I am planning a follow-up post to my one about hostility to research from last week, but I need to be in the right mood to write it, so it may take a bit. (Pontificating takes more energy than rambling, which is what I have the energy to do on this Monday morning.)
Anyway, I said yes to the thing I wrote about on Friday. I think it’s a good decision to have made. It’s a position that’s locked into the infrastructure of a web of committees, a position that does require the pushing of paper but that is not an administrative position. It also is not a position in which I have direct authority over anyone (like I’m not expected directly to supervise or manage people), although the position does come with visible authority.
In other words, I was interested to read the comments to my last post about “resources,” as “resources” don’t really fit with the sort of job this is. Or at least material resources (administrative support, a budget, etc.) don’t really fit.
Instead, well, how do I put this? The resources required to do this job are pretty much “resources” you already have to possess in order to be asked to do it. Maybe “qualities” is a better word here than “resources,” actually. So, in order to do this job well, a person needs:
- To be organized. Because of all the paper-pushing. While I don’t enjoy being organized, I can do it if I know that I have to do it. It’s funny, one of the main factors in choosing to take on this role had nothing to do with the positives or negatives of the job itself. It had to do with the fact that I’m moving offices this summer, so I knew I would not have to find a way to organize my current space around this job, but rather that I could start in a “clean slate” of an office. That’s coincidental to being asked to do this, but I really would have thought even more about saying no if my office situation weren’t changing.
- The ability to deal with faculty politics. While that’s a good quality to have just generally as a faculty member, this is the kind of position that really requires it. In other words, one needs to be able to negotiate competing demands from faculty from different units, to facilitate compromise, to inspire a baseline level of trust in order to lead when necessary.
- Experience with the issues over which one would have some responsibility in the position. In order to be asked, you need to have a track record in place.
- Not only do you need the trust and respect of faculty that you organize, you also need the trust of faculty around the university that you don’t, chairs of other committees, and administrators. That’s kind of the secret of committee work, as far as I can tell: if you want to get things done, you can’t be hated. This isn’t to say that people won’t disagree with you, or that you have to be Miss Congeniality, but you can’t get work done if people don’t like, trust, and respect you enough to let you do the work.
- People need to think you’re smart about and willing to work for the issues over which you’ll have some power. If they think you’re a dummy, or that you’re not hard-working, you won’t be asked to do this sort of thing.
So anyway, if those are the resources required, I do have them. (Sometimes I wish I didn’t, but that’s sort of like wishing to be shorter or wishing to have smaller feet. I am who I am, and there ain’t no changing it.)
But so what’s in it for me? I mean, it’s clear what’s in it for my institution and other interested parties, but why did I say yes? (Aside from the fact that I think I’ll be good at it.)
- It really was a pretty big deal to be asked, as it demonstrates that people see me a faculty leader on campus about something that is intrinsic to our mission. That wouldn’t have been good enough on its own to get me to say yes, but it was a factor.
- The position is a highly visible service position at the university, and serving in this sort of position can do a whole lot to solidify one’s application for promotion. My idea is that I will serve in this position for 3-5 years (assuming it’s not a disaster – if it’s a disaster I’ll be out at the end of next year), which will take me to my promotion to full and then I will pass the position to someone next in line on the tenure ladder.
- I really, really care about the thing that this position oversees, and I see the potential to do some really good work that will affect my institution in the long term. (Most people don’t know that I want to facilitate a certain amount of revolution, yet, but I do have some revolutionary ideas, and it would be awesome if I could shepherd those along.)
- Taking on this position will give me license to say no to some department-level service that I find distasteful, and to be less involved in some department-level service that is time-consuming.
- This position will put me in a good position to mentor somebody to take over for me in terms of department representation to this thing, and I care a lot about mentoring as well as about thinking about extricating myself from this particular type of service before it makes me paranoid and dead inside. I care a lot about not becoming paranoid and dead inside.
Ok, so I need to get started with my day. I need to go to campus, take care of some stuff there including a trip to the library, some grading, and some service stuff, and then I need to come home and take care of prep for tomorrow. I really, really can’t wait until the semester is over.
Sounds like fucken fun!!