The myth of the “endless meetings” where academics wilted in boredom and sadness thwarted my early day in academia. I dreaded the service aspect of being on the tenure-track more than I feared anything else. I even warned the Chair of my department that I will be horrible at service.
Then, however, I discovered that the need to sacrifice oneself on the altar of useless and boring service was nothing but one of those myths people generate to feel sorry for themselves. This semester, for instance, I attended a total of 4 meetings. Three of them were for an extremely fulfilling, useful, fun committee that I would participate in even I didn’t have a service requirement. I will also give a talk to the people of our town on the economic crisis in Spain. And I advise Majors in our department whose last names start with K-M. I would be a dirty, nasty liar if I said that these service obligations are onerous. Honestly, I barely notice them. And I always rank excellent in service.
The way to make service pleasant and easy is to read the operational papers (if there are none, talk to the Chair of the Personnel Committee) and make a list of all categories of committees that exist. Then all you have to do is hit each category once and try to show leadership in a few. That is absolutely all. People who suffer on 5 departmental committees that nobody will appreciate are authors of their own misfortune. As the administrators keep repeating, “Nobody ever gets tenure because they are active in service.”
Also, all of these stories about women being forced into more service than men, being expected to be nurturing or serviceable, or being discouraged from research turned out to be lies. I’m not seeing anything even remotely like this.
Clarissa's Blog 
Leave a comment