The Kardia Group

See also: Designing a Meeting Agenda

There are many versions of the nightmare faculty meeting: faculty yelling at each other, the same people always saying the same things (while the rest never say anything at all), topics that could just as well have been handled on email...ample opportunities to squander time that is already too much in demand.

At its best, however, the faculty meeting produces more efficient and representative outcomes while promoting the cohesion of the department and increasing the satisfaction of not only the faculty but graduate students and staff as well.

What makes the difference? Here are three key factors:

Information
Knowing what's going on is a basic component to satisfactory and active participation in any organization or community. The faculty meeting plays a critical role in promoting awareness, investment, and connection to the key activities of the department - especially given the multitude of emails, other meetings, students, deadlines, etc. competing for faculty attention.

Goals
In the life of any faculty meeting topic, there are a wide variety of goals that may be served. Recognizing the goal of the moment is of key importance. It's obvious when a decision is needed, but other important kinds of goals are often overlooked: providing background information in order to reach a more informed future decision, education or training on key policies or practices in the department, exploring the breadth of possibilities regarding an idea in development, increasing faculty participation in a key timeline. Meeting efficiency rises in direct proportion to the specificity and appropriateness of meeting goals.

Strategies
Design of a faculty meeting deserves no less attention than design of a lecture or a classroom discussion - the strategies used must suit the intended goals. For example, a decision requires participants who are familiar with background information, future implications, and the like, and who are prepared for the decision-making process used for this topic; and appropriate and correct implementation of the decision-making process. A discussion requires a topic that merits discussion, strategies for soliciting the range of thoughts and perspectives present in the room, and a specific mechanism to translate the discussion into subsequent action (e.g., follow up by a designated committee).

Other Resources:
The Five Reasons for a Meeting by David Allen
www.gtdiq.com/media/pdf/Five%20reasons%20for%20a%20meeting.pdf