Today a dinner was hosted at Dele Ogunseitan’s residence for the 2005-2006 UCI CAP members. Since I served on this committee for this year, I attended the dinner.
This committee helps university administration in their decisions related to appointment and promotions of academic personnel. It has representatives from different schools representing various disciplines at the university. Usually I don’t like to serve on personnel related committees, but I accepted to serve on this to see how different sections of a large university think and evaluate their people. Ultimately, the reward system determines the character of an organization. So by seeing how different departments evaluate their people I will get some insights into the way people think in those areas. And it was a very rewarding experience.
First thing that impressed me was how rigorous and careful the members of CAP are in evaluating each case. Each case is analyzed carefully in all aspects considering the norms used by the home department and the existing standards in that field. CAP knows that it is dealing with people’s carrers as well as it has the responsibility to build quality standards of the university. It does have a seriou role and it takes it very seriously.
It was a rewarding year in terms of learning about the university and its different departments. Members usually have three year terms. UCI CAP has total 11 members. This was my first year to serve. It does require significant time and effort, but has been an interesting exposition.