In article <60uq0r$l42$1 at fremont.ohsu.edu>, nishir at ohsu.edu (Rae Nishi) wrote:
> In article <60ufp0$ifr$1 at dismay.ucs.indiana.edu>
>ddudle at indiana.edu (Dana Ann Dudle) writes:
>> > I am interested in starting a thread about the third (and poorly defined)
> > aspect of an academic's career: service. I know that the phrase
> > "teaching, research, and service" is very common, especially in tenure
> > talks and/or job interview introductions, but I don't have a clear idea of
> > what kind of service this phrase refers to.
(snip)
> I'm presently on the Promotion and Tenure Committee in the School of
> Medicine. You're right, the definition of service is vague. One thing
> I should point out is that it usually means service to the University
> or dept., meaning anything that furthers the reputation of the
> university or contributes to its operation and its goals.
(more snip)
>> Rae
I agree with Rae. I just finished 3 years on our Arts & Sciences P & T
Committee. We consider service in 3 areas: to the department, to the
university, and to the profession. In all cases, it is service that makes
use of one's expertise as a scientist that is important. Our P&T
committee doesn't weigh service very heavily at the tenure decision, but
for promotion to full professor, a person is supposed to show excellence
in 2 of 3 areas (teaching, research, and service), and competence in the
other.
Community service that makes use of professional skills is also recognized
as important here at U Tennessee: a member of my department gives
workshops at the nature center and made a huge effort to organize a
science program and build a nature trail at her son's elementary school.
(She was just about the only parent at the school who showed any
initiative, which is a sad statement about parental involvement in
education.) As a result of her work she received a high-profile award
from the university in recognition of her public outreach.
In response to Dana's more general comment about the balance between
service and other responsibilities, we need to face the fact that we have
only so many hours in the day. What I see overall is a consistent pattern
wherein the faculty who are willing to do appreciable service are also the
ones who have active research programs and who teach their share or more;
there is also a category of active scientists who avoid service because it
detracts from their research time and their goal of becoming famous. This
unequal distribution of responsible behavior appears to be common to many
universities; I don't know what can be done about it.
pessimistically,
Chris
