching, research, practice and service.
• The chair may delegate some of these responsibilities to Department committees; however, they will be accountable for leading and ensuring these responsibilities are met.
• Responsible for leading instruction that may include specific tasks such as scheduling classes, supporting curricular review, assessment, and program development.
• Leads accreditation and the program review processes, together with support and direction from the AD for Assessment and Accreditation, and the public health faculty and staff.
• Leads the process of assigning and/or identifying service commitments to individual faculty and should monitor outreach and service programs to ensure they promote goals of the Department and college.
• Identifies, establishes, and fosters positive engagement across practice sites for Public Health faculty including initiation and maintenance of practice agreements. Additionally, the chair is responsible for working with the site supervisor and faculty member to ensure clear understanding of responsibilities, revenue streams, timely assessment and resolution of discord, and evaluations.
• When searching for resources and partnering sites, the chair is expected to be entrepreneurial, both within the institution and in seeking external assistance.
• Sets the vision for the Department's research/scholarship priorities and leads the Department in managing a successful research/scholarship portfolio.
• In pursuing a research mission, the chair needs to demonstrate their understanding of, and interest in, the research programs of individual faculty. They should also see that the Department has a collective understanding of these endeavors and that, where possible, linkages are made between research, practice, service, and teaching.

Personnel

• Responsible for the quality of faculty/staff activity and professional development through structured mentorship.
• Works with individual faculty and staff to design professional development plans and sets professional goals.
• Responsible for faculty/staff work assignments, annual reviews, committee work, conflict resolutions, improvement plans, and when necessary, initiates termination.
• Manages faculty workloads in a way that draws on individual strengths and maximizes collective success.
• Makes merit recommendations and initiates promotion and tenure recommendations.
• Develops and mentors faculty to take on leadership roles and responsibilities.

Students

• Responsible for leading the Department's efforts to recruit and retain students.
• Is well-versed with recent trends in recruitment/retention; and suggests strategies and best practices aligned with the profession.
• Works with the AD for Student Success and Formation to design and implement programs that increase awareness of programs, fosters enrollment, and development of students in programs.

Financial and Facilities

• Prepares and proposes Department budgets, seeks outside funding, and administers the Department budget.
• Sets priorities for the purchase of new equipment and the use of travel funds; aligns expenditures for the fiscal year with the Department's annual and long-term priorities and revenue in mind.
• Responsible for managing the Department's physical facilities and escalating problems/priorities as needed. The chair is responsible for the inventory of the Department and must know when equipment is loaned out or in need of repair.
• Monitor Department security and maintenance, issues involving who gets keys to what rooms and storage closets, and inform central administration of needed safety renovations or repairs.

Communication and Fundraising

• Responsible for setting the vision and leading all communication strategies tied to the Department. This includes, verbal, electronic, social media, newsletters, reports etc. The chair needs to be an effective communicator who ensures adequate documentation tied to communication, when needed.
• Works with the CPHS Operations Manager and any other individuals responsible for storytelling to ensure timely reporting of news stories both internal (e.g. Dean's Desk) or external (e.g. CPHS newsletter).
• Works with the Dean and the CPHS Development team on fundraising strategies, implementing campaigns, identifying key prospects, maintaining relationships etc.