Committees – Career Benefits

Pick your committees carefully.  They’re everywhere.  If there’s a faculty meeting and a contentious issues comes up there will almost always be a committee created to study it.  If you want to change something that’s currently done one way you’ll probably have to get committee approval to do it differently.

From a very crass point of here are the criteria that I’d recommend in picking your committee memberships.

• How visible is it?  Will service there be perceived as a “good thing” at tenure or contract time?
• How much time does it take?  Some committees meet often and have considerable outside work.  They can be immensely valuable (e.g. Faculty Senate committees), but can also be great time sinks.  Others meet a couple of times a year with only discussion necessary.  Both occupy a single line on an annual report.  Check the expectations and match them to your responsibilities and goals.
• Who will you meet on the committee?  Committees that go beyond your immediate discipline or department can be very beneficial in making you known.  This can help both in forming alliances for projects (grant proposals or other) and how opinions are formed – particularly for tenure decisions.
• How controversial is the committee?  It’s wise not to irritate senior professors making  judgments about your future.  Of course “visible” and “controversial” are sometimes synonymous.

Notice that I didn’t talk about the benefits to the profession, the university, or your department.  All those are obvious and indeed should enter into you thinking, but early in your career you’re probably focused on establishing yourself so you can continue.

Once again I emphasize that these are my own opinions and are not official.

Jim Mitchell