ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on key elements in academic organizational design that create the opportunity structure for the chair’s role in diversity progress. Both the bureaucratic components and the programmatic components of academic organizational design have vertical and horizontal dimensions. The provost’s office typically consists of vice provosts for functions such as budget, diversity, and academic personnel and has responsibility for academic personnel matters including oversight of tenure and promotion processes. The dichotomy between the nonacademic world and the academic world can, in fact, accelerate the tendency toward competing centers of power, multiple goals, and vulnerability to external forces. The dean, like the department chair and associate dean, plays an essential academic leadership role that balances the interests of faculty with those of the administration. The framework of shared governance is a primary component of organizational design in higher education since it represents the site of convergence for administration and faculty decision making.
