“In 1986, Ernest Boyer published College: The Undergraduate Experience in America, a benchmark report. In that, we made eight recommendations for higher education. Ernie and I lifted two of those up for further study before his death. The first was the sense of community on our campuses. We published Campus Life: In Search of Community which is a model for building community on campus while celebrating diversity. It is pretty easy to build community on the basis of homogeneity, but to celebrate diversity is a special challenge.
“The second one we lifted up was 'priorities of the faculty.' Out of it came Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professorate. We are dealing with the priorities of the faculty; the faculty are first class professionals and first class intellectuals but are caught in a system that narrows their intellectual life. We took the stance that intellectual work that is recognized and rewarded in the university system needs to be expanded in its scope. The current definition of scholarship that is rewarded in most of our universities is essentially research; is essentially research followed by publication; is essentially research followed by publication in a refereed journal. In fact there is a report through the National Science Foundation by the Young Presidential Scholars that said: we looked at the criteria for tenure nationwide, [and] every university says the criteria is 'research, teaching, and service,' but we found that the criteria for tenure is 'research, research, and research.' We propose a broader definition of scholarship. We recommend four forms of scholarship [the scholarships of discovery, integration, application, teaching -- from Scholarship Reconsidered] be announced as equal, evaluated as equal, and rewarded as equal.”
According to Glassick, the four scholarships encompass and exhibit distinct values. The first form of scholarship, the scholarship of discovery, is the most traditional description of faculty research and inquiry. It is the timeless pursuit of knowledge and truth, searching out these points among limitless information. But this is a discovery not bound by politics or agendas, it is the purest sense of discovery needed to reach the truth. The scholarship of integration “is the performance of serious, disciplined work that seeks to interpret altogether and bring new insights to bear. It is the capacity to make connections, to place specialties in the larger context, and to illuminate data in new and revealing ways. It is the capacity to do scholarship at the boundaries where fields converge.” The third form is the scholarship of application which “reflects the engagement of the scholar. The outreach of the scholar: how can my knowledge be responsibly applied to consequential problems, how can I be helpful to individuals, and can social problems themselves define a scholarly agenda?” The fourth form is the scholarship of teaching. “This is not the specific actions and behaviors in the classroom, but the intellectual dimensions. Every institution that I have gone to says that they honor teaching and that it is important. But in fact, in many of our universities, we don’t teach teaching; we don’t teach learning theory to all of our faculty; we don’t evaluate teaching well. Our vocabulary gives us away: we talk about research opportunities and teaching load.”
“Right after Scholarship Reconsidered was put out, people started to ask, how shall the quality of work be measured? It is hard enough to do when our only focus was on research. Excellence is our only yardstick, no faculty member can escape a life of rigorous intellectual activity, but how shall we communicate the excellence of our work to an appropriate audience?
“We looked at this and now propose six standards by which the quality of all scholarship can be judged [that it is: guided by clear goals, demonstrates adequate preparation, uses appropriate methods, produces significant results, has been communicated effectively, and uses reflective critique]. Evaluating scholarship is not a new task. Every time a journal referee selects or rejects an article for publication, he or she judges the quality of that work. Every time the editor of a scholarly press makes a decision on publishing or not publishing a manuscript, he or she makes a judgement on the intellectual quality of that scholarship. Every time a granting agency makes a decision to grant or not grant money, they are making a judgement that the proposed intellectual work is superior to another’s. Every time a promotion and tenure committee makes a decision, they judge the quality of a faculty member’s work. We are asking all of them to judge scholarly performance, it is not a new task. We decided to ask how everyone makes these judgements.
“From this we have identified six shared standards that can be used to evaluate all scholarly work. These are standards that are currently in use and aren’t difficult to employ. We also looked at the qualities of the scholar him or herself. Are there personal qualities that relate to academic life; personal and ethical characteristics that go to the very heart of what it means to be a scholar? We found a reference 4500 years old. A Sumerian tablet said: 'Day and night you must concentrate. You must sit still for scholarship. You must be humble.' Apparently, this means humility in front of your discovery, the complexity of the issues that you are dealing with, the difficulty of the intellectual process. Wayne Booth, the rhetorician in the publication The Scholar in Society proposes 'habits of rationality' which include 'courage, persistence, consideration, humility, and honesty.'
