Vice-Chancellors can then devote themselves to the arduous task of administering the university. In our universities, deans formerly were those who had attained great academic stature and captured the respect of the faculty. The role was academic and mainly confined to the world of the university. The American penchant for combing the ceremonial with the executive has, however, filtered down to the decanal level. Those deans who have felt the extra public obligations are those most like university presidents, the deans of professional schools.
Professional schools are of the university but, at the same time, somewhat aloof from it.
They look to the university but also to their sustaining profession. Thus, deans of professional schools assume that Janus-faced posture vastly complicating their jobs. The dean of Arts and Sciences can remain the academic, although practiced in the ways of internecine university politics. The law school dean, however, must attend to the profession in addition to her school and university. The law school is given the powerful and daunting authority to educate the new generation of the profession.