attractiveness of the invitation will vary with the potential panelist’s
career stage, whether she has served on other panels in the distant
or recent past, and the level of her commitments in future months.
Stated motivations range from a desire to define the agenda, pro-
vide a community service, be exposed to new ideas, measure oneself
against other high-status experts, and test one’s own status and self-
concept.
The appeals of prestige and the opportunity to shape competition
outcomes and affect the trajectory of other scholars (“power”) are
often attractive to prospective panelists. The same historian who de-
scribes panel deliberations as “exhausting” explains:
[You have] a handful of people who for whatever reason have
been chosen to kind of be the arbiters of future directions of doc-
toralwork...This is one of the most prestigious scholarships for
grad students in the United States. I can’t think of any other that
actually competes with it. [You’re] kind of shaping the direction
of the future in various fields by giving a certain message through
the funding.Another panelist, an anthropologist, similarly stresses that
People who serve on important panels certainly are able to shape
things, in terms of who gets accolades...It’sdefining who gets
defined as excellent, and then gets to get ensconced in positions in
universities to train students of the next generation, and on and
on and on. Even who gets linked to the funders themselves to
think about how they’re going to redefine their criteria or reshape
their grant giving...I’dliketoseesomereallygoodstudies of
[these sorts] of political repercussions and dynamics. [They]
aren’t spoken [of ], at least in my world. I mean we all know who
the power players are to a certain extent and who’s getting invited... to be readers for what.
34 / How Panels Work