We’ve all heard the term “conflict of interest” and have some intuitive understanding of what it might consist of. But in academia there is a separate term, conflict of commitment, which is as important to understand (from a job survival standpoint) but for which there is no Wikipedia entry–the term is obscure, yet ubiquitous in the academic policy manuals across the country.

So what is conflict of commitment? To answer this question, I’ll first operate at the level of broad principles and then apply the concept specifically to academics, particularly professors who are either tenured or tenure track. Realize that I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV.

If we think about the commitment that we make when we accept full-time employment at a university, one implied part of that “social contract” is that we accept the primacy of our employer as far as the benefits deriving from our professional life. That is, we realize that as far as our research, service and teaching (and especially teaching but I’ll get to that later), our full time salary compensates us (basically in full) for our employer getting the lion’s share of the benefits of the same research, service and teaching.

The broad principle here is that, as with most real benefits in life (think your TIAA–CREF retirement proceeds should you die) there is a primary beneficiary. In the case of our employment and the benefits of our toil in the lab or classroom–well you can guess, it’s our own institution that is the primary beneficiary.

Now to the details for faculty members: as professors, teaching holds a special place in the list of benefits that our employer receives in compensation for our salaries. After all, you don’t need to be a professor to do research or to serve on a committee. It’s the teaching component that sets the profession of professor apart. And therefore academia places special emphasis upon the role of teaching in building up policies dealing with conflict of commitment.

Put simply: it usually raises a big red flag to take one’s teaching (at any level) to another institution of higher education. At the very least, this type of appearance of conflict of commitment should be discussed carefully with administrators. Teaching is very different from consulting for another institution, or serving on the board of directors, or secretly rooting for the other school’s team in a basketball game. Because teaching is central to your identity as a professor, and a university’s identity as an institution of higher education.

There are other instances of conflict of commitment, but none as important for faculty to store away and remember.

Jim