The setting, a conference center in the Adirondacks, was ideal. The participants were talented and congenial, and the topic, tying faculty rewards more closely to the stated missions of institutions, was perceived as timely and significant.
It was the first meeting of participants in a national project designed to increase the importance placed on teaching, applied research, and professional service in rewarding faculty members. Over the two previous days, general agreement had been reached on the priorities and strategy for the project. The conversations had been far-reaching and enjoyable. But the tenor of the meeting shifted dramatically on the third day, when participants began discussing a formal title for the project.
Tempers flared, voices rose, and representatives of several disciplines threatened to withdraw from the project if one or another term was included in the title. Of all the terms that were discussed the one that generated the most controversy was “scholarship.”
Representatives of some disciplines felt that by trying to broaden the traditional definition, an attempt was being made to “sneak” inappropriate and less “academic” activities under a term that was, by their standards, clearly understood. Others felt that using the term “scholarship” to describe their professional activities would only create confusion and hostility. Some preferred to use “professional work” to describe what faculty members in their fields do.
The discussion was not a pleasant experience. Fortunately, tempers died down when the group decided to call our effort simply the National Project on Institutional Priorities and Faculty Rewards.
In retrospect, this session proved extremely important. The heat of the discussion forced all of us to recognize that disciplines differ greatly in how various scholarly activities are perceived, in the terms they are comfortable with, and in what they consider to be the most valuable kind of academic work.
Awareness of these differences led us to adopt the fundamental operating principle that the project would encourage members of each discipline to work from their own definitions in developing a system for categorizing the work done by faculty members in the field. We would not attempt to develop a single model to describe the range of activities that should be considered scholarly, professional, or creative work. The debate forged a mutual respect and sensitivity among the representatives of the 15 professional societies and associations that were present as they proceeded to establish committees to develop descriptions of work in their disciplines.
Those descriptions have become part of a larger project aimed at broadening the range of faculty activities considered appropriate to meet tenure and promotion criteria. The project is coordinated at Syracuse University and sponsored by the Lilly Endowment, the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, and the Pew Charitable Trusts.
A premise behind our efforts is that redefining scholarship will expand the range of activities considered to be appropriate work for faculty members. One of the greatest paradoxes facing higher education is that two of the activities seen as most important for colleges and universities -- teaching and community service -- are often the least recognized in the faculty-reward system. Faculty members complain of being forced to do insignificant research at the expense of work of greater importance to their students, their institutions, and their own interests.
Another premise of our efforts is that having disciplinary societies set out a full range of activities upon which tenure and promotion decisions can be based will help change the priorities for faculty members. We hope that this will free them to focus more on improving their teaching, improving curricula, and working in community activities that can benefit from their particular expertise. It also should increase the recognition given to the professional quality of applied research, creative work, and interdisciplinary activities.
By this fall, we anticipate that approximately 20 statements will have been completed. During the past two years, several statements have been published and now are being disseminated widely. In many instances, the disciplinary committees sponsored sessions at their national meetings to discuss drafts of the statements. A collection of the statements is scheduled for publication by the American Association for Higher Education in late 1994 or early 1995.
As work has progressed, several facts have become apparent:
* Every discipline includes scholarly and professional activities that traditionally have not been recognized in rewarding faculty members.
The committee of the American Historical Association spoke for many disciplines when it wrote:
“This debate over priorities is not discipline-specific but extends across the higher-education community. Nevertheless, each discipline has specific concerns and problems. For history, the privilege given to the monograph in promotion and tenure has led to the undervaluing of other activities central to the life of the discipline -- writing textbooks, developing courses and curricula, documentary editing, museum exhibitions, and film projects to name but a few.”
* Agreement exists, however, on the characteristics of an activity that can be considered scholarly or professional.
An activity will be recognized as such in most disciplines if it requires a high level of discipline-related experience; breaks new ground or is innovative; can be replicated or elaborated; can be documented; can be peer-reviewed; and has impact on, or significance for, communities, those affected directly by the effort, or the discipline itself.
Faculty work such as designing a new course, assisting a committee in addressing a major community problem, developing instructional software, initiating an interdisciplinary project, directing a play, or writing a textbook often can meet these criteria, while some published “research” cannot. The keys are quality and significance and the ability to demonstrate the six attributes to evaluation committees.
* The process of expanding the scope of what is considered scholarly or professional work is far more difficult for some disciplines than for others.
For many scholars, the effort to re-emphasize the importance of teaching, applied research, and community-related activities has created concern about how their disciplines will be perceived by others. As one team member wrote, “Many worried that if we began to move away from a high-profile research emphasis, we would lose more of our already small prestige in relation to harder research areas.” On the other hand, the findings of a recent survey of more than 3,000 business-school faculty members -- which were echoed at open meetings held at several national disciplinary conferences -- demonstrate strong support for revised definitions of professional work.
