What we do
We help faculty to develop the knowledge, confidence, and insight to advance in their professional lives, on their own terms.
Universities are incredibly complex, and the varied demands on faculty are challenging—and so are the parallel lives faculty navigate as family members, friends, and citizens. Flourishing within all of these environments should not require superhuman qualities. Or, worse, the divorce of head and heart.
Universities are at their best when the cutting edge of knowledge—research—advances alongside the development of human potential—education. George and Carolyn work with faculty individually and in groups to support faculty development into and out of all kinds of institutional roles, over the lifetime of a career. Our goal always is to support faculty leadership through intelligence, purpose, and balance.
We also work with institutions to help develop positive shared governance, strategic planning, and professional development practices, particularly around times of institutional change. Our work is rooted in the conviction that diversity is instrumental to the flourishing of academic institutions, and to successful leadership. We help faculty, including women, faculty of color, and those whose academic disciplines are underrepresented in senior leadership, to chart their own courses, on their own terms, for the benefit of their larger communities.
Dever Justice LLC applies a deep inside knowledge of faculty cultures to the leadership challenges facing colleges and universities. Carolyn Dever and George Justice are both tenured faculty members with a combined half century of faculty experience. Together, they offer more than two decades of academic leadership, as well. They are personally expert at navigating complex professional transitions between faculty and administrative roles, the ideal of teaching and research, and the perennial goal of work-life balance. Carolyn and George are practiced at all aspects of institutional leadership, for faculty, by faculty.
Founded in 2018 by friends Carolyn Dever and George Justice, Dever Justice LLC came into being not long before the pandemic upended just about everything about our lives—including our professional lives. Though these changing circumstances required us to let go of our original ideas about our work, they also brought us new opportunities, including an extraordinary partnership with The Chronicle of Higher Education and Ithaka S+R, work that has enabled us to reach about 1000 department chairs to date. We have added new associates, proven academic leaders who have infused our work with fresh ideas. Together, all of us are working year-round to help our faculty colleagues move forward into uncertainty with confidence and maybe even a little joy.
Carolyn Dever and George Justice write together and separately on faculty and administrative leadership in higher education.