So here you are, on that coveted committee in your beloved institution of higher learning.  Congratulations!  Or is it a good thing?  Maybe not so much!

You have to time decisions with a calendar, not a clock in higher education.  We have committees for just about everything.  There is probably a committee to study whether there are too many committees on campus.  In any organization, culture shift is a slow process but higher ed brings it to a whole new level.  I graduated from college 30 years ago and there are still several committees on campus studying the same issues we studied in the 1970’s.  Seriously, I am not making that up.  When I was in school, core curriculum was a hot topic and as it turns out, they have been studying it with great fervor for nearly this entire new millennium. 

Committee work is a curious process on a college campus.  We are “highly educated” and tend to look at 72 sides of each issue.  We make sub-committees of our committees and then spend weeks coming up with convenient times to meet.  The sub-committees need to report to the committees and tend to exhaust the angles. Nowhere in the world is form over substance more revered than on a college campus. 

So, the next time you want to be on a committee, keep your hand down…even if it is only to order pizza!

Life is good!

Jude Russo Caserta

AthleticBudgetCoach.com

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