I felt unappreciated in my first tenure-track job. Sure, I loved my colleagues and students, received positive teaching evaluations, and tried hard to get my research on track. I forged close connections with some of my colleagues and tried to learn the department culture. I did what was asked of me. But I worried that the university and department did not ask enough.
Junior faculty members are often told to avoid committee service like the plague, and I knew, theoretically, that there was good reason for that. But thinking I could do it all, and wanting to, I volunteered to serve in various ways, happily offering to take on "extra" work. I figured that a balanced workload involves teaching, research, and service, and I wanted to integrate all of those things from the beginning of my career.
When the feelers I put out were ignored, or rejected, I myself felt rejected, and I tried to reconcile my love for the university with the impression that I had been slotted into a role that kept me on the sidelines.
At least I had the comfort of knowing I wasn't alone. That department had a strong body of junior faculty members, and we all became close, forming reading and writing groups, and attempting in late-night bull sessions to right the wrongs of our academic field and the intellectual world.
We had different skills and long-term aspirations, but we had one thing in common: We all felt undervalued. The administration didn't abuse us by exploiting our labor. It simply ignored us. The only "service" we were allowed to do involved things like evaluating the undergraduate essay award or meeting with the majors organization. Those tasks may have been personally rewarding, but they weren't going to do much for our careers. It was frustrating to all of us.
All of us except for one, that is. I will call her "Holly." She was plucked from our midst and destined for greatness. Was there a university search committee for a new provost? Better ask Holly. Whom could we press into service as assistant director of the honors program? Holly was the one. The alumni society needed a speaker for its off-campus event? Yup, Holly would be perfect.
The rest of us assistant professors were torn between liking her and envying her. Holly was a great member of our discussion groups, and we usually saw her as a peer. But it was clear that the higher-ups saw her as the anointed, a superior being whose presence was going to help the university achieve greatness.
That favoritism galled me especially because I had known Holly for many years; we had graduated from the same college. Comparisons may be odious, but I couldn't help making lists in my mind that spoke to my relative failure on the job compared to her brilliant successes. True, Holly had started her tenure-track job a year before I had, but by the time I got to campus she had already taken her career to "the next level," as they say.
From the administration's perspective, Holly's superiority was clear: She was the complete package. She had an Ivy League degree, the kind of magical affiliation that could wow impressionable freshmen and their perhaps even more impressionable tuition-check-writing parents. She worked on a trendy field but in the context of a more traditional approach to the material. The university was in her home state, so she walked and talked like many of the students and their parents. She had a truly winning personality. There was not an introverted bone in her body, so when placed in a group of strangers she could immediately draw them into the welcoming halo of her exuberance. Did I forget to mention that Holly also ran marathons?
In her first few years on the job, Holly won the university's teaching award along with the adoration of colleagues and students. She also won huge raises, which we weren't supposed to know about. But of course word got around, and we weren't happy. The rest of us were getting the same minimal raise, and we looked on in agony as first-year faculty members were hired for more money than we were making even after our raises.
We understood Holly's appeal, but we all had healthy egos. "Holly's going to be dean someday," we'd say, pretending to have contempt for her skills.
We were jealous. All of us were just as ambitious as Holly, but we felt we had been stiffed.
In retrospect, I can see that being left alone was probably good for us. We had the chance to develop our research and teaching skills without too much interference. That was important because the university's tenure requirements were strict. Almost all of us have published our books, earned tenure, and embarked on long-term careers, and that was easier to achieve with minimal service obligations.
Lately, though, I wonder if I have begun to channel Holly. As soon as I began my new tenured job at my current university, I volunteered to do things all over campus, from handing out snacks to freshmen during orientation to serving on thankless departmental "committees." (Sure, as "chair" of the "computer committee," I'd love to spend my afternoon installing that new software on your PC.) I did some work outside of my department and just showed up to events, especially those with free food, things like the "welcome" reception for the new provost.
After I became director of graduate studies in my department, my visibility on campus increased exponentially. I have realized that, like Holly at my previous institution, I'm now one of the people who get asked to do everything. Need someone to speak at the orientation for new faculty members, participate on a task force, lead a search committee, or write a grant application? How about Frank?
And it's not just on the campus. I've let the same thing happen outside of the university. I am loaded down with service. Although I gave up the position of book review editor for one journal, I'm still co-editing another. I have begun an open-ended term as secretary/treasurer of a scholarly organization. I have agreed to write countless book reviews and review manuscripts for presses. Perhaps not surprisingly, the article I promised to write for a collection of essays was two months late. The list could go on, much to my mingled pleasure and chagrin.
I'd like to think that all of my service activity results from my supercompetence, but I fear it's because I am the chump who always says yes. As I watch my own career develop, I realize that service masochists are a largely self-selected group. We're not necessarily the best, but we're always there. We seem to love taking on the work, regardless of how thankless it turns out to be.
I promised in my first column to write an essay on "how to say no" as a newly tenured faculty member. The protection from service that most departments try to give junior faculty members vanishes once job security is in place. Somebody has to do the work, and often -- and unfairly -- the most experienced professors, who typically wield the power, turn to their newly tenured, still energetic, if no longer exactly youthful, colleagues to do it.
Wise associate professors should weigh all requests and choose a few that meet their particular interests and skill sets. Newly tenured faculty members still need to be polite, but a firm "no" should find a place within their rhetorical repertoire. Or so I tell myself.
But if I tried to write a "how to say no" essay, it would be like a heroin addict preaching to his fellow junkies about how to go cold turkey, while mainlining the drug at every opportunity. It seems that the tendency to go overboard on service most often reveals itself, like a long-dormant illness, just after tenure. That bug must have been lurking in my system. While I was an assistant professor, a proper dose of fear (that I wouldn't get tenure) allowed me to keep it at bay. With that fear removed, my immune system has gone belly up.
Associate professors face crucial choices in the years immediately after tenure. Their aspirations to excel as scholars can go unrealized if they do not fiercely protect the time and intellectual space for scholarly endeavors.
Indeed, I sometimes fear I'm in danger of becoming that terminal associate professor who spurns his long-term loves of teaching and research for the promiscuity of a million service obligations. Serving on a search committee can provide immediate gratification (and the illusion of a long-term contribution to departmental joy) with the outcome of a "good hire." Writing a good article takes a lot longer, and nobody really thanks me for that. I'm still sitting on an encouraging "revise and resubmit" for an article I sent out two years ago. I'll get to that work soon, right?
Perhaps I will meet an academic therapist who can talk me through my problems and restore balance to my professional life. On the other hand, Holly was recently made associate dean. I look at her and think, "Hey, I can do that, too."
