Service inertia

In the last few years burnout has become a hot topic in the academic world, which was only amplified by the COVID pandemic. Over the weekend I read an article, published a couple of years ago interviewing the author of the book Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation. Though I am not sure I buy all of what was described in the article there was one quote from the book author that stuck out. When talking about addressing burnout she referenced a comment from a mom who said, “We’re all so tired, but we are all so scared to actually ask for help from one another”. The author went on to say:

“…as if asking for help somehow makes you seem like you are failing at motherhood, like you don't have it all together. But there are so many ways that we could take some burdens off of one another (emphasis added). For instance, both kids' parents are often present for playdates. I'm like, let that kid go play! This is supposed to make excess time for at least one of the parents, not take up time for both of them.”

This reminded me of another article I came across last week called, “The Art of Saying “No””. This article, which is intended to help faculty think through how they can avoid being overwhelmed with service at the expense of their research and writing. On the service good stuff. However, it apparently prompted a rash of comments from mid and senior level faculty admonishing the author for how this advice would affect them. If junior faculty don’t do the service, then if falls to the mid and senior level faculty to get done.

The sub-text of this online discussion is of course, “the service must be done, and everyone should have to suffer.” But when I think about the first article about burnout in relation to this one about service, I realized that maybe we are asking the wrong question. Hear me out.

I don’t mind service as a rule. There are very few jobs where giving back is baked into the job description. To me this makes performing academic service a privilege. However, this feeling falls apart when I am asked to add service to my workload that doesn’t require my faculty brain, is only being done to check a box, or is on a committee that has always existed but is no longer needed.

Here are a couple of examples for context. At one point I ran a research center located in student affairs (please don’t ask why) and was required to attend in meetings of how student services were delivered by student facing departments in this unit. My research center was not student facing, we delivered no student services, and I am not a trained student affairs expert or clinician. Despite my protestations, I attended upwards of 2 hours of meetings a week where I could make no contribution.

Over my career I have also sat on several committees that once-upon-a-time made meaningful decisions about the technology students needed, resources obtained by the library, or awards given to students. However, as the institution has continued to evolve computer technologies have become widely accessible, decisions about things like library resources are made centrally, and student affairs offices have popped up in professional schools. These committees were no longer needed.

Now I will grant you that there is a moment when another faculty member who had an interest in moving into student affairs would love to take part in those meetings, has a deep desire to be consulted on all decisions, or values the tradition of long-standing committees and committee work. My argument isn’t that these perspectives don’t exist. Rather I would like for use to think about how we best use that precious service time to greatest benefit to us and our communities. In practice this might mean more proactive service choices by faculty and chairs, conversations about who really needs to know all the things, or honest discussions about the value of one committee or another.

Burnout is a systems issue. But systems are built and reinforced by the people in that system. As such I think maybe burnout can start being solved by individuals within systems coming together to force conversations about these granted structures.

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