“We believe that scholars have integrity, perseverance, and courage. Obviously a scholar’s work must include integrity. Perseverance comes out of our faculty surveys. We emphasize that all members of the faculty throughout their professional careers must stay in touch with developments in their field. But on our campuses, faculty time is one of our most valuable resources. There are many demands on the scholar’s time and faculty face insurmountable opportunities every morning.
“The third is courage: to put the work in the public domain. To be willing to publish and risk the disapproval of colleagues. To take on difficult or unpopular tasks. To transcend traditional ideas and roles, rising above the political arena. All of these require the scholar with integrity and the courage to inquire. This is based upon the belief that whatever dangers are inherent in the search for knowledge, those inherent in ignorance are far more ominous.
“You must be a productive scholar. One who completes projects, is willing to communicate them with others and is willing to risk answering the questions of other scholars. These characteristics are preconditions to scholarly life and we believe that these qualities should be looked for when candidates are being evaluated. The Feaster Report from the University of California says that 'evidence of a productive and creative mind should be sought in a candidate’s work. If the committee confronts evidence that these key qualities of scholarship are not present, the candidate should be disqualified from further consideration.’
“We conclude that there are definable standards that apply across all forms of scholarship and, therefore, all of us, regardless of our field, are engaged in a common task. We really are a 'community of scholars.’ When people praise scholarship, they usually mean that the project in question has been guided by clear goals, adequate preparation, uses appropriate methods, produces significant results, has been communicated effectively, and uses reflective critique.
“The question is, how do we document our scholarly work to assess these standards? Let me remind you that we assess and evaluate at the time we hire candidates and at retention, tenure, promotion, and salary increase decisions. It is an arduous process that we spend a lot of time doing, perhaps too much time. Very few people are satisfied with the process. We have not found ways to document effectively and efficiently. That is why we count publications, not because we want to but because that is the only way that we know how to do it. How shall a young scholar prove that he or she has done quality work? The scholar who comes before a committee should only bring the best work that he or she has done; document for quality. The scholar would be asked to show the best three pieces of his or her work. They can make a list of all the projects that they were involved in to document for quantity, but present only the quality.
“As difficult as the assessment and documentation process is, it is important for us to keep our standards high and consistent. Everything goes for naught if the evaluation process is not trustworthy. The institution should follow the same six characteristics when developing their assessment policies. They must say what the processes are for and then do that; they must walk the talk. If you don’t have clear goals, honesty, and integrity in the process it doesn’t matter what standards you use.
“The diversity of higher education is one of its principal strengths, so let that diversity be further strengthened by continuing our research in specific disciplines to reach across the boundaries and integrate knowledge. To move beyond the campus to engage others and bring our scholarship directly to the public. If this is done, then this will give rise to a new community of scholars and scholarship. We have talked about that for decades, it now can be real. A community where the scholarship of teaching is powerfully affirmed, where the scholarship of research is appropriately supported, where the scholarships of integration and application come alive to take on a special vitality and new purpose. This can be a community that can bring together liberal arts and professional studies and build a place where students can be engaged with faculty and staff in the realities of the world. A community that brings its intellectual resources to improve in an intentional way the human condition. Oscar Hamlin said that 'Our troubled planet can no longer afford the luxury of pursuits confined to an ivory tower. Scholarship must now prove its worth.’”
The Auburn Horizon Interview with Charles Glassick
AH:How can we implement and develop these ideas in an economic climate that does not allow for growth and development?
CG: “We are talking about evolution, not about an abrupt change. The way that it is happening most effectively is to take a group of respected faculty members and let them work on the specific vocabulary for the institution. It is important for the Provost and administration to be involved in the process, but not to drive it. Let a group of mature and responsible faculty develop the process and let that thinking disseminate throughout the institution. Everybody thinks that the other groups are the ones that are the most conservative and won’t change, so nothing is ever accomplished without the initiative. You have more friends than you know.”
