Scholarship

Last week, a group of faculty met to discuss professional development. It was interesting to watch the conversation unfold -- as it did, it was clear that the faculty were making a distinction between professional development (examples of which might include attending conferences, teaching workshops, and the like) and scholarship (which implies some research project or creative activity with an original end product). At Baker, professional development is a required chunk of the duties we are evaluated on; scholarship is viewed as a subset of professional development. At Baker, that ordering implies that you can't get tenure/promotion without professional development, but that it is possible to do so without any scholarship.

Keeping in mind that this is my opinion only, I think this is unfortunate. One reason that it is unfortunate is that it is through the process of scholarship--of taking a problem and really wrestling with it--that we deepen our understanding of our field. Anyone who has ever written a term paper knows that it is one thing to read about a topic, but another thing entirely to write about it. The writing process helps us clarify and organize our thoughts in ways that reading, and even deep thinking, cannot.  If you'll forgive me quoting a bit of economics jargon, Dierdre McClosky sums this up: "Economically speaking, the production function for thinking cannot be written as the sum of two sub-functions, one producing 'results' and the other 'writing them up.'The function is not separable. You do not learn the details of an argument until writing it in detail, and in writing the details you uncover flaws in the fundamentals." The same, of course, holds true for creative activity--it's one thing to look at, and even critically evaluate, a piece of art; it's another thing entirely to create artwork of your own.

A second, and not inconsequential, reason that I believe a faculty should be engaged in scholarship is that it brings recognition to the university. As a university, we want people to know who we are and what we do. We want them to see that we're an engaged and active faculty. We want them to think, "These people at Baker are doing interesting things. When my kid is ready to go to college, I want him to think about going there."

But the most important reason for faculty to engage in scholarship is the simplest. As an institution, we routinely ask our students to research, write, and create. We laud the virtues of becoming lifelong learners. Our gen-ed program is based on a foundation of inquiry-based learning, in which students ask interesting questions, figure out what tools they'll need to answer those questions, and then actually work toward finding an answer and sharing it with others. If we, as a faculty, are going to ask our students to do these things, shouldn't we be doing them ourselves? Shouldn't we be modeling lifelong learning? Won't engaging in our own scholarship help us teach that process to our students? Won't we understand our students' struggles better if we routinely face the same struggles ourselves? Economist and mathematician Steven Landsburg summarizes these ideas for his daughter in his book, Fair Play: "When choosing a college, try this thought experiment: Imagine that you've walked into a living room where a small circle of people is talking animatedly and excitedly while several others sit quietly on the sidelines. If you wanted to know what the conversation was about, who would you prefer to ask? If you think the participants would give you a more accurate and enticing answer than the observers, then you should go to a university where you're going to be taught by active researchers."

I think the Baker faculty are wonderful. I think they accomplish a lot with limited resources. I would be happy to send my own kid here. But I think the fact that scholarship is not a required element of our work does our faculty a disservice. I don't want new faculty to be relieved that research and scholarship aren't required at Baker. I don't think we should hire the type of person who is relieved that scholarship is not required. I want Baker to be a place were faculty are challenged to develop their intellects, just as we challenge our students to develop theirs. And I want Baker to be a place where scholarship is both encouraged and supported.