First Year Faculty, Prepare to Pick Your Committees!

person explaining something with their hands

Are you a first-year faculty member who's wrapped up your first tenure cycle? Are you eagerly looking towards your second tenure cycle and thinking, "Pshaw, I got this in the bag!"? If so, then let me bring you down a notch: governance and institutional service are weighed into your tenure evaluation starting in your second cycle.

Still feeling confident? Then answer this: how are you supposed to magically know which committees you'd like to work with by your second year while somehow not participating in any committees in your first year?!

Here are some tips and tricks I'll share with you from the infinitely deep pools of clickbait wisdom I've accumulated during my extraordinarily long four-year employment at the college:

Talk to your department! Some departments like to strategize and ensure that they have feelers out in each of the major areas of governance throughout campus. This can be especially helpful for smaller departments so that they can have representation multiple committees.
Use your extended social network on campus! Even if you feel like you barely know anyone, any of the full-time faculty will be happy to share their advice and experience with the various committees on-campus. Don't be shy about chatting people up! Take their advice with a grain of salt though: some might give you more productive advice than others.
Shop around in Spring 2020! Most committees are more than happy to have new potential members attend meetings, ask questions, and participate with no expectation of commitment for the next year.
Be sure your choices fulfill your obligation! Different committee commitments come with different time obligations, so be sure that the committee(s) you request will fulfill your weekly five-hour contractual obligation for institutional service.

Ultimately, the final decision is up to you. Just make sure that you get your preference request form into the Academic Senate before the deadline next semester. If you need help navigating the MAyZ (MiraCosta Acronym Zoo), here's a non-exhaustive list of some of the major governance groups on-campus with acronyms, locations, and meeting times: