Mel, Are you getting a course release for any of the service that you're currently doing? Like you, I believe that there is some service that just has to be done, but at my school it's not always clear why some service positions get course releases and others don't; it doesn't always seem to bear any correlation to the amount of work required, which leads to some frustration on campus.
I feel fortunate that in my current department the service seems pretty well spread around. That means that we all do a lot, but someone has to do it.
Size of department makes a huge difference in service obligations, too. At SSU I was in a dept of 10. The college also had depts with 30-40 faculty. When college committees required 1 person from each dept, we felt the pressure. Especially with things like P&T. Chair couldn't serve on dept P&T. Person with split appointment in dean's office couldn't serve. That left 4 folks w/ tenure who could serve -- 3 at dept level and 1 at college. Everyone was called into service, basically.
You're wise to care and be involved, I think. It is an investment in your own future.
I wanted to comment on this earlier, but got sort of sidetracked by, you know, the world... But I found it an interesting and important issue. There was a First Person column in the Chronicle about service just recently, arguing that we need to value it more highly because it needs to get done and it falls to the same few people because everyone else feigns (or demonstrates) incompetence, out of self interest b/c service doesn't really count.
NK cont'd
Having been at small schools, I've done a lot of service, despite not being tenured yet (and if that seemed bad, they really did hit you once you had tenure, as your post suggests). The frustrating thing for me is that there's a lot of it that I like and a lot of it that I think is really valuable, and people are always going to be happy if I do it, but it's definitely not going to get me tenure. I think a lot of the problem results from the chronic underfunding of (especially) state institutions - let's face it, a lot of the stuff my old job had faculty doing for service (mostly recruitment/retention stuff) would have really been best served by hiring many more professional staff. But since they didn't have the money to do that, they can simply expand the definition of professorial service and get the faculty to do it.
Hmmm, I think this is just a rant and says nothing coherent - sorry! General agreement/sympathy, I guess.
Commenting by HaloScan
