Scholarship Reconsidered

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Scholarship Reconsidered

• (Re)Introduction to the Boyer Teacher-Scholar
  Model

Frankie Condon, Director CETL Pat Hauslein,
Assoc. Prof Biol Sci Ed
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Priorities of the Professoriate 1990

• Thus, the most important obligation now
  confronting the nations colleges and
  universities is to break out of the tired old
  teaching versus research debate and define, in
  more creative ways, what it means to be a
  scholar.
• Boyer p. xii

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The Boyer Model Taxonomy

• give the ..term scholarship a broader more
  capacious meaning, one that brings legitimacy to
  the full scope of academic work.
• Boyer p. 16

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The Boyer Model Taxonomy

• Specifically, we conclude that the work of the
  professoriate might be thought of as having four
  separate , yet overlapping functions.
• The scholarship of discovery
• The scholarship of integration
• The scholarship of application
• The scholarship of teaching
• Boyer p. 16

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Scholarship of Discovery

• the most traditional and familiar model of
  research. Characterized by a sense of the
  importance of knowledge for its own sake, by
  freedom of inquiry, and by disciplined
  investigation.
• Boyer p. 17

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The Scholarship of Integration

• research that makes connections across
  disciplines, places specialties in larger
  contexts. Serious disciplined work that seeks to
  interpret, draw together, and bring new insight
  to bear on original research.
• Boyer p. 19

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Scholarship of Application

• Research that begins with questions like how can
  knowledge be responsibly applied to consequential
  problems? How can knowledge be helpful to
  individuals as well as institutions? Can social
  problems themselves define an agenda for
  scholarly investigation?
• Boyer p. 21

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Scholarship of Teaching

• research that has as its aim transforming and
  extending what is known about teaching and
  learning
• building bridges between the teachers
  understanding and the students learning.
• Boyer p. 23

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Small group discussion

• Please break-up into groups of 4 and find
  examples from your own work that fit the four
  categories of Boyers model. Remember, the
  categories are overlapping and so may your
  activities.
• 10 min in groups
• 10 min in large group summary

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Scholarship What does it look like?

• What general characteristics can you find from
  the examples you generated that raises your
  day-to-day work to scholarship?

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History of the Boyer Conversation at SCSU

• Drawn from the May 1999 report written by then
  Center Director Roseanna Ross

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History of Boyer at SCSU

• 1996 1997
• University chooses to apply the definitions and
  standards articulated in Ernest Boyers
  Scholarship Reconsidered Priorities of the
  Professoriate and Charles Glassick et als
  Scholarship Assessed Evaluation of the
  Professoriate.
• North Central Accreditation team visiting SCSU
  suggests that teacher-scholar model is not
  broadly understood on the SCSU campus.

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History of Boyer at SCSU

• 1997 1998
• CTL begins campus wide discussions of Boyer
  model.
• Faculty express concerns.
• Is the administration sincerely interested in
  this work?
• Will the model be used in some way against
  faculty as a means of denying promotion or of
  creating more work for faculty.

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History of Boyer at SCSU

• 1998 1999
• SCSU invited to participate in the Carnegie
  Teaching Academy Campus Program sponsored by the
  Carnegie Foundation and the AAHE.
• Campus Conversations series is designed and
  organized by the CTL. A workshop entitled
  Demonstrating the Scholarship of Teaching is
  designed and offered to faculty.

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History of Boyer at SCSU

• 1998 1999 cont.
• Department liaisons to CTL were designated for
  the purposes of organizing department
  conversations about the scholarship of teaching.
• Faculty Forum day was dedicated to understanding
  the teacher-scholar model at SCSU. Glassick
  invited to campus

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Breakdown of the SCSU Conversation

• Faculty distrust of administrative commitment to
  the model
• Faculty fears about workload issues and the
  commitment of the administration to recognizing
  the scholarship of teaching as THE work not as
  MORE or OTHER work
• Concern about the interface of the Boyer/Glassick
  model and the SCSU promotion and retention
  process

17
Breakdown of the SCSU Conversation

• Confusion about the difference between excellence
  in teaching and the scholarship of teaching.
  Following from that confusion, concern about when
  the Boyer/Glassick model addresses effective
  teaching and when it addresses scholarly and
  creative activity
• Concern about unreasonable expectations i.e. that
  faculty in disciplines other than education, for
  example, might be required to publish both in
  their own disciplines and in education.

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Definition of the Scholarship of Teaching (ala
Glassick)

• Problem posing about an issue of teaching or
  learning
• Study of the problem through methods appropriate
  to disciplinary epistemologies
• Application of results to practice
• Communication of results
• Self-reflection
• Peer review

19
Scholarship Assessed, Glassick

• We have found that when people praise a work of
  scholarship, they usually mean that the project
  in question shows that it has been guided by
  these qualitative standards
• Clear goals
• Adequate preparation
• Appropriate methods
• Significant results
• Effective presentation
• Reflective critique

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The final straw

• Pat thinks Glassick finally extinguished
  whatever chance there was to get this
  conversation going at SCSU.

21
General Assumption of how Things are
Teaching
Research
Service
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Faculty Work Integrating Responsibilities
Shared Discovery
Service Learning
Community Documentation
Krahenbuhl, 1998
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Faculty work is fluid, complex and transformative
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Faculty work is fluid, complex and transformative
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Re-igniting the Conversation

• The reality of our day-to-day work is not easily
  dis-integrated into easily distinguishable and
  isolated categories. There is significant and
  fruitful overlap between our work as scholars,
  teachers, committee members, participants in
  shared governance, and community members.

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Re-igniting the Conversation

• Linear interpretations of the five contractual
  areas of our contract and the attending
  bureaucratic processes by which our work tends to
  be measured and evaluated cannot yet account for
  the integration and overlap the lived
  complexity of our working lives.

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Re-igniting the Conversation

• In small groups consider the following questions
• Can we recognize the everyday value of one
  anothers labor in teaching not only the
  material (promotion and tenure) value of that
  work?
• Can we recognize and reward excellence in
  teaching as well as the scholarship of teaching?
• Can we expand the range of ways in which the
  scholarship of teaching might be made public and
  reviewed?

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And lastly

• The Boyer Model, we believe, could serve as an
  elaboration of our contract as it is written as
  an independent source of support for a broad
  reading of those five contractual areas. The
  challenge for the institution will be to
  recognize in the context of supporting and
  evaluating faculty labor, the integration and
  overlap the complexity of our work and to
  give that integration and overlap individual and
  institutional meaning rather than maintaining its
  invisibility.