‘When you’ve done well and another has benefited by it, why like a fool do you look for a third thing on top—credit for the good deed or a favor in return?’
This reference from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations resonates. It helps put words to a feeling I’ve long felt, and actions I’ve long observed in my university career. And it helps me conceptualize and better understand a plague which runs deep to the core of academic teaching, research, and service expectations.
People want and like to be recognized. To be acknowledged for their good work. To be seen, heard, noticed, and ultimately, lauded. I totally get that. But what happens when the deeds themselves are embedded in the job, core elements of the profession which define concretely the duties and responsibilities of the average university professor?
We have a problem here, and it’s the ‘Third Thing’. The desire for greater credit and reward, which goes a step beyond the action for its own sake. And the want for its public expression is only growing, creating some interesting problems and challenges in leadership along the way.
Take the professor of Y, in the department of X, who believes their work is superior in measurable ways to their colleague, Z. Annual pay increases, performance evaluations, research grant success, merit bonuses, tenure, and promotion, are all formalized ways within the institution to acknowledge and recognize value on some level. Things to which we aspire in the academy, professional goals which come with their own rewards. Many of these rewards are monetary in nature, while others demonstrate peer recognition, both within and outside the institution.
‘But aren’t research and teaching intrinsically motivating’, you might ask? After all, they’re the core dimensions of the regular professorial job – often, the very reason someone enters or entertains the profession. So why the need for external validation? And from whom exactly? Why does any of it really matter? To what end?
More and more, I’m faced with individuals seeking greater rewards for simply doing their job. This situation stems from a few things, namely a belief in over-productivity and output that – it’s frequently asserted – outmeasures their peers. The desired benefit typically comes in the form of teaching release, which runs so contrary to the university’s primary purpose as to be laughable and offensive. Yet, somehow, we’ve developed and sustained a culture which rewards stronger researchers by pulling their expertise from the classroom, where it would have its maximum impact. And we’ve inculcated a culture which reinforces validation to the point where its perceived absence de-motivates some people from performing their basic (paid) role.
Another contributing factor to this culture concerns ‘the self’ – the personal need for validation, to be patted on the back, to feel good for doing one’s job, and ultimately to have that work recognized in an array of public fora.
The ‘Third Thing’ risks undermining our academic values. It supports a culture of self-promotion, which in turn inflates the individual’s self-importance, all the while moving the student and their experience farther away from our sights. It’s also exhausting for leadership to explore and find new ways to acknowledge others. While not in itself a bad thing, there is a tipping point after which this work becomes wasted time. Where too much effort can be spent fretting about social credit, fearing perhaps that failure to provide the ‘Third Thing’ might produce negative repercussions.
The general message to which I always return is simply, ‘do your job’. Appreciate what you have, the freedom to exercise a variety of liberties, to develop professional, to master your craft, to influence others through teaching, and to change your community and world through service and research. If, after all this, you still need and expect public recognition, then I think you might be in the wrong line of work.