Your Career: How to lead through loss

What a chair should consider in helping the faculty cope with a colleague's unexpected death. ADVERTISEMENT [Your Career Logo]( You can also [read this newsletter on the web](. Or, if you no longer want to receive this newsletter, [unsubscribe](. What a chair should consider in helping the faculty cope with a colleague’s unexpected death Dealing with the death of faculty members is the common lot of departments and their leaders, and the odds are good that someone who has chaired for a long time will have experienced the loss of a retired or emeritus colleague. In the best of cases, their passing is an opportunity for the campus community to honor the colleague’s contributions to the institution and to celebrate a successful career. Things are much different, however, when a thriving career is cut short. Institutions have protocols in place to deal with faculty deaths, and those are important. Perhaps the dean would email faculty members and students; a memorial service would be held on the campus; an appropriate faculty member would be asked to deliver a “memorial minute” at a faculty meeting. But the intensity of faculty relationships — with other professors, with staff members, with students and alums — means that no standardized institutional blueprint for grief and mourning is going to suffice. You’ll need to find a way to put your own pain aside, at least temporarily, so that you can help your community to mourn. Caring for the memory of a colleague, and for those bereft by that professor’s death, is difficult and exhausting, yet can be deeply rewarding. Continue reading: “[Ask the Chair: How to Cope With a Death in Your Department]( by Kevin Dettmar Share your suggestions for the newsletter with Denise Magner, an editor at The Chronicle, at denise.magner@chronicle.com. If you’d like to opt out, you can log in to our website and [manage your newsletter preferences here](. ADVERTISEMENT SUBSCRIBE TO THE CHRONICLE Enjoying the newsletter? [Subscribe today]( for unlimited access to essential news, analysis, and advice. NEWSLETTER [Sign Up for the Teaching Newsletter]( Find insights to improve teaching and learning across your campus. Delivered on Thursdays. To read this newsletter as soon as it sends, [sign up]( to receive it in your email inbox. LATEST CAREER ADVICE, OPINION, AND NEWS THE REVIEW | OPINION [Science Has a Censorship Problem]( By Musa al-Gharbi and Cory Clark [STORY IMAGE]( The motives are benign. The effects are insidious. SPONSOR CONTENT | Jobs for the Future [Jobs for the Future Wants the Future to Include All of Us]( ADVERTISEMENT THE REVIEW | ESSAY [Dear Administrators: Enough With the Free-Speech Rhetoric!]( By Richard Amesbury and Catherine O'Donnell [STORY IMAGE]( It concedes too much to right-wing agendas. ADVICE [Adventures in Substack]( By James M. Lang [STORY IMAGE]( How to get started writing and publishing your own academic newsletter. ACADEMIC FREEDOM [Did DEI Rules Trample on a Professor’s Free Speech? A Judge Says It’s Plausible.]( By Amita Chatterjee [STORY IMAGE]( Community colleges in California now require employees to demonstrate competency in diversity, equity, and inclusion. A court ruling this week raised First Amendment concerns. LEADERSHIP [College Presidents Debate When to Speak Out — and When to Keep Quiet]( By Charlotte Matherly [STORY IMAGE]( When world events have ripple effects on campuses, four leaders said, they can’t make everyone happy. OUT OF THE FRYING PAN? [A President Weighs Jumping From One Controversy-Ridden University to Another]( By David Jesse [STORY IMAGE]( Kevin Guskiewicz, chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, might take the top job at Michigan State. Sources said he had informally agreed to leave UNC soon. FROM THE CHRONICLE STORE [The Unionized Campus - The Chronicle Store]( [The Unionized Campus]( The number of graduate-student unions has increased more than four-fold since 2019. [Order your copy]( to learn what’s at stake as union membership grows, and explore effective strategies for colleges to build relationships with new and existing unions. What we’re reading Here’s more on career issues and trends from around the web. See something we should include? [Let me know](mailto:denise.magner@chronicle.com?subject=Your Career feedback). - A [report]( in The New York Times on how, with cities full of vacant buildings, “universities are moving in.” - In the Harvard Business Review, [advice]( on how to prepare good answers to “10 common job interview questions.” - On The Scholarly Kitchen, [an essay]( on the “necessity of book reviews,” amid concern for their decline. MORE CAREER RESOURCES [Supporting Student Success: Staff and Roles]( [STORY IMAGE]( UPCOMING: December 5, 2023 | 2 p.m. ET: Colleges prioritize student success through advising programs and performance-tracking systems, but staff burnout and turnover present a challenge. Join us to discuss it. With Support From Mongoose. [Register here.]( [Starting a Program for Incarcerated Students]( [STORY IMAGE]( UPCOMING: December 6, 2023 | 2 p.m. ET: With new federal aid available for students in prisons to take courses for credit, many colleges are now interested in starting or expanding programs for those students. Join us for advice on what it takes to do so. With Support From Ascendium. [Register here.]( [Data Science Unbound]( [STORY IMAGE]( UPCOMING: December 7, 2023 | 2 p.m. ET: Student demand for data science in the liberal arts continues to rise. A panel of experts will explore the trend and the challenges it presents, including issues of faculty shortages and course sharing. With Support From Microsoft. [Register here.]( [Professional-Development Resources]( [STORY IMAGE]( Visit The Chronicle’s professional-development resources page to read stories from Chronicle journalists and contributors, and to explore videos and research briefs on a variety of topics. JOB OPPORTUNITIES [Assistant Professor Department of Computer and Information Sciences]( Towson University [The Department of African American Studies 2024-2025 Visiting Research Positions]( Princeton University [Search other jobs.]( CAREER RESOURCES [Career Resources]( [Read the November collection]( to make the most of the pre-interview phase. You'll discover insights into the dynamics of interviews, strategies to conquer impostor syndrome, and more! NEWSLETTER FEEDBACK [Please let us know what you thought of today's newsletter in this three-question survey](. This newsletter was sent to {EMAIL}. [Read this newsletter on the web](. 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