Information about deans that may be helpful to department chairs is presented, based on the findings of four national surveys of deans. The surveys of social science, graduate, continuing education, and arts and sciences deans covered the deans' role in resource allocation to departments, teaching and research support for faculty, tenure and promotion decisions, and departmental evaluations. Seven points of interest to department chairs are presented: deans do not always communicate adequately with faculty and chairs about resource availability, goals, and priorities; deans almost always support teaching verbally; teaching quality is the most important factor in tenure decisions; deans rarely commit funds to improve weak departments; teaching deans do not show unusually strong support for teaching; institutional policies and traditions regarding teaching are inconsistent, uncoordinated, and confused; and support for research is subject to similar (but less serious) inconsistencies than support for teaching. Ways to increase the dean's communication with the department are suggested, along with an approach to urge consistency of behavior with the administrator's ideals and verbal utterances. Information on the survey methodologies is included, along with statistical findings of the studies. (SW)