What's valued and what counts

It's annual review season, and as usual, we are asked for the same information sliced-and-diced in different ways for different purposes. One of the forms for upper administration asks us to count things and has specific requirements for what we can include.

1. What counts: number of books published.

• What doesn't: time spent warming a chair in colleagues' presentations in order to show support.
• Attendance at faculty meetings.
  
• Showing up at various university functions for which the organizers get a vita line and glowing praise for putting on such a successful and informative event.
  

2. What counts: articles published.

• What doesn't: time spent preparing courses, grading, and talking with students. Advising.

3. What counts: giving papers at national and international conferences.

• What doesn't: working at the organizational level (committees) to make those conferences happen.

But at the department level, all those things are valued. As a recent meeting made clear, at a department level, we ask those questions: who's advising students? Who does a good job in the classroom? Who, at the most basic level, is here and doing the things that make the place run?

The old Woody Allen dictum is that eighty percent of success is just showing up. Upper admin only cares about the other 20%, but the department does care about the 80%.