Dealing with Dysfunction

Reviews / Votes

Richard Castallo sets the tone for his book pretty early: reading partly like a self-help book, part choose-your-own-adventure novel, the fictional book contains a series of case studies that you, a newly appointed department chair, navigate as you read..... The writing, while generally positive and constructive, can also be blunt and humorous.... * Inside Higher Ed * This engaging case study illuminates the challenges of leadership in the paradoxical world of the professoriate, which is at once highly collaborative and vastly independent. Through this honest portrayal of power coalitions within organizations, we learn how to shape resistance into persistence! Castallo's lived experience lends credibility to his advice for turning departmental dysfunction into collective productivity. This book is particularly valuable to students of higher education leadership. -- Peggie Constantino Ph.D, Executive Associate Professor of Educational Leadership, College of William & Mary Richard Castallo offers an insightful book that provides guidance to new and experienced higher education department chairpersons in dealing with the varying faculty personalities they may inherit. A must read for anyone moving from faculty status to a department leadership role. -- William Silky, Emeritus Professor Resistance. Intrigue. Subjugation. Deep state. Sounds like a story about a geo-political power struggle complete with espionage, double agents and lots of danger. Or it could just be another day at the office in a very dysfunctional college department dominated by multiple, often competing agendas. In this short book, Rick Castallo pulls back the curtain on the daily drama surrounding a group of highly educated adults in what should have been be a rewarding, secure work environment, and what it took to fix it. Way too many of my fellow professors will identify with more than one part of this story. -- Stephen Uebbing, Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership, University of Rochester, NY