AH:You said in an interview with RMIT: “I truly believe that in the next decade, higher education in the United States will be characterized by faculty moving towards the ‘scholarship of application” and today you said that “faculty are moving towards real world issues.” If it a fair and accurate assessment to say that higher education is detached from its external environments and constituents, what then do you mean by that and who is included in the “application”?
CG:“Whether universities have been detached from society or not, I won’t comment on. But they have been perceived as being that. Perceived as being remote, aloof, frequently uncaring about the problems of our world. [It is said] ‘Here we are struggling with the public education system, the economic system, the environment and where are our best and brightest? Off in their ivory tower publishing about some third derivative of Henry James’ second book. I am sure that it is good work, but it is not something that I am worried about.’ The fact is that universities are engaged in our society but we are never perceived as being engaged. What we will see is much more outreach by all universities and it will be held in higher regard. We use the term outreach to be synonymous with application and integration of knowledge. The next decade will be characterized by universities coming forward and saying ‘look, we have been doing this already and we are engaged with the problems of society.’ The second thing that is happening is that institutions are more carefully defining their own mission.”
AH:You mentioned the use “documenting for quality” in terms of presenting one's best research. How would you define this concept for teaching or outreach?
CG:“It has to relate to the standards; submitting what your goals are is important. For instance, how did one prepare for the project? By defining certain tasks and actions that are valuable, you can start to build a matrix on defining quality in teaching. One of the exercises that we have done is to break individuals up into small groups and say that they are members of a promotion and tenure committee and ask them to come up with what they would ask that candidate to submit to the committee regarding teaching. The good teachers have to have input into this process because they know what actions and tasks comprise a quality teaching effort.”
AH:What changes do you expect to see in the next 10 years? What changes do you want to see in the next 10 years?
CG:“The biggest change that we are going to see is institutions defining their own mission rather than imitating others. This will mainly be true at the state college level, proudly fulfilling their role and not trying to become research institutions.”
AH:So, the current situation of universities being locked in a constant struggle to each become the preeminent “research university” despite diminishing resources and a lack of general acceptance or understanding of that goal from the external environments will change in the future?
CG:“They absolutely will. David Reeceman characterized that as the 'snakelike procession.' It is not just a question of resources running out, it is a question of the public losing confidence in us and a question of institutions coming to the realization that it is a hopeless struggle. Along with this, you ask in the earlier question 'what would we want to see happen,' we would like to see, in this process, the education of undergraduates be elevated to a higher prestige. That is a difficult thing because it requires teaching to be accepted as scholarship right beside the others.”
AH:How does the lack of contact and interaction with the external environment which characterizes the work of many faculty and graduate students hamper the “scholarship of integration”?
CG:“That is an interesting question. We find that many people’s work is being done at the edges of the field and integration is going on in graduate school. However, the isolation of people within disciplines is hampering integration. We are finding that at small and medium-sized institutions, the scholarship of integration is prospering much faster. They can have the conversations much easier because their boundaries are permeable and they can talk through them. I think that distances and isolation within departments does inhibit integration and we have to find ways to that break down.”
AH:William Plater of IUPUI, who cited the Carnegie Foundation’s works as working examples for improvement, states: “universities and corporations are converging. If we don’t borrow from corporations as liberally as they borrow from us, then we may be replaced before anyone even notices we’re gone....the forces of change are almost all external to the academy. Hence, we -- the faculty and administration within -- are the objects of change rather than the agents of change.” How would you respond to Dr. Plater’s remarks?
CG:“Bill Plater works in Indianapolis and is close to that city. It is an urban institution and they work very close within the city and see that interaction as being very real to them. Again, I think that Bill has overgeneralized a bit in terms of what our faculty should be like, but in certain settings we do have to look a little less “ivory towerish” and more as if we are involved with customers. Bill and I could debate that issue.”
AH: How does the Internet affect the scholarships of teaching and learning?
CG:“The Internet is essentially an information-transfer methodology as it now exists. If our only goal is information transfer, then let's forget teaching and use the Internet. That is why goals are so important for teaching. Goals for developing the abilities for critical thinking or deductive reasoning and developing library, technological, and speaking skills should all be goals for teaching that go far beyond information transfer. The Internet simply becomes a supplement and an aid for these goals.”
