Linda Babcock, Brenda Peyser, Lise Vesterlund, and Laurie Weingart

Lise attended a promotion-and-tenure committee meeting where the dean asked for a volunteer to write the recommendation report and one of the few women in attendance agreed to do it. Laurie walked into the first meeting of an important university committee to find only women in the room. Brenda mentored countless junior staff members, many who weren’t even in her department. Linda was asked to serve on the institutional review board, a request made even more difficult because everyone else had declined. “Service” assignments like those — or, to use our term, “non-promotable tasks” (NPTs) — are important to the college or university. They help it run smoothly, improve its culture, and foster a productive workplace. But an overload of NPTs can have significant negative effects on a faculty member’s progress since this work rarely enters into performance evaluations or promotion and tenure decisions.