I have been on the road much more than usual over the past week, and I am about to head to Havana for a couple of days tomorrow. I tried to ease up a bit by cancelling a trip to Texas for the annual meeting of a learned society ten days ago (pace John Jackson!), but it still feels to me like too much rushing about. One of the trips, however, was to Brown University to meet with colleagues interested in civic engagement, and that was an emotional pick-up for me.
I began by having lunch with Katherine Bergeron, a musicologist who is also the Dean of the College, and Sheila Bonde, an archaeologist who is the Dean of the Graduate School. We were joined by Roger Nozaki of the Swearer Center, who is the director of Brown’s civic-engagement efforts. Brown (apart from its medical school) is a campus of more or less the same size and composition as Princeton, but it was interesting to discuss the many ways in which the two institutions differ. Dean Bergeron has been leading a very interesting review of Brown ‘s “New” Curriculum, and I have been much impressed by the energy and openness of this effort. In the early afternoon I taught a class for Roger (and a sociologist colleague) in their course on philanthropy. I argued to them that American philanthropy had to be viewed through the lens of our “weak state” tradition, and in contrast to the ways that other OECD nations deal with social welfare. It was a very bright and talkative group of 12 students with a wide range of views, and I found the exchange quite a lot of fun. I hope they did, too!
But the main purpose of my visit to Brown was to give a public lecture entitled “Who Cares? The Purposes and Limits of a ‘Just University.”” (Just as soon as I find time to send Roger a cleaned up file of my talk he will post it on the Swearer Center Web site.) This is a topic I have discussed before, and I made a distinction between procedural and substantive conceptions of the concept of justice as it might be applied to universities. I suggested how various areas of contention might be thought about, ranging from disputes over insignia clothing to concerns over staff layoffs in response to the Great Recession. The questions that followed came from faculty (it seemed as though a majority of the audience were faculty members), students and community members. Quite a few of them dealt with civic engagement, since the Swearer Center sponsors a “Faculty Engagement” program. I was generally impressed by the obvious commitment that so many questioners had to an engaged notion of the university, but I want to single out one question that came from a junior faculty member: “What sort of engagement should the university expect of an untenured professor?”
That’s a good and hard question, not easily answered. My response was that we should not require community engagement (beyond that expected of all faculty) since we already require much too much publication from junior faculty. That is, unless we let up on publication requirements and specify clearly what would count as “engagement,” we need to be modest in our expectations. After the lecture, however, the same person asked me if this did not run the risk of asking socially-concerned faculty to check their concerns until they got tenure? Good question. But how can we both protect our junior faculty and authorize them to “do the right thing”? The answer, I know, is to revise tenure and promotion standards to value something other than publication, but for the moment I despair of achieving that.
8 Responses to Faculty Members’ Civic Engagement
cfox53 - November 22, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Perhaps it’s time for a serious, detailed discussion of tenure in the Boyd spirit. We can define engagement as public scholarship and still allow rigorous evaluation of junior faculty. The arts have a model that can be a considered in this framework. One start would be changing appointment letters/contracts and defined workloads – things that can be used to build a broader definition of scholarship. One outcome of this would the ‘outside’ community would now have a real role in T&P – a radical change that would get ride of the hypocricy that haunts many ‘community engagement’ initiatives that still uses a missionary style of community engagement.
rchill - November 22, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Stan: I mean this with no denegration to you, but honestly, what was the point of the conference and your talk? Beyond gathering together and having a great time….will your talk impact anything outside of your sphere of academics? Do you (and your discipline) ever go beyond just talking and actually work with administrations to try to implement the changes you suggest? What about designing a study to see if changes in tenure would actually accomplish what you hypothesize they will? And cfox53 – what will the serious, detailed discussion accomplish? Do you then plan on designing some experiment that could test your hypothesis? If not, what is the point? I am in the hard sciences (biology), but as a graduate student I took graduate level education policy and education (pedagogy) courses. I never quite “got” the point of most of my policy classes. It seemed pointless…let’s just analyze, say how great it is, but never move to the next step of testing the analysis or implementation of policy change. I teach in a rural, small, liberal-arts college. I am on the front line of teaching. Your lofty thoughts on research vs service are lost on so many of us, as we have to figure out a way to do it all (no TAs or adjuncts to help with the load). I choose this path, as I want to really interact with my students give them the opportunity to achieve their dreams.I do mean this with all sincerity – what is the purpose of your research? Do you impact actual education policy, be it on the faculty or the student side? Is the goal to analyze best practices and then work to implement changes? I am honestly confused.
madamesmartypants - November 24, 2009 at 12:01 pm
The problem with changing the tenure process is that people who have tenure right now would be the ones with the power to authorize changes. Most faculty probably feel that since they’ve made it, the system must be good, so why change it? On the other hand, even if civic engagement were advanced as a criterium for tenure, a lot of junior faculty would still probably be concerned–no doubt rightly–that activism might cost them tenure. I can certainly see why Stan Katz despairs of change. Still, if tenured faculty at Ivy League schools are not willing to make the effort, don’t expect the rest of us to.
dank48 - November 24, 2009 at 1:20 pm
It’s like expecting Congress to reform the obvious abuses in the legislative branch. Probably a longshot.
11159995 - November 24, 2009 at 1:20 pm
To rchill I would point out that Stan has been much involved with the Pace Center at Princeton, which was set up to encourage more “civic engagement” by students, faculty, and staff at the university: http://www.princeton.edu/pace/home. To madaesmartypants I would point out that the senior faculty have already changed tenure requirements, by insisting on even more publications (e.g., two books) than they had to produce to win tenure. But I would agree with Stan that junior faculty are in a tough situation. Just consider the debate over junior faculty as bloggers, which can be a form of public outreach but is often not taken seriously by many senior faculty, who consider it a frivolous pursuit distracting junior faculty from “real” scholarship. — Sandy Thatcher
rchill - November 24, 2009 at 7:18 pm
11159995: And the benefit of “civic engagement” is??? We all have a great time talking and agree things need to change….but do nothing to impact that change? I am junior faculty….I do not have tenure at this point, but am on the “tenure-track” – and I would gladly participate in an actual quantitative study of alternatives to the tenure system. And I do agree, Stan – how about giving up your tenure….set up an experiment at Princeton and have an alternative track – see what happens? Until someone is willing to take that leap into the unknown, and actually put their ideas to the test, we will all have nice conversations and “despair” that change will never happen.
11159995 - November 25, 2009 at 10:45 am
I can give rchill a good example of the value of civic engagement. My daughter Corinne participated in several service-learning projects at Penn State, and they had a very significant impact not only on what she learned academically but on her choice of life pursuits thereafter. E.g., one of her experiences took her to an Indian reservation in Montana where she helped with building projects. Now she is teaching math at a community college on that same reservation. P.S. It may also interest rchill to know that Stan has not had tenure since 1986.–Sandy Thatcher
rchill - November 26, 2009 at 9:19 am
11159995:Then you daughter actually “did” something. It is one thing to talk about civic engagement, quite another to do it. And service-learning projects are important. I am involved in our community outreach committee at my college. People come to us with community needs – we brainstorm how we can help, then do it. Minimal talk, much action. You really don’t need college to alert you to the need in the world – just look around. Need is great in every community, in every country. I was specifically responding to his ending regarding the need for change in faculty evalutation practices (tenure vs another system). As a director of a Center, I am thinking he has other forms of job security…although I expect he did have a tenure position earlier in his career. I grow weary of all the wonderful talk of changing the education system, all the analysis of what should be done, yet it never goes beyond that. No attempts at actual quantitative research on alternative methods to see if all the talk actually has substance.