In my experience, some, perhaps many, law faculty members do not look forward to faculty meetings. I have a joint appointment with another unit on campus and, when I served as chair, felt that some faculty members also were not keen on faculty meetings. One thing that I can say, faculty will fill whatever time is allotted for the meeting. If two hours are allotted, two hours generally be taken. One hour given . . . . Of course, many other factors come into play, such as the budgetary health of the school, trust in leadership (campus and otherwise), controversies, etc.
Late last year, eCampus News (Making meetings matter: Six strategies for campus leaders – eCampus News) had a story that lays out six strategies for structuring faculty meetings to maximize their effectiveness. Here are the six, which are delved into some detail in the article.
- Clarify purpose and desired outcomes
- Prepare and distribute agendas in advance I would add that assigning general time allocations to each item on the agenda helps to structure to meeting and offer a suggestion of the dean’s view of each item’s relative importance.
- Invite the right people and only the right people. This does not apply to my law school, which has rules and regulations over who gets invited. Still, a leader may encourage attendance by those who might help make the discussions productive.
- Start and end on time THIS IS CRITICAL. Faculty, like students, like to have firm start and end times.
- Document and communicate action items immediately. Minutes should be distributed quickly before memories fade. Critical points can be highlighted and instructions on follow-up can be made clear.
- Evaluate and continuously improve the meeting process. Why are meetings working? Or not? What can be done to improve the use of faculty and leadership time and energy?
Before I became Dean at UC Davis School of Law, faculty meetings were from 3-5 on Friday. It was hard to for the faculty to do fruitful work at the end of the work week. And two hours can be long, especially at the end of the week. We moved to a one hour meeting with lunch (on the deans office) from a local taqueria. There were not many complaints and some compliments about that change.
