Adventures in Academe, Vol. 5

I am about to submit paperwork for my yearly performance review.  This marks as good an occasion as I can think of to take stock of what I'm doing here. In order to be successful as an associate professor on this faculty, I must do the following things:

1. I need to complete all the paperwork and I need to respond to email messages in a timely and appropriate manner.
2. I need to serve faithfully and consistently on department, college, and university-level committees.
3. I need to attend the appropriate department, college, committee, and general faculty meetings.
4. I need to effectively "advise" or more appropriately shepherd students through the curriculum.
5. I need to teach the equivalent of four courses per semester and have most of those course seats full.
6. I need to receive student evaluations from those courses in which I score 4.6/5.0 or better.
7. I need to continue to read and study, incorporating new ideas and procedures into my classroom.
8. I need to produce original scholarship for conferences and for publication.
9. I need to remain current in my field of study and continue to look for grants, symposia, etc.

All of these things are good things to be doing, and thankfully I don't have to do all of them at the same time or on the same days (usually).  Each job has the parts we like, and the parts we do so we can do the parts we like.