Postsecondary education is comprised of unique organizational and leadership structures not seen outside of academia, for example, the department chair position which is cited as an essential position in the literature. An understudied population particularly in community colleges, the chair position is multi-faceted, ambiguous, and often contradictory in that chairs are often expected to perform administrative tasks that involve supervising faculty colleagues without the necessary positional authority or corresponding training. This quantitative study sought to develop a descriptive profile of the California community college (CCC) chair and to explore their perceptions of three job dimensions: chair roles, tasks, and skills. Exploratory in nature, the research protocol queried instructional chairs at all 112 California community colleges using a modified version of the 1992 International Community College Chair Survey. The study described characteristics of the chair position (i.e., title, length of term, appointment process, release/reassigned time); personal characteristics of CCC chairs (i.e., age, gender, years of experience as chair, education); and the perceived importance of various roles, tasks and responsibilities, and skills essential to their chairship. Implications for future research and suggestions for practice are discussed. The results of the study will be important to college chairs, administrators, and the California community college system for describing the nature of the current position, and more importantly, for use in chair development and leadership training programs.
