Next, some facts: The Secretary of the Faculty recently circulated a request for volunteers and nominations for the various councils, etc., under jurisdiction of the Faculty Senate that play major roles in the shared governance at this University. Only 10 percent of the faculty responses were from Group VI (engineering and forest resources) and half of those were from forest resources, not engineering (though almost 75 percent of the senators from Group VI are allocated to engineering, not forest resources). Of the engineering responses, half were from the same department, and more than half of the departments in the College of Engineering did not have any new volunteers for the faculty councils. Similar “enthusiasm” has been apparent at senate election time. When given the option, a majority of faculty have opted out of being included on the list of candidates for the Faculty Senate.

So what is the problem? When I discussed this with colleagues the responses included: “I am too busy with everything I have to do already.” “Aren’t there highly paid administrators to take care of this?” “It won’t really make a difference anyway.” “Why should I? It doesn’t count in merit, promotion, or tenure decisions.”

While responses to the first two comments are probably beyond the scope of this article, I would like to address the last two. The perception (unfortunately held by far too many faculty) that their serving on a council or committee is just busywork and won’t make a difference is a significant problem. In a few cases that perception may stem from specific past experiences with poorly run committees or councils. Council chairs, whether at the university, college, or department level, must not be chosen just because they have a pre-existing (personal) agenda and are willing to work hard to further that agenda. They should be chosen as the person most able to help the council fulfill its stated purpose. A larger concern with the busywork perception is that some councils don’t really have a current, active purpose (and goal). The present examination and potential reorganization of the senate councils is long overdue and should result in a set of councils that are more equally active and focused. The final piece of the busywork problem is use of the results of the council work. Many councils exist in order to provide recommendations to an administrator. The council membership must receive feedback on whether those recommendations were followed, and if not, why not. Without such feedback the council work is easily perceived as just filling some black hole.

The final problem, “It doesn’t count ...” may simply seem to be a philosophical conflict between altruistic and selfish interests. Were academic life not a zero-sum game with respect to time, that would be an obvious answer. But given the choice between serving your professional or scientific community by serving on national and international committees, including reviewing proposals and manuscripts and serving on advisory panels, or working on some department, college, or university committee, a majority of faculty evidently do not choose the latter. Changes must be made to make these local service activities more attractive.

Engineering faculty can provide useful perspectives to Campus-wide committees and councils. But changes are necessary in order to achieve a greater level of participation.

University Week
The faculty and staff publication of the University of Washington
uweek@u.washington.edu
Uweek Vol. 19, No. 28 May 23,2002