In this entry, I continue my reading log of Scholarship Reconsidered, by Ernest Boyer and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

In "Enlarging the Perspective," the second chapter, Boyer outlines four "separate but overlapping functions of scholarship which constitute the primary work of the professoriate: discovery, integration, application and teaching. These constitute "the Boyer Model" of scholarship....

Boyer takes issue with the assumptions we make about what constitutes "scholarship. People assume a linear cause-and-effect relationship between scholarship that moves from research, to publication, to application to teaching. It's as though the latter are not considered part of scholarship at all, but "grow out of it" (15). Boyer contests: "The arrow of causality can, and frequently does, point in both directions. Theory surely leads to practice. But practice also leads to theory. Teaching, at its best, shapes both research and practice" (16).

Thus begins Boyer's mission to parse out the four levels of scholarship into the following model. All four elements "dynamically interact, forming an interdependent whole" (25):

DISCOVERY: This element of scholarship is purely investigative, in search of new information. At the core of scholarship, it is "what contributes not only to the stock of human knowledge but also to the intellectual climate of a college or university" and Boyer considers investigation and research "at the very heart of academic life" (17; 18). These scholars ask, "What is to be known? What is yet to be found?" (19)

INTEGRATION: This element of scholarship is what happens when scholars put isolated facts into perspective, "making connections across the disciplines, placing the specialties in larger context, illuminating data in a revealing way" -- work that "seeks to interpret, draw together, and bring new insight to bear on original research" (18-9). Closely related to discovery, integration draws connections and examines contexts often in an interdisciplinary and interpretive way. Boyer sees integration as growing tend in universities, where disciplines are converging and the boundaries between fields is becoming blurry. These scholars ask "What do the findings mean? Is it possible to interpret what's been discovered in ways that provide a larger, mor comprehensive understanding?"

APPLICATION: This element of scholarship is the most practical int hat it seeks out ways in which knowledge can solve problems and serve both the community and the campus. As opposed to merely "citizenship," Boyer argues that "to be considered scholarship, service activities must be tied directly to one's special field of knowledge and relate to, and flow directly out of, this professional activity" (22). He importantly notes that knowledge is not necessarily first "discovered" and then later "applied" -- "new intellectual understandings," Boyer writes, "can arise out of the very act of application...theory and practice vitally interact and one renews the other" (23).
These scholars ask "How can knowledge be responsibly applied to problems? How can it be helpful to people and institutions?"

TEACHING: This element of scholarship recognizes the work that goes into mastery of knowledge as well as the presentation of information so that others might understand it. "Teaching, at its best, means not only transmitting knowledge, but transforming and extending it as well" -- and by interacting with students, professors themselves are pushed in creative new directions (24). These scholars ask "How can knowledge best be transmitted to others and best learned?"

UNSTRUCTURED RESPONSE:
I was already aware of this model before reading this book, but reading it has given me a concrete way of understanding not only what "counts" as scholarship, but what matters about it... and ultimately, what matters about my teaching. If I am not teaching all four elements to my students, then I am not training them to be fit scholars.

Indeed, "the scholarship of teaching" might sound like the least applicable scholarship to teach students (since they are the student, not the teacher), but the fact is I do teach students how to teach: as their role model in front of the class, everything I do teaches teaching to some degree. Moreover, whenever I ask students to dialogue in group work, perform peer editing of papers, or share their research with the class in the form of paper presentation, they are often practicing the work of advising and teaching. I even do this consciously when I ask students to "teach us" an assigned article/chapter in special presentations that involve designing handouts to distribute to the class complete with discussion questions.

Although this chapter is simple in outlining the model, Boyer ends with the scholarship of teaching in a way that really rallies the flag for the act of teaching and casts his bias (in my view) in favor of it. He asserts how much work goes into teaching, and how this work really does constitute scholarship. He writes, "Teaching can be well regarded only as professors are widely read and intellectually engaged. One reason legislators, trustees, and the general public often fail to understadn why ten or twelve hours in the classroom each week can be a heavy load is their lack of awareness of the hard work and the serious study that undergirds good teaching" (23). YES.

Boyer also talks about the problems of evaluating service in this chapter, because he sees "service" as a level of professorial work that often becomes a catch-all for citizenship and "doing good" rather than the application of scholarship in a meaningful, reflective fashion. He calls into question activities like committee work that is unrelated to one's area of study or civic acts like participating in town councils and youth clubs, due to the amorphous definition of service. He asserts that service should be "serious, demanding work, requiring the rigor -- and the accountability -- traditionally associated with research activities" (22). Is representing the college at a food drive really a form of "scholarship of application"? It is when I go with my freshman class, because it supports the issues of social justice that I teach and study... it proves that I can practice what I preach when I preach against social oppression or the politics of everyday life. It isn't scholarship when a person do it just because they believe it's good for the community, or just to have something listed on their vitae.

The scholarship of discovery and integration need little discussion; these are what we all assume college professors do when they engage in "research." Yet I think "integration" gives me a better context for thinking about cultural studies and other interdisciplinary ways of thinking that I've not only practiced but have been taught when I was in graduate school. And it's interesting, too, that cultural studies sometimes calls into question, say, the scientific method or the application of research in instrumental ways (see Adorno and Horkheimer).

But that's moot: the point that Boyer is making is that these two forms of scholarship are not the only ones that should count. And that seems obvious to any scholar who performs this work. This material is useful not only in terms of considering how faculty should be evaluated by the institution, but how faculty should evaluate themselves.

You can ping this entry by using .