Do you know when enough is ENOUGH?
Been thinking about this one a lot. How does a faculty member know when enough is enough? I could mean a lot of different things by that question. For today, I mean this. How do we know when we are doing enough in service and then stop? Do you know when you have done enough teaching preparation or given enough feedback on papers? Do you ever really do enough research? Is that a thing?
How much is enough? Institutions do not tend to make this clear. I suspect there is good reason for why it remains muddy. The muddy messages usually result in social justice academics doing WAY too much past the mysterious “enough” place. And I suspect you already know that.
Lack of transparency
If you follow KerryAnn O’Meara’s work at all, you know that one of the drivers of faculty workload inequity is the severe lack of transparency, especially in terms of service work. This could easily extend to the mystery of enough within the teaching role because we do most of our teaching labor in isolation and the outcomes are more private. In contrast, research outcomes are a bit more public given we present and publish. At the same time, defining enough scholarship remains a mystery because the message is “do more.” That means enough never comes.
Okay so tell me. What is the function of the mystery of “enough?”
Why the mystery of “enough” exists & persists
Simply put – the current institutional systems that prop up higher education would crumble if the few who do the most switched to doing enough.
Crumble.
I remember being shocked when I found out faculty doing far less service than me were getting the same annual review ratings. That was a real eye-opener for me about how institutions function. Some people do most of the work.
It’s no accident that academic socialization, department cultures, and university-wide messaging promote doing more more more. At some point, doing more becomes counterproductive. Doing more has human costs. But we overlook the fact that doing more more more has devastating institutional costs. Burnout, leaving academia, switching universities, withdrawing or checking out of one’s work, mental health declines, physical health problems. None of these are actually good for an institution. And yet academic culture promotes the myth that more more more is better better better. Nope.
How can you begin to identify your “enough” and remove the career clutter that takes up your life force in that space beyond enough?
Curating your SJA community
Your foundational SJA community can help buffer you and reduce the need to do and be more. We need to help each other unlearn the belief that we are not doing enough.
What one thing can you do today to strengthen or expand your SJA community? We all need support and a community that gets what we are about. Reach out to someone you want to know but don’t yet know. Schedule coffee with a cool colleague. Going to a conference? Check out who is speaking and contact someone in advance for a chat while at the conference. You deserve a solid support system!!
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