The role of the head of a faculty, department, institute, or similar can be seen as anything between:

• a prestigious and powerful role that people strife for, requires years of experience (as a professor), and that people stay in for long times,
• a nuisance that only distracts from more important tasks (such as heading a research group), that changes yearly based on an established rota, and where there are rules what arguments suffice to reject the role. Showing interest in the role is seen as a red flag.

There can be considerable differences on how many layers academic administration has and how narrow their scope is, even within a country or university. For example, the structural hierarchy for the same topic at universities of comparable size can be university → faculty for science → department of mathematics → institute for statistics or just university → faculty for statistics.

An elected faculty senate (academic senate), separate from the board, may exist as a representative body at the university level, or also at a faculty level (i.e., for semi-autonomous highest level departments), or there may be no senate and faculty may be represented on the unicameral board instead (if at all). Senate's responsibilities can range anywhere from ceremonial to strategy defining ones. Many academic senates consist of faculty only, others also represent students, either elected directly, or via an established student union, with the proportion of student representation ranging from symbolic up to one half of the senate membership.

The role of the head of a faculty, department, institute, or similar can be seen as anything between:

• a prestigious and powerful role that people strife for, requires years of experience (as a professor), and that people stay in for long times,
• a nuisance that only distracts from more important tasks (such as heading a research group), that changes yearly based on an established rota, and where there are rules what arguments suffice to reject the role. Showing interest in the role is seen as a red flag.

There can be considerable differences on how many layers academic administration has and how narrow their scope is, even within a country or university. For example, the structural hierarchy for the same topic at universities of comparable size can be university → faculty for science → department of mathematics → institute for statistics or just university → faculty for statistics.

An elected faculty senate (academic senate), separate from the board, may exist as a representative body at the university level, or also at a faculty level (i.e., for semi-autonomous highest level departments), or there may be no senate and faculty may be represented on the unicameral board instead (if at all). Senate's responsibilities can range anywhere from ceremonial to strategy defining ones. Many academic senates consist of faculty only, others also represent students, either elected directly, or via an established student union, with the proportion of student representation ranging from symbolic up to one half of the senate membership.

The role of the head of a faculty, department, institute, or similar can be seen as anything between:

• a prestigious and powerful role that people strife for, requires years of experience (as a professor), and that people stay in for long times,
• a nuisance that only distracts from more important tasks (such as heading a research group), that changes yearly based on an established rota, and where there are rules what arguments suffice to reject the role. Showing interest in the role is seen as a red flag.

There can be considerable differences on how many layers academic administration has and how narrow their scope is, even within a country or university. For example, the structural hierarchy for the same topic at universities of comparable size can be university → faculty for science → department of mathematics → institute for statistics or just university → faculty for statistics.

The role of the head of a faculty, department, institute, or similar can be seen as anything between:

• a prestigious and powerful role that people strife for, requires years of experience (as a professor), and that people stay in for long times,
• a nuisance that only distracts from more important tasks (such as heading a research group), that changes yearly based on an established rota, and where there are rules what arguments suffice to reject the role. Showing interest in the role is seen as a red flag.

There can be considerable differences on how many layers academic administration has and how narrow their scope is, even within a country or university. For example, the structural hierarchy for the same topic at universities of comparable size can be university → faculty for science → department of mathematics → institute for statistics or just university → faculty for statistics.

An elected faculty senate (academic senate), separate from the board, may exist as a representative body at the university level, or also at a faculty level (i.e., for semi-autonomous highest level departments), or there may be no senate and faculty may be represented on the unicameral board instead (if at all). Senate's responsibilities can range anywhere from ceremonial to strategy defining ones. Many academic senates consist of faculty only, others also represent students, either elected directly, or via an established student union, with the proportion of student representation ranging from symbolic up to one half of the senate membership.