On the best days , of which there are now so few, “professionalism” is an unwholesome aspiration. Admire it as much as you wish in your mechanic, your family therapist, your oncology nurse. At even the least distance from these more high-wire enterprises, the matter scans less nobly. Efficiency in the name of someone else’s profit, a quasi-robotic optimization, a disciplined adherence to the way things are done—who wants to celebrate such things? As anyone who has had the job can attest, the enterprise of being chair of an English department—or, in my case, “head,” a term meant to designate a role still more managerial—comes with more than its share of these scenes of demoralized compliance and low-grade surrender. “A two-fisted engine of aggravation and despair” is how I recently described the gig to a friend, and it’s hard to find anyone who would disagree.…