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This article explores the complex academic-administrative role of the associate dean in US higher education administration. Previous research in Australia, UK and USA indicates that these academic middle managers experience significant conflict and ambiguity due to their roles and responsibilities as faculty members and administrators. Victor Turner's concept of liminality provides insight into the challenges of academic middle management at this administrative level. Analysing qualitative data collected through semi-structured interviews with associate deans at US research-intensive universities, I find that associate deans experience changes in perspective and relationships that foreground contradictions of meaning and highlight their paradoxical social status. I argue that, as part of a process of transition from faculty to administrator, the associate deanship is essential to the social construction of the university.

This study uses the concept of 'organisational power' -- control over the environments in which others interact -- to investigate the structures and lived experience of power among academic associate deans at public, research-intensive universities in the US. Previous research claims that the associate dean role lacks 'legitimate power.' Through in-depth analysis of semi-structured interview data, this study shows that the associate dean role requires a strategic mode of power that is not socially recognised in universities. Associate deans therefore must manage perceptions of power in order to be effective in an environment that does not acknowledge such power. It is argued that higher education's failure to legitimise organisational power obscures the role and limits leadership capacities. Empowering academic and administrative staff with knowledge regarding power and power practices in academic middle management through continued research is essential to safeguarding collegial processes and ensuring the longevity and vitality of the university.

The inadequacy of training and support for academic middle managers in the US, UK, and Australia is well documented. What remains unclear is what would make for better professional development. This study fills this gap by investigating what associate deans at US research universities report learning 'on the job'. Drawing on their perspectives and experiences, as documented via semi-structured interviews, this study found that associate deans spend significant time and effort learning how to make administrative decisions, learning how the university works for the purposes of making decisions, learning how to manage people relative to decision-making processes and outcomes, and learning how to manage themselves with regard to their decision-making role. It is argued that professional development for associate deans should focus on administrative decision-making as an essential skill in learning to lead. Recommendations for a curricular framework that can be adapted to individual-, role- and context-specific needs are offered.