Keep mouth shut or...?

[paddington_bear]

Sorry if this is long/complicated......I'm on a committee made up of faculty members from across universities in my state system. The committee was split into task forces to accomplish certain things. After I arranged for the first meeting of our task force in September (I was only one of two people from our task force who was present), someone else - who had been on the task force last year - wanted to be the "chairperson". This was great b/c I didn't want to be the chair; everyone on the task force agreed that this guy should be the chair.  Since then, this person didn't reach out to schedule a second meeting so in October, so I finally had to send a "reminder" saying, "Hey, shouldn't our task force meet before we have to report what we've been doing to the larger committee this month?" So the chairperson sent out an email wanting to schedule a meeting for that same week. No one could meet then (obviously) and he hasn't scheduled a meeting since. There's a larger meeting at the beginning of December and our task force will (again) probably have nothing to report.

I'm frustrated b/c our task force hasn't met or done anything all semester. And I'm frustrated that no one else on the task force has reached out to say, "Um....Shouldn't we meet?" And - this is a larger vent -  I'm frustrated because I'm tired of feeling like I'm always the only one on committees and such who seems to care if things actually get done.

tl;dr. Should I reach out to the chair and task force members (again) to remind them that we should be meeting when we haven't met all semester? Should I let the chair of the larger committee know that the chair of our task force is forgetful/incompetent? Or should I just keep my mouth shut?  I'm not the chair of the task force and it's not my responsibility to get us together.

[research_prof]

Short answer: No. This is the responsibility of the chair of the committee. If the committee fails to accomplish the tasks it was supposed to accomplish, the chair will be the one to blame.

[ciao_yall]

Sorry if this is long/complicated......I'm on a committee made up of faculty members from across universities in my state system. The committee was split into task forces to accomplish certain things. After I arranged for the first meeting of our task force in September (I was only one of two people from our task force who was present), someone else - who had been on the task force last year - wanted to be the "chairperson". This was great b/c I didn't want to be the chair; everyone on the task force agreed that this guy should be the chair.  Since then, this person didn't reach out to schedule a second meeting so in October, so I finally had to send a "reminder" saying, "Hey, shouldn't our task force meet before we have to report what we've been doing to the larger committee this month?" So the chairperson sent out an email wanting to schedule a meeting for that same week. No one could meet then (obviously) and he hasn't scheduled a meeting since. There's a larger meeting at the beginning of December and our task force will (again) probably have nothing to report.

I'm frustrated b/c our task force hasn't met or done anything all semester. And I'm frustrated that no one else on the task force has reached out to say, "Um....Shouldn't we meet?" And - this is a larger vent -  I'm frustrated because I'm tired of feeling like I'm always the only one on committees and such who seems to care if things actually get done.

tl;dr. Should I reach out to the chair and task force members (again) to remind them that we should be meeting when we haven't met all semester? Should I let the chair of the larger committee know that the chair of our task force is forgetful/incompetent? Or should I just keep my mouth shut?  I'm not the chair of the task force and it's not my responsibility to get us together.

How important to you are the outcomes of the task force? Proceed accordingly.

[clean]

Personally, I would send a note to the overall chair that there is a problem, name the chair, forward the emails, and let them handle the problem.

[paddington_bear]

How important to you are the outcomes of the task force? Proceed accordingly.

Not important at all.

[paddington_bear]

Personally, I would send a note to the overall chair that there is a problem, name the chair, forward the emails, and let them handle the problem.

I just can't help feeling like a tattle-tale, though. :/

[paddington_bear]

Short answer: No. This is the responsibility of the chair of the committee. If the committee fails to accomplish the tasks it was supposed to accomplish, the chair will be the one to blame.

Yes, this is what other people I know have suggested. I see myself as a really responsible person, though, so it's frustrating to be part of something where the person in charge - who wanted to be in charge - isn't doing their damn job. A job that they wanted!!!

