A week after becoming head of the department of plant agriculture at the University of Guelph, a position that would eventually lead him in 2016 to his current role as dean of the university's Ontario Agricultural College, Rene Van Acker sent a short email to his own former department head, Murray Ballance, at the University of Manitoba. The text read: "Hi Murray. I'm sorry. Rene."
"I was just apologizing for being a typical faculty member, maybe not always as helpful as I could've been for the administration and not realizing what the job entailed," he says. And that was after just his first step into academic leadership. The next level up, that of dean, he would later discover, offers its own set of challenges and rewards. To find out more about what the job entails, and to help you decide if it might be right for you, we canvassed several current deans for their experiences and advice.
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