Dear Colleagues,

On September 12, we had a thread in which
Karel van der Waarde and Rosan Chow considered
the issue of community service in the academic
environment.

Jacques Giard posted some thoughts here.

DRS president Dick Buchanan offers comments below.

Best regards,

Ken Friedman

--snip--

Ken,

Community service in the States means service inside
and outside the academic organization. In the first
  instance it means committee service and other chores
related to how we keep the academic organization
moving forward. Outside service means service in
professional organizations as well as service to local,
national, and international communities.

Such service is noted in the faculty member's CV,
and it forms a part of a personal statement at times
of promotion. However, service is an expected part
of any faculty member's work, so it is not the
primary criterion for promotion. Often, it is best
seen as a logical extension of academic interest
and productivity--a sign of the substance of such
work. Typically, community service forms a
coherent whole with the general pathway of
personal growth and development that one
expects of colleagues.

Dick

--snip--



 From Karel van der Waarde:

>>  Rosan Chows last suggestion hits an academic nerve:
>>
>>>  3 to support the former two suggestions, it is important to reward
>>  individuals
>>>  and institutions for their efforts. instead of counting how many
>>>  published papers or design commissions people generate, we can
>>>  FORMALIZE 'COMMUNITY SERVICE' as part of the responsibilities of
>>>  educators and educational instituations.
>>
>>  Counting publications is easy, but this disregards the following
>>  academic activities:
>>  - reviewing papers for publications.
>>  - organizing seminars, workshops, conferences, colloquia.
>>  - reviewing papers for these presentations.
>>  - editing journals.
>>  - board membership of journals.
>>  - giving non-academic presentations.
>>  - writing non-academic papers.
>>  - advising students from other departments/faculties and potential
>>  students.
>>  - experimenting (trying things of which the outcome is unknown. This
>>  has the great danger that the outcome might not be publishable.)
>>  - taking part in discussion lists/ moderating such lists / administering
>>  lists
>>  - making sure that academic libraries buy the books and subscribe to
>>  relevant journals.
>>  - ideally, there should be some time to read (books, publications,
>>  lists) and discuss these as well ...
>>
>>  Unfortunately, all these activities are not seen by administrators as
>>  'core-activities', and have to be done in 'spare-time'. The academic
>>  mill would quickly stop if the abovementioned activities would not be
>>  done by motivated individuals with a view that looks further than the
>>  next REA or the next annual report.
>>
>>  Has anyone got any research-pointers here? (Has anyone done an
>>  activity analysis of 'academic practice'?)