* Significant differences exist among the disciplines in what faculty members do and in how those activities are described and valued.
Some disciplines, such as history, were comfortable with the four-part model of scholarly work -- the scholarship of discovering knowledge, integrating knowledge, communicating knowledge, and applying knowledge through professional service -- that was first proposed by Eugene R. Rice, vice-president of Antioch College, and then described in detail by Ernest L. Boyer, president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, in his book Scholarship Reconsidered.
Scholars in other disciplines, however, did not find that breakdown compelling. The chemistry and geography panels suggested four categories: research, application, teaching, and outreach -- terms with which they were much more comfortable.
The report of the American Academy of Religion kept the traditional categories of research, teaching, and service, while the arts representatives felt more comfortable with the categories of teaching, creative work and research, and service. There is simply no single definition of scholarship to which all disciplines subscribe.
It is therefore crucial, as campuses consider revamping their criteria for promotion and tenure, that each academic unit be encouraged to define the work of its faculty members and the value placed upon it in the reward structure based on the dictates of the particular discipline. It also should be noted that few departments will have faculty members actively involved in all the activities listed in their particular discipline’s statements.
* The differences among disciplines have direct and immediate implications for faculty members serving on promotion and tenure committees.
It is essential that committee members who review the files of faculty members in other fields recognize that it may not be appropriate for them to apply the criteria they use to evaluate professional and scholarly work in their own disciplines. They may have to rely on the quality of the process used at the departmental level -- where the disciplinary expertise exists to evaluate the content and importance of a faculty member’s work -- and not try to assess the quality of the work itself.
For example, an all-university committee reviewing a faculty member up for tenure in the drama department probably would not need to understand or appreciate the scholarly element or the innovative aspects of a play directed by the faculty member. It would be incumbent upon the candidate and the department, however, to establish a process that addresses these issues and documents how such elements have been evaluated. (A model for documenting work of this type will be found in Serving on Promotion and Tenure Committees: A Faculty Guide, Anker Publishing.)
* The differences among disciplines also must be recognized by the candidates themselves.
In preparing their tenure or promotion files for review, faculty members should realize that sooner or later the material will be reviewed by colleagues in other fields. In considering how to present the content of their work, candidates must ask themselves how they can communicate what they do and its significance to people in other disciplines. If, for example, I write a textbook, what makes it significant? How is it different from others on the market? What particular problems was I attempting to address? The answers to such questions can help scholars from disciplines that do not particularly value textbook writing understand the importance of that activity in another discipline.
* The proposed expansion of activities considered to be legitimate scholarly or professional work will be much easier for some faculty members to accept than for others.
Faculty members inclined toward work that traditionally has been considered marginal and those who see themselves as members of disciplines whose work has been undervalued tend to support more strongly the recommendations coming out of our disciplinary committees. Some faculty members, however, perceive the recommendations as threatening a reward system with which they are quite comfortable. What is important is that each group recognize and be willing to reward the vital contributions of faculty members with different strengths and interests.
Each disciplinary group stressed that its report should be used not as a prescription but as a starting point for individual departments as they begin to address how specific activities are to be valued on their campuses. Members of the panels agreed overwhelmingly that such decisions must be made by departments, schools, and colleges, keeping in mind the priorities of departments and the assignments of individual faculty members. For example, a faculty member charged with the design, implementation, and evaluation of a new course would have little time to devote to other major initiatives for one or two years.
The disciplinary reports call for a flexible faculty-reward system that recognizes the missions of institutions, the priorities of departments, the strengths of individuals, and the uniqueness of the disciplines. If we are to improve the quality and effectiveness of our academic programs, produce graduates with the competencies needed in the decades ahead, and become the community resource that we are expected to be, we need the active involvement of our best faculty members. This will not be possible unless the criteria for tenure and promotion change.
Robert M. Diamond is assistant vice-chancellor and director of the Center for Instructional Development at Syracuse University and director of the Institutional Priorities and Faculty Rewards Project.
Professional associations that have participated to date in the National Project on Institutional Priorities and Faculty Rewards include:
American Academy of Religion
American Assembly of Collegiate
Schools of Business
American Chemical Society
American Historical Association
American Philosophical Association
American Political Science Association
American Sociological Association
Association for Education in Journalism
Association of American Geographers
Conference on College Composition and Communication
Geological Society of America
Joint Policy Board for Mathematics
Modern Language Association
National Council of Administrators of Home Economics
National Office for Arts Accreditation in Higher Education
(The activities of the National Office for Arts Accreditation involved six related disciplines: architecture, landscape architecture, art and design, dance, music, and theater.)