[mamselle]

Maybe they wanted it precisely in order to be able to slow-walk it into oblivion?

M.

[research_prof]

Short answer: No. This is the responsibility of the chair of the committee. If the committee fails to accomplish the tasks it was supposed to accomplish, the chair will be the one to blame.

Yes, this is what other people I know have suggested. I see myself as a really responsible person, though, so it's frustrating to be part of something where the person in charge - who wanted to be in charge - isn't doing their damn job. A job that they wanted!!!

Welcome to academia! People want to be in charge of (and control) everything without having enough time or willingness to get things done.

[fishbrains]

If you have to ask the question, then please keep your mouth shut. Trust your early warning system. Good advice that I rarely take myself.

[dismalist]

Personally, I would send a note to the overall chair that there is a problem, name the chair, forward the emails, and let them handle the problem.

I just can't help feeling like a tattle-tale, though. :/

I was in a similar position once. I wasn't chairman of anything either but a committee was charged with doing something that was very important to me. It was sabotaged. Later on, a very, very higher up asked me what happened. I didn't want to tattle. I regret not having tattled to this day.

This is all posterior doing and feeling. For a contemporaneous incident, do report.

There are people who know about barriers to tattling and exploit them. In contemporary society we gotta spill the beans

[Hegemony]

I consider any meeting that doesn't happen as valuable time saved. And will this report actually accomplish anything real, or is it yet another instance of a report that will be filed away and forgotten? If those reports are allowed to languish, that's more time saved.

[paddington_bear]

I consider any meeting that doesn't happen as valuable time saved. And will this report actually accomplish anything real, or is it yet another instance of a report that will be filed away and forgotten? If those reports are allowed to languish, that's more time saved.

Funny you should say that......I joined the committee (nominated myself and they picked me) because I needed more - and broader - service on my CV.  I wasn't really sure what my specific committee did, but the title and what I thought was the purpose sounded promising. There was a big meeting for all the committees in September. I quickly learned, I think, that all of the committees seem to be the "Let's generate reports or recommendations that no one has really asked for and probably won't do anything with once they get them" type. Our committee, of about 8 or 9 people, was split into about three task forces and each is supposed to be working on a different thing. I feel like everyone is doing or supposed to be doing too much work for no compensation and no payoff. But maybe I'm wrong. In terms of actually accomplishing things, I think that being on this committee is a mistake. But as long as I can add it to my CV, I guess I don't care if we don't get anything done.

[ciao_yall]

I consider any meeting that doesn't happen as valuable time saved. And will this report actually accomplish anything real, or is it yet another instance of a report that will be filed away and forgotten? If those reports are allowed to languish, that's more time saved.

Funny you should say that......I joined the committee (nominated myself and they picked me) because I needed more - and broader - service on my CV.  I wasn't really sure what my specific committee did, but the title and what I thought was the purpose sounded promising. There was a big meeting for all the committees in September. I quickly learned, I think, that all of the committees seem to be the "Let's generate reports or recommendations that no one has really asked for and probably won't do anything with once they get them" type. Our committee, of about 8 or 9 people, was split into about three task forces and each is supposed to be working on a different thing. I feel like everyone is doing or supposed to be doing too much work for no compensation and no payoff. But maybe I'm wrong. In terms of actually accomplishing things, I think that being on this committee is a mistake. But as long as I can add it to my CV, I guess I don't care if we don't get anything done.

Maybe they are "committee chair" for the same reason. It looks good on the CV. So, sounds like you are both on the same page!

[Ruralguy]

Ive always  insisted on being on committees that do stuff, but if I fall on one that doesnt, and Im  not the chair, then I just learn not to care. And  sometimes a normally consequential committee may just have little work just because of the luck of the draw.

Also ocassionally someone will do something with the so called useless advisory report. It probably had to be the rare case of someone  wanting to push the report, and then having all stakeholders agree with the reccomendations. Ive seen it happen exactly once in 23 years, and yes I was part of that.