Academic chair searches are admittedly a labor-intensive process, but they are made more difficult and often lead to less-than-optimal outcomes because search committees spend their time advertising, looking, but not truly searching for academic chairs. At the onset, certain realities must be acknowledged, including (1) understanding that unless your organization is renowned in the specialty for which you are conducting the search, candidates won't be pounding at your door for a job, (2) searches that fail to include an overall assessment of the department in question are likely to miss the mark, (3) chairs must have demonstrated not only clinical expertise but also business savvy, (4) the best candidate is not necessarily someone who is already a department chair, (5) when it comes to chair searches, it's a buyer's market, and (6) the search process is inextricably linked to the success of the search. Key to the process of conducting an academic chair search are the judicious formation of the search committee; committee members' willingness to do their homework, attend all committee meeting, and keep the committee's activities confidential; crafting, not revising, the current job description for the open chair position; interviewing viable candidates rather than all candidates and adhering to a coordinated interviewing process; and evaluating internal and external candidates according to the same parameters.
Creasman struck a chord when he wrote Is This a Way to Choose A Chair?1 He suggested that the current system is in major disarray and should either be scrapped and started over again from scratch or undergo a major overhaul.
I couldn't agree more and, at the risk of belaboring the point, would suggest that the fundamental problem is that all too often search committees are advertising-looking, but not truly searching, for academic chairs. To some extent, it's understandable-for virtually all search committee members, it becomes an add-on responsibility. As a result, as Creasman notes, searches often become unnecessarily protracted, and they become passive exercises, relying primarily on advertising in specialty journals for the open chair position.
The painful truth is that successful chair searches are a labor-intensive process. Successful chair searches are both passive (e.g., Web-site searches and placing journal postings) and, most importantly, active searches that involve picking up the phone, talking to colleagues, following up on leads, and working the search. In short, chair searches are a huge undertaking and must be acknowledged as having priority by those involved. That said, a number of other realities must also be considered if a chair search is to have a successful outcome.