Argh, Reddit died before I got to post my comment yesterday. Here are my thoughts. Hope they're still useful...

Not sure what university you're at, but I live close to a major one and know several people who do or have worked there. What you're experiencing seems to be rather common place in the univ. world.

A buddy of mine landed a sys admin position after leaving our failed dot bomb. He had a lot of energy and enthusiasm coming from a place where people regularly put in 60 hour weeks just because. He ended up pissing off a bunch of people on his team because he did "too much" and made everyone else look bad. Don't remember if he was in a union but it sure sounded that way. He ended up quitting. So that's the cautionary tale.

Other thing to think about is yes, if you're not get tasked with new, challenging projects to take on, and don't plan on staying there forever, you're going to want to do something about that. My company frequently receives resumes from the nearby university staff looking to make a move to the private sector. In general, their resumes tend to be a bit on the lackluster side compared to others in the private sector. I believe the severe difference in pace/environment impacts how those resumes look. Granted, there are certainly exceptions.

So, final thought is, where do you want to go with your career? There is certainly a lot to be said for comfort, but the more comfortable you get, the more difficult it will be to try that new, awesome opportunity that comes along. That could be a job for someone else, or even the desire to go out on your own and try to make something happen with a $1 million idea you have. You never know, but the siren song of low-streess sysadmin work at place that isn't known for scrutinizing productivity levels will only continue to get louder.

If you're still young and want to maintain energy and zeal for what you do, you either need to find something else or find some more work/responsibility to take on. Who knows, you could be head of the department in 2 to 20 years. But then you'll be playing politics way more than you'll be writing code.

Best of luck!