Department chair Radagast?

Our prior department chair has taken a relatively unexpected leave of absence, so my department is now holding an election (on very short notice) to choose a new department chair. There's been a lot of discussion in the past few weeks about who should be nominated to run for the position, and last week I began noticing that everyone kept looking my direction when talking about the election.

And now it's official: I've been nominated to be the next department chair. I'm pretty surprised; I do get along with most people, and have been involved with most everyone in the department in my prior role as chair of a major committee, but long term readers will recall that I've only worked at this campus for a few years, and I don't even have tenure. There are certainly many more senior members of the department who are qualified for the position.

After having read Jill's recent experiences of becoming department chair, and talking to other chairs, I'm not sure if I'm excited about this. On one hand I think I can help, and am honored that my peers think highly enough of me to nominate me for this, but on the other hand it would be a huge time commitment and another distraction from teaching.

Nothing is certain at this point, but the rumor on the street is that there won't be anyone else on the ballot. Yikes!