Imagine that this is a 12-step program and that I am standing before you, tearfully confessing my transgressions. They began years ago, when I was a new assistant professor.
In the job interview, I had confidently said that of course I could teach a wide range of courses. In practice, however, those courses reduced me to a wreck, sleeping little, guzzling far too much coffee, and scrambling to stay one lecture ahead of the undergraduates. An innocent question — professor, where will we be in the course by midterm? — made me break into a cold sweat. Truth be told, I had no idea. Teaching consumed all my time, pushing aside even my beloved research. In the circumstances, doing service sounded like a nightmare.
So it was that I, the invisible man who fancied himself a rogue agent, found myself with a budget.
To compound my problems, I fell in with a bad crowd, some newly promoted associate professors who openly mocked committee work. Nothing mattered, they assured me, except research and teaching. One thing led to another, and I began tossing out campus mail unopened and blowing off department meetings. Soon I was on to the hard stuff, and I accidentally forgot about university committee assignments.
As my downward slide accelerated, I began avoiding the department altogether. I went directly from home to my classroom and back again. I even moved my office hours to a local coffee shop, information I gave out only to my students. So deeply had I internalized the pursuit of anonymity — too much Borges and le Carré — that on absolutely essential visits to the department to fetch mail or a ream of paper, I used the back stairs.
Late one night, I slipped up. Lazily I took the elevator, thinking everyone else had gone. Then the dean stepped in. It was easy to intuit his thoughts: Someone in early middle age and so badly dressed was not likely to be a student, but who was this person? I felt his searching gaze but resolutely looked straight ahead — into the wall. He soon exited, shaking his head. I am ashamed to say that at the time I was delighted.
Serving on faculty panels is often seen as a thankless task, but colleges can make it more rewarding by agreeing on goals and spreading the work fairly.
A year later, a mysterious visitor lurking outside my classroom brought me back to reality. Politely he introduced himself. He was the new dean. Apparently, I had thrown away requests to get together. Curious to discover what I looked like, he had tracked me down. Embarrassed and a touch alarmed, I tried to talk about my research. But he interrupted and requested a favor. He wanted me to serve on a committee about a new undergraduate program. The faintest smile on my lips — another committee to blow off — promptly vanished when he let drop that he had scheduled the first meeting to begin immediately after my class. And oh, he added, he would chair the committee.
The rest was history. Unable to wiggle out of the assignment, I found that my only option was to be contrary and pray for a prompt dismissal. Dutifully I read up on the background material and soon spotted several problems with the proposal. At the first meeting, I let fly, marshaling serious objections one after another. The other committee members became agitated, and, as I had expected, the meeting became a shouting match. The dean then announced his decision. There would be two new undergraduate programs — and I was to head one of them. I was dumbfounded. He grinned broadly.
So it was that I, the invisible man who fancied himself a rogue agent, found myself with a budget, a full-time staff member, several student interns, 100 first-year students, and a burgeoning administrative career. No one was more surprised than I was.
The faculty, I belatedly learned, runs the modern university, and notwithstanding the joys of anonymity, it soon proved more interesting — and certainly more fun — to be part of that collective effort of ensuring that it runs smoothly.
In later years, the memory of this embarrassing episode has always guided me when considering whom to name to a committee. Tempting though it is to finger senior malingerers, skivers who have avoided service for decades, this rarely ends well. A far better move is to look for junior colleagues — especially those who never seem to be able to make department meetings.
Thomas Cogswell is a professor of history at the University of California at Riverside.
