How to make academic service activities count

Angela Brown loves research and teaching. But she also enjoys participating in service activities. A professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at Lehigh University, US, Brown finds it especially meaningful to serve on her department’s undergraduate curriculum committee, which she also currently chairs. ‘I really care a lot about our undergraduate programme,’ Brown says. ‘Our students go on to do amazing things, and being able to say that we’ve set them up for success is really important to me.’

Serving on committees, reviewing papers, doing outreach and organising conferences are all considered professional ‘service’ activities. Jessica Abbott, a professor of evolutionary genetics at Lund University, Sweden, says that faculty participation in service is essential to ensuring a good working environment for researchers: ‘That will be good for science in the long run.’

Yet, these commitments can be time-consuming. Implementing the following strategies can help you manage these responsibilities.

Focus on your gains

Julie Pollock, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Richmond, US, urges you to reflect on how service work can boost your professional life. Brown has served on grant review boards at agencies such as the National Science Foundation and is also involved with her university’s internal Grants Review Committee. ‘Serving on these panels has been eye-opening for me,’ says Brown. ‘It made me realise how hard I have to work to make my proposal reach that bar where it’s going to be potentially funded.’ Abbott, on the other hand, has benefited from outreach activities, such as delivering public lectures. ‘I’ve found it extremely valuable in my career, in terms of transferable skills: being able to explain something clearly and in an engaging way is useful in teaching and grant writing.’

Keep tabs on your schedule

When you’re approached for a service assignment, get clarity on what it entails and the time commitment it needs. Pollock suggests discussing this upfront with the committee chair or a faculty member who has served on that committee. Brown finds she needs systems in place to help her stay more organised and balanced. ‘One thing I’ve started doing on my to-do list is: I break up the things I need to do by research, teaching and service, so that I can kind of keep track of how I’m spending my time every week,’ she says. If she finds her research tasks are getting neglected, she can reframe her focus.

Find what you care about

Choose your service activities wisely. ‘The key is to find the things that you’re passionate about because things that you enjoy doing feel less like a chore,’ says Brown. While research and teaching performances are the primary criteria for tenure and promotion, a strong service record will bolster your chances of reaching these milestones. ‘If you can tell a story with your service (‘here’s the thing that I care the most about, and here’s how I’ve made positive changes in the university or in my professional society towards that’), it shows impact,’ says Brown.

Filter requests

Particularly when early in your career, you may be eager to help and say yes to too many opportunities. ‘I feel like that’s the biggest thing that I also struggled with,’ says Pollock, emphasising the importance of learning to politely decline some requests.

You may also worry about burning bridges, especially if you’re new. ‘But it’s important to let go of the idea that someone will be upset with me if I say no,’ says Brown. She also warns against responding to service request emails immediately. ‘Take the time to think about whether the activity is aligned with your priorities right now,’ says Brown. If it’s an activity that interests you but you don’t have the time currently, inform the person-in-charge that you’d like to help at a later time.

Distribute service load responsibly

Departmental heads and other leaders can help streamline committee work to prevent their staff from getting overwhelmed. ‘You can think about how you can restructure a committee,’ says Claire Carmalt, head of the chemistry department and professor of inorganic chemistry at University College London, UK. For example, when a committee chair’s role becomes too broad, it can be helpful to appoint a deputy. This eases the chair’s burden and allows the deputy to learn from them. Committees can also be broken down into working groups, whose leads can feed into the larger committee.

When assigning leadership positions, ensure that people are genuinely interested in them. Recently, Carmalt successfully filled a leadership role that was about to become vacant by emailing her academic staff, asking whether anyone wanted to volunteer. ‘They are happy because they put themselves forward for the role, rather than me going to them and saying, “Could you do this role?” And then trying to persuade them into it,’ Carmalt says.