Still, academic chairmen lack the power of middle managers in the corporate world. Although they are responsible to administrators for their department's bottom line, they can't force their faculty members to do anything. They can't fire them either, unless their behavior is egregious. It's no wonder, then, that deans have trouble filling chairmanships and that scholars who've watched others crash and burn in the job avoid it at all costs. The only reason I would take the position is if they told me who else might take it if I didn't.
Academic chairmen walk a fine line between administration and faculty.
They are typically elected by professors in a department, but they serve at the pleasure of the president. Increasingly, their task is to carry out the administration's orders without offending faculty members. He served as chairman of his department for nearly seven years until stepping down in August 1999. Most chairmen and women still come from within a department's senior ranks, although deans who want to heal a fractious department or have ambitious plans for changing it often hire someone from outside to do the job. Moving to head a department at another university is one way for tenured professors these days to move up and make more money, particularly if they aren't academic stars.