Help me Navigate University committees.

[purplecat]

Because I do a lot of outreach I'm on the school Recruitment, Outreach and Public Relations committee (though I am not an outreach, publicity or admissions officer for any of the departments in the school). The committee has decided to get involved in a Moon Landing anniversary event, which I can not attend, and Electrical Engineering have designed a special pop-up banners for the event explaining how space exploration has driven their field. The head of the outreach committee has emailed me to tell me to design a computer science banner for the event. I have decided not to do this (not my event, not my idea, I have better things to do with my time) but I would like to minimise the chance of this blowing up into some kind of drama.

Poll #22142 Minimal Drama Way of Saying No

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 13

View Respondents

What is the minimal drama way of getting out of this:

View Answers

Respond with "I do not have time to do this, sorry".
7 (53.8%)

Delegate to two people who might vaguely be considered my minions and will be attending the event.
5 (38.5%)

Delegate to the Computer Science outreach officer even though I know they don't want to do it, won't be attending the event and are more than likely to cause tiresome drama.
0 (0.0%)

Don't do it and reply with "I forgot" or "I ran out of time" if called upon to answer for not doing it at a later date.
0 (0.0%)

Something else I will explain in the comments
1 (7.7%)

Comments

[a_cubed]

I'd go with 1 if you have any indication that this will be accepted by the chair of the outreach committee. If you aren't reasonably certain of that, then I'd pass the buck up to the head of the CS department, whom I assume is nominally "your boss" (are you still a part time RA/part time PUOS person or did you get transferred to some other kind of contract?). Passing it up to your boss runs the risk that they might then come back and ask (tell) you to do it, but at least then it's coming from someone who nominally has some authority to allocate work to you. The HoD has more authority in re-assigning the work to the CS Dept Outreach officer.

Depending on your relationship with the HoD, and their preferred style of communications, I'd do this by email or by arranging to see them.

[purplecat]

Yes but its not going to do me any favours if I ask the HoD to adjudicate in "who designs a banner" - he has better things to do with his time. But I'm leaning towards 1, particularly since, having gone back over the email chain, I think it is probably intended as a request even if not precisely conveyed as such.

For my sins I'm now a full time lecturer on a Teaching and Scholarship contract but in possession of what I refer to as a "magic letter" from the Head of School which guarantees that I can spend 50% of my time doing research even though I'm not on a Teaching and Research contract. Unsurprisingly I'm not terribly happy with this state of affairs and am not convinced that the magic letter is the protection against suddenly being asked to teach 3 large MSc modules that the Head of School seems to think it is. However I have some hopes I might be able to transfer to T&R at my next PDR since I think I can claim to have met the performance targets that were set me for this to happen (of course, whether that verbal agreement actually amounts to anything is also anyone's guess). If I can actually get a grant (I've got one through to second round of Leverhulme at the moment, so fingers crossed) then they'll almost definitely agree to transfer me since if I'm PI on a grant then they can't possibly pretend I'm not an "independent researcher" for REF purposes (and, of course, the whole ridiculous situation is about gaming the REF - the magic letter is worded to imply that I'm basically doing research in a postdoctoral capacity on someone else's project).