Don’t Fear Fund Raising, Part 2

by David Perlmutter Comment Closed
David D. Perlmutter. “Don’t Fear Fund Raising, Part 2.” Chronicle of Higher Education, July 18, 2014, pp. A24-25. July 14, 2014 Don't Fear Fund Raising, Part 2 Matching donor passion to your department’s needs By David D. Perlmutter An acquaintance who was a department chair at a small liberal-arts college described one of the nightmare-come-to-life scenarios of every academic administrator faced with fund raising. He had met an alum with "a very high capacity"—the development term for wealth available to give—who was ready to make a major gift. The catch was that the donor embraced "fringe phenomena" (let’s call them leprechauns here to protect his privacy). His ambition was to finance an endowed chair in leprechaun studies—not as in folklore but as in scientific fact. To their credit, my friend, his faculty, the college foundation, and the upper administration stood tall and politely turned down the proposed gift. The anecdote, although unusual, typifies a common apprehension of academics who are thinking about becoming administrators and thus entering...
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Know the Vital Players in Your Career: You

by David Perlmutter Comment Closed
David D. Perlmutter. “Know the Vital Players in Your Career: You.” Chronicle of Higher Education, August 14, 2014.   Know the Vital Players in Your Career: You Few people can sabotage your career better than you can Creative Commons By David D. Perlmutter In more than 20 years of working in academe, I have seen innumerable people sabotage their own careers through terrible mistakes. A bad outcome is sometimes due to chance or forces beyond your control, but the single most important factor determining whether you achieve your career goals, including tenure and promotion, is you. Of course you do not stand alone: In a series of columns I’ve identified the people who play critical roles in your academic career: the department chair, the head of the P&T committee, the faculty factions, the senior campus administrators, the external evaluators, the university P&T committee, and your graduate-school or tenure-track peers. Now let us turn the spotlight inward to look at the thinking and attitudes that can inhibit your success or lead to career catastrophe. It’s not just a matter of staying positive. In...
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