But teaching isn't all that professors do--our research consumes a lot of our time as well. When the persistent, thoughtful, well-read, and occasionally lucky professor actually gets some meaningful data, he or she then gets to write, edit and re-write a paper that has a small chance of being accepted (pending major revisions requested by several peer reviewers) by an exacting journal editor.

So being a professor is a lot of work, but it is rewarding work. And when professors aren't serving students through teaching or serving the world through research, they're serving their professions, their departments, their universities, and their communities as their skills best allow.

Here are some of my recent service activities:

• Textbook reviewer for Pearson/Allyn & Bacon and Prentice Hall
• Manuscript reviewer for Journal of Social & Clinical Psychology, Personality & Individual Differences, North American Journal of Psychology, Journal of Happiness Studies, Imagination, Cognition & Personality, Self & Identity, Journal of Personality Assessment and Psychological Science (scholarly journals)
• Presenter in the Dialogue With Senior Citizens program
• Mentor for Upward Bound youth in a job shadowing program
• Member of the university's undergraduate program review committee for Electrical and Computer Engineering
• Member of the Undergraduate Programs Committee for Curriculum Council
• Member of the university's diversity committee
• Coordinator of the Psychology Department's participant pool
• Chair of the Psychology Department's 520/521 (graduate statistics) committee
• Member of the Psychology Department's Academic Misconduct Committee
• Member of the School of Education's technology committee