When it comes to job titles, the prepositions of and for can seem interchangeable and arbitrary, but they mean slightly different things. Of, as in a Dean of Student Conduct, is in charge of a particular area by themselves, whereas a Vice President for Business Affairs would be someone who’s been given responsibility for an area that technically falls under someone else’s jurisdiction. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Dean Of vs. Dean For”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, I’m Andrew Parker.
Hi, Andrew Parker. Where are you calling from?
I am calling from Noplesville, Indiana.
Welcome to the show, Andrew. How can we help?
The question I have is, here at work, we’re going through a restructuring process. So we have new titles being created, things like that. And I don’t know if I’m just being too sensitive to this issue or not, but one of the things I’m trying to do is make sure our titles are consistent in using specifically what my question is about is the word of and for across, you know, the org chart, but also wondering are there certain positions that make sense for more or not. And so here’s kind of an example, when to use the word of and when to use the word for in a job title. So should it be a dean of student conduct or dean for student conduct or a vice president of business affairs or a vice president for business affairs?
I checked with our HR department. They said kind of 50-50, pick one. But I didn’t know if there was, you know, some guidance on which one is maybe more appropriate. So that’s the question I have.
Yeah, there is some guidance. Andrew, I take it you work at a college or university then, if you’re talking about deans and student conduct and that kind of thing?
Yes, I work in higher ed.
Okay, because I can give you some answers about higher ed. And the first thing to know is that none of what I’m going to tell you has to do with legal rules or regulations. So we’re just talking about tradition and the most common way of doing things. And so whatever you choose, you’re not going to get into trouble, okay? I’m just going to give you some guidelines about how it’s usually done. And it’s interesting, more interesting than you might think, because basically choosing between of and for has to do with organizational authority and responsibility and thinking about them in an orderly way.
Now, in the case of the word for, you use that in situations that connote responsibility that’s delegated from a higher up, a situation where a subordinate takes on part of the superior’s overall responsibility. So, for example, your president has this long list of responsibilities, but then your president delegates part of those responsibilities to various vice presidents.
Right.
So the president is sharing that authority with immediate subordinates. And so in that case, the tradition is that you use the word for. So like you have a vice president for academic affairs. And you want to use of in a situation where the person has responsibility for a particular area and it’s not something that’s shared with a higher up like a dean, a dean of a school. You see what I mean? So in that case, you would use of.
Okay. Would that alternate? If you had like a vice president for an area that supervised, you know, various deans and those deans supervise either associate deans or directors, would it alternate of and for?
It can. Yeah. Sometimes you might have like a vice provost for undergraduate studies and dean of students, somebody who fills that entire role. And it would be different words for and of, depending, again, on that kind of structure. But my point is, as soon as I say all this, there are going to be all these people who say, oh, we do it differently. And a lot of times that’s their tradition. But I’m saying if you want to get your tradition off on the right foot, it would be dean of student conduct and vice president for business affairs. And as I said, a lot of it’s tradition. And sometimes when people realize these guidelines, they think about changing their own nomenclature, but then they realize it would be too expensive.
Yeah. But the bigger picture of this is that ultimately that doesn’t matter because the job is the same regardless of the title.
Yes. Yeah. And as long as you’re consistent, I think you’ll be fine.
That’s very helpful. I appreciate it.
I hope so.
Thanks, Andrew. Really appreciate it. Thanks for calling.
All right. Thank you. Have a good day, y’all. Take care.
Bye-bye.
Bye.
