| Surviving and Thriving in Academia |
Women and ethnic minorities are often placed in a double bind with regard to service activities. As noted by Sandler and Hall (1986), service expectations are not the same for women and ethnic minorities as they are for White men. Double standards exist for women and ethnic minorities-the activities they are often expected to take part in, committee responsibilities, the advising and mentoring of students, expectations about developing diversity curriculum-do not receive much credit relative to the effort they require.
These types of activities-service activities-typically carry only minimal weight in promotion and tenure decisions (Rose, 1986). Committee work and advising, however, are essential to the success of any academic institution. Thus, you will have to weigh how important mentoring and committee service are to you against the relatively low weight that these activities are usually given in the tenure and promotion process.
Committee service
Gibbons (1986) suggests that you should be selective and focus on important academic committees that will offer visibility with prominent campus personnel.
Young faculty can easily become overly involved with departmental and university service activities. Their involvement, in turn, can detract from their effectiveness in research and teaching (Suinn& Witt, 1982). In the case of women or minorities, if you are the only woman or ethnic minority faculty member in a department, you may be asked to be a faculty advisor for relevant student organizations and to serve on many committees, including committees relating to women and ethnic minorities. According to Aguirre (1987), Hispanic faculty participated more in minority-oriented service committees than on university-oriented service committees.
When making a decision about committee work, it is important to "factor in" whether you will experience prejudicial judgments from others. Your over-involvement in committees may be perceived as demonstrating a lack of commitment to the more approved activities of research and teaching, but turning down committee appointments may be perceived as irresponsible behavior.
If you are asked to serve on more committees than what you have learned through your discussions and research to be normal for faculty in your department, you have several alternatives: (a) You can ask that your load be reduced; (b) if it is absolutely vital to the chairperson that you serve on one or more committees, you can ask for a written acknowledgment of your contribution to university service (such a statement will give added weight to counting this service as a contribution when it comes time for promotion); or (c) you can negotiate for a lighter load of committee work next year to compensate for the heavier load in the current year.
You may also be asked to serve on committees at the state, regional, and national level (e.g., APA, journal reviews, national review, or advisory panels, etc.). These opportunities can be excellent ways to make contacts, get exposure to the field outside the academic environment, build relationships to help with research, and may provide a great deal of personal support as well. Particularly if there are very few women or ethnic minority faculty members in your department, people met through outside service can become part of a professional community. Such a community can be a very important contribution to thriving in the institution. However, it is still important to make sure you do not become overloaded with committee work. The same considerations apply for outside committee work as were set out above for institutional committee work (and keep in mind to also add travel time). You should carefully consider if the benefits of a particular committee outweigh the time it will take away from other required activities.