Dealing with Dysfunction provides a real-life view of a college department gone awry. A complete lack of trust exists between faculty, department chairs past and present; and particularly within the faculty itself. Name calling, sabotage, and an unwillingness to even be in the same room with department colleagues to discuss matters involving student and program concerns have become the norm. When pressed to participate in a meeting, one faculty member states: “You can make me come there, but you can’t make me say a word, and I won’t.”
Acknowledging the professionalism of the vast majority of college professors that staff institutions of higher education, Dealing with Dysfunction looks at the options a chair and dean have available to them when dealing with a cadre of professors in a department that unable to work together.