Service Philosophy

Kathleen M. Comerford, Associate Professor of History, Georgia Southern University

Statement of Service Philosophy

Academic service has three major components: the public, the profession, and the institution. Public service includes (but is not limited to) public speaking, consulting, and conference/workshop participation. Professional service includes (but is not limited to) involvement with academic and professional societies, book reviews, and editorial consulting. Finally, institutional service includes (but is not limited to) advising, moderating student organizations, campus programming, committee work in and outside of the department, study abroad, and faculty searches. All three are based on expertise and enthusiasm, and all three are essential to the workings of the department, college, university, and larger academic world.

While faculty are required to engage in service, that does not mean it is a duty to be done with gritted teeth. Indeed, service not only allows for and encourages different forms of creative and professional expression, but also provides new opportunities to learn and teach. As such, it is an integral aspect of educational life.

For most European historians, public service outlets directly related to the area of expertise are rather limited, but that in itself opens new doors as we seek involvement in the community which can benefit from our participation. My public service has mostly taken the form of public speaking. I have participated in presentations of historical documents in prior teaching positions, and have given a talk on the best-seller The Da Vinci Code both on campus and in three regional libraries. In connection with that, I have also been interviewed by the Savannah Morning News. The opportunities that public speaking affords have been very rewarding. I welcome any chance to demonstrate how exciting and beautiful history can be to the public at large, to offset the general impression that "it's just about the dates and names." More importantly, in the case of Dan Brown's book, I was very pleased to capture the interest in religious history and to challenge people outside of my classroom to look beyond what is written on the page. In addition, I have served since 2002 as a secretary (unofficially; we have no elections) to the Statesboro/Georgia Southern Community Chorus. We have performed locally, which is less service than fun, but in so doing we have opened new outlets for creative people in the area.

Professional service for historians takes many different forms, and I am proud of the ways in which I have participated in these outlets. I maintain memberships in a number of organizations dedicated to the study of Italian and religious history, and have served on boards or as an officer in several of these organizations. These have been elected positions and have carried certain responsibilities: reviewing books and identifying other reviewers; serving as reader to vet submitted articles; determining membership policies; planning ways to increase membership and/or participation in conferences; collecting dues and maintaining membership lists; and in one case, even writing bylaws. In addition to such work connected directly to organizational boards, I have also written a number of book reviews over the years for a variety of professional journals; I helped organize a conference in Savannah; I have read manuscripts for the University of Toronto and Catholic University Presses; and I currently serve on an award committee for the Society for Italian Historical Studies. This all grants me valuable insights not only into the larger issues affecting academic research and its presentation-after all, where would all of our work go without the infrastructures of conferences and publishing houses?-but allows me different ways of keeping my professional tools sharp. Writing book reviews and reading manuscripts challenges me to remain analytical while simultaneously teaching me about new research.

Teaching in a study abroad program is not always considered a form of service, but in my experience, it certainly is. I am committed not only to increasing the knowledge of foreign languages but to broadening the horizons of students through travel. This means a great deal of preparation work, principally recruiting students but also meeting with them to explain both travel and foreign cultures. Once in the host country, not only do I teach, but I become a mentor to students in ways not possible or even necessarily desirable on campus: the best example, I think, is that as a fluent speaker of Italian, I have been a consultant for medical problems, shopping, and traveling, and I have negotiated transportation and museum spaces for neophytes. I have represented the institution and the state in a foreign country, which I consider to be a very important form of service.

Finally, campus service is an essential aspect of the job of any professor. Over the years, I have served on both the undergraduate and graduate committees within the Department of History, as well as the University graduate committee. I have been a member of five search committees, including one for the History Department chair and two in the Literature and Philosophy Department. I wrote and have continued to edit, with the help of the department chair, the department handbook. I served on several ad-hoc committees over the years, and chaired one. Within the College, in addition to the abovementioned two non-department searches, I have served as a member of the Faculty Governance Task Force and a Tenure committee. In addition to my normal advising responsibilities for the History Department, I am also a pre-law advisor and the advisor of the Georgia Southern University chapter of Phi Alpha Delta International Pre-Law Fraternity, a chapter which I helped charter and which has, since 2005, admitted 8-10 students per year. With the exception of one year, I have judged at the Regional Social Sciences Fair every year since I came to Georgia Southern University; in this capacity, I have helped the University maintain its connection to grammar, middle and high schools in the region and have learned about the teaching of history and other social studies in those venues. Such institutional service activities have not only taught me about other departments and colleges within Georgia Southern, but have provided me with the opportunity to support my own department across the campus. In addition, I have been able to develop more varied relationships with student advisees. I enjoy pre-law advising because it is not about the present-what courses the student is taking and will take-but about the future-the student's career choices and ability to meet goals. Of course, academic advising is a bread- and-butter issue. Shepherding students through the registration ordeal is a delicate process which involves a great deal of attention not only to the courses which are offered, but to the abilities and temperaments of the students. I am glad to be in a department in which all faculty advise. In this way, I can genuinely share in the accomplishments of the graduating seniors. Participation in search committees, too, is a heavy responsibility for my colleagues and my students. Like service to the profession, this kind of activity keeps me abreast of a variety of educational and research trends, and is therefore a real learning experience. Perhaps my favorite form of institutional service has been my time on the undergraduate and graduate committees. As a result of those positions, I have learned the curriculum very well, which benefits my students, and I have had the privilege of participating in graduate admissions and both graduate and undergraduate scholarship decisions.

Service is an aspect of academic life which is never taught in a classroom, though it is required. Perhaps the reason for this is that we expect our colleagues to have a service mentality, to assume responsibilities not only within the classroom but outside as well. On the positive side, this attitude allows for a great deal of variety in the kinds of acceptable service, and encourages self-starters. On the negative side, it means that institutional and professional statements explaining the purpose of service are rare. Given the results of service-benefits to the department, institution, and public, but especially to oneself-this may be hard, and one can resort to "service is its own reward (but it is still required for tenure and promotion)." I would prefer to say that the challenges and opportunities afforded to faculty, whether in teaching, scholarship, or service, are all part of the educational mission of any institution of higher learning: not simply making a smarter or more educated public, but a more responsible and active one.