Last week, I was at a workshop and a fellow participant made an observation that really caught our attention. They explained:
In universities, faculty usually have three types of duties: “scholarship,” “teaching,” and “service.” In their national lab, the job doesn’t include service. Instead, all of the stuff that we would call service, they call “leadership.”
Service is a bad thing. Leadership is a good thing. But what is the difference between university service and university leadership? Maybe if we called it “leadership” instead of “service,” it might be perceived as something more valuable and worthwhile.
At moment, at least for me, a cranial lightbulb turned on. Continue reading
