Keep mouth shut or...?

[Stockmann]

"I need more service and this came up."

Please dont take this personally.  It is a vent, more than a criticism of you.

This last statement, though, is evidence that I hope that I dont work with those with this attitude. It is saying, bluntly, "What is the minimum I need to do to LOOK like I have met the requirements, without doing any real work to ACTUALLY meet the requirements". 

"I need more service".... Why?  This is an indication that such a coworker is NOT doing sufficient service in the first place.  Why would I want to have such a 'slacker' in my department?

"and this came up".   Something that does not require that I actually lend my expertise, or be an active part of the local community... as evidenced by the initial post asking essentially, "should I contribute in any way to alert the higher committee chair that this part of the group is failing to contribute?" 


Again, this is not a criticism of the op personally, but a reflection of what I am seeing more and more at my own place where especially untenured faculty are gaming the system to maximize the 'check marks' without actually contributing to the faculty community.  They say nothing in meetings for fear that they will offend someone who will later vote on their tenure, without realizing that some of us are now voting against them BECAUSE they said nothing and made not a single contribution. Why should we offer a job for life to such silent slackers? 

It seems to me that too many people are doing only what is best for their instant gratification, and not what is best for the group.  No one seems to remember 'the golden rule' of 'how would you like to be treated?'   (IF you were the overall chair, would you rather know that there is a problem while their is time to correct it, or be blindsided when it is too late?"  But hell, what do I know?)   

only sign up for service commitments that you feel passionate about.

That is good advice.  But I fear that it is being misinterpreted to mean  "you only have to do your best on tasks that you care about".  IF you sign up for ANY committee you should do your utmost and do your best an every task, not just the ones that you care about.  Clearly, you have limited time, and you should concentrate your energies on things you care about, but that does not mean that anyone should sign up 'because something came up" and 'they needed a committee' on paper with no desire to actually DO anything, much less your best efforts on the task volunteered to undertake.

Rant over. 
Good luck on your career and your sabbatical.

Then the untenured are in the same position as Lear's Fool, who the king would have whipp'd for telling lies, the king's eldest daughters would have whipped for telling the truth, and was sometimes whipped for holding his peace. Also, if committee work is required to stay employed, then it's not really a task they volunteered to undertake, at best they chose from various possible committees.

@paddington_bear: What is the worst that would happen if the committee fails outright? Would there be serious negative consequences for someone, would some marginally useful task be delayed or hindered, or would there just be one less report gathering dust in some drawer? Would such a failure have consequences for you, personally - would anyone that matters reviewing your CV know or care about what the committee did?

[paddington_bear]

Ruralguy's explanation is close to how they (general "they" on my campus) are seeing it, I think. I was paid in my admin position - more than my regular faculty salary - so that's not "service" in the way that faculty are required to do uncompensated service which is part of their job. And the service that I did while in my admin position was service that was part of my admin position. The admin position doesn't count as nothing in terms of eventually applying for full professor, but it's not two years of service positions, either.

[paddington_bear]

@paddington_bear: What is the worst that would happen if the committee fails outright? Would there be serious negative consequences for someone, would some marginally useful task be delayed or hindered, or would there just be one less report gathering dust in some drawer? Would such a failure have consequences for you, personally - would anyone that matters reviewing your CV know or care about what the committee did?

Nothing would happen, I'm sure. I mean, there's another committee meeting this Friday (which I can't attend because I have a department meeting at the same time). The committee chair will ask the task force leaders to give a progress report. The leader of my task force will say, "We haven't met...." or something. The committee chair will then say, "You guys should be meeting." Or something. (I'd actually love to be there to see how the our task force leader responds.) But our task force isn't really under a serious deadline in the sense that people are expecting something from us by a definite date. Maybe by the end of academic year, but that's it. And I don't think anyone who would ever be looking at my CV even knows that the committee exists, much less care that they didn't accomplish something.

[Harlow2]

After participating on two task forces I've become rather jaded about the process.  I was new when I was asked to participate on the first one, and took it seriously, gathered data, and then watched the task force quickly sink without a trace. A colleague gently laughed at my naïveté in thinking there had ever been a purpose beyond having it listed on the books.
Ten years later I was asked to participate on what was proclaimed to be an important endeavor. The TF was divided into groups. Again, I attended and prepped for meetings and enlisted colleagues' participation when the TF group thought their input would be useful. Was told again how important this was. Two months later our group was told we weren't needed any more, and the real structure and purpose were then revealed (an agenda and participants we hadn't known about). My department got a big fancy binder though.
OTOH our committees do actual valuable work, and I am always glad to work on those.

[paddington_bear]

At least you got a binder!!!

[AJ_Katz]

Who is the administrator that has asked to have these task forces assembled?  If possible, I would ask for a meeting to get their advice and start it of with something like,

"So hypothetically speaking, if I were assigned to a task force and there was a lack of action all semester despite my attempts to get it started and keep the ball rolling, how would you suggest I handle the situation?  Do you think this is something worth my time to keep the progress going?  Or should I elevate this situation to someone else to handle? "

Then see what they suggest you do.  I guarantee that they will be able to figure out what task force you are talking about, but that's pretty much the point -- you'll be able to get direction in a way that does not make the tattling official and helps you be in the best position to avert any angry fire that the committee might receive if nothing is accomplished. 

[Ruralguy]

Reallistically speaking, unless someone very high up cares about the results of such a report, it has a high probability of either never getting written, or getting buried if it is written. I once had such a committee chair who delayed in writing a report because it could lead to too much enmity within and between the board and the faculty. A couple of the committee members strongly urged him to write the report anyway. Three years after the beginning of the committee, and two from the report, certain proposals have already been voted upon, and surprisingly, already passed. There actually was some friction upon  the release of the report, and some might remain, but it was necessary to resolve that conflict, not avoid it.  BUT, I think nothing would have happened unless the Board and the Prez were at least conceptually behind these proposals.

[artalot]

The number of task forces I've been on where the report was never used is roughly equal to the number of task forces I have been on. My university is probably on the high end of dysfunction here, but unless the committee agrees on shared goals and deadlines and has strong buy-in from admin, they're a waste of time. In terms of measurable outcomes, it was probably always a doomed assignment.

[Stockmann]

@paddington_bear: What is the worst that would happen if the committee fails outright? Would there be serious negative consequences for someone, would some marginally useful task be delayed or hindered, or would there just be one less report gathering dust in some drawer? Would such a failure have consequences for you, personally - would anyone that matters reviewing your CV know or care about what the committee did?

Nothing would happen, I'm sure. I mean, there's another committee meeting this Friday (which I can't attend because I have a department meeting at the same time). The committee chair will ask the task force leaders to give a progress report. The leader of my task force will say, "We haven't met...." or something. The committee chair will then say, "You guys should be meeting." Or something. (I'd actually love to be there to see how the our task force leader responds.) But our task force isn't really under a serious deadline in the sense that people are expecting something from us by a definite date. Maybe by the end of academic year, but that's it. And I don't think anyone who would ever be looking at my CV even knows that the committee exists, much less care that they didn't accomplish something.

In that case, I'd just let the taskforce's chair and the committee chair deal with it (or not) and not go over the taskforce chair's head.