Operational Suggestions for a Committee Chair

1.   Establish a timetable for the work of the committee and keep members informed of how well it is being met.   Progress reports to members of the committee are valuable.

2.    Keep members aware of the importance of their task; you'll need to be mildly aggressive, occasionally direct and critical.

3.      Be sure that all members have a clear understanding of exactly what the committee is to do and what it should not attempt.   Keep the committee's charge at the forefront of your thinking.     

4.      Whenever possible, divide clearly stated tasks among committee members and supply specific instructions, deadlines, suggestions for appropriate resources, etc.   Be sure that each committee member knows exactly what he or she is to do.

5. Interpret the will of the majority quickly and move on to the next step. The disputatious minority view is a perennial possibility, but it cannot be allowed to halt work. The chair of a committee carrying on its work by mail or e-mail (i.e., nearly every NCTE committee) needs to be somewhat more authoritarian than the chair who works face-to-face, simply because long give-and-take discussions by mail are impractical.

6.    Use NCTE letterhead (available from NCTE Headquarters) for committee correspondence to signal the receiver that prompt action is needed.

7.    Make it easy for members to respond.   Open-ended replies are difficult to write, difficult to interpret.   When feasible, use a questionnaire format.   For important matters of policy, frame specific yes/no questions and circulate a duplicate ballot by mail or e-mail--one copy to be kept in the member's file, the other to be returned to you.

8. When the committee has terminated its work, you might wish to send brief thank-you notes to members of the group. However, the Council does send official notes of gratitude to all committee members and chairs when their terms are completed.