Don’t vote for me

Our faculty meeting today had a number of agenda items, including electing a new member to the Promotion and Tenure Committee. Guess who is one of the two finalists for this committee assignment? Guess who would definitely not be upset if he didn’t get it?

Being elected to P&T can be viewed as a vote of confidence by one’s peers that I will be a fair, thoughtful, and responsible gatekeeper for tenure-track faculty. But it is also a heck of a lot of work — one of the compensations for being on P&T is being relieved of teaching in Winter Term so that you can instead spend the entire month of January going through people’s tenure portfolios. I will do my best if voted onto the committee, but I can’t honestly say I relish the idea. In fact I don’t think anybody does. We all see P&T as important and central to the life of the college, and we’re all grateful that somebody else does it. On the other hand, it might make for interesting blogging… just kidding. Maybe.

Oddly, I was sitting next to the other finalist in the faculty meeting when they announced the finalists. I turned to him and said, “Just please remember that I have a young child to consider.” He said, “And you remember that I have a bad heart!”