ABSTRACT
Just as Harry Truman advised public officials who wanted to be loved to buy a dog, so faculty members who wish to be rewarded for their service as department chairs should buy savings bonds if they want a sure return. The departmental interest requires that faculty members not look at the chairmanship as something to be sought but rather as a duty to be endured. For department chairs to pursue the departmental interest they must know what that is and expound it to their colleagues. A departmental interest includes staff and students as well as faculty. Ordinary chairs in ordinary times should remember the rule–have fun while students are doing it because there won't be any afterward. A department chair should never assume his colleagues have been treated fairly or even that ordinary administrative matters have been completed. A department chair performs a political function–motivational maintenance and institutional change.
