Boyer Model

Welcome to the club! Daniel Webster College’s promotion and reappointment system is an explicit application of the Boyer model and has worked very well to broaden the scholarship activities of a very talented faculty.

Michael Fishbein, Provost at Daniel Webster College, at 7:30 am EDT on October 2, 2007

As a proud WCU alumna and fan of Boyer’s work, I am pleased to see this shift. I hope this will diversify the type of scholarship happening at WCU and will encourage more stellar faculty members to hang their hats in Cullowhee, NC.

Rachel, at 8:55 am EDT on October 2, 2007

Boyer’s Work Undermines The University

In my assessment, the only thing that distinguishes a university from other educational institutions (community colleges, K-12, etc.) is the mandate to generate and disseminate new knowledge— research. Boyer’s work undermines the foundation of the university and excuses faculty from this essential role. Excellence in research does not diminish excellence in teaching and service. Universities should demand excellence across the board. Ideally, a professor’s published and in-process research will lead his or her teaching and service efforts.

Richard A. Swanson, Professor at The University of Texas at Tyler, at 9:10 am EDT on October 2, 2007

Dimensions of Scholarship as Model

Nursing’s academic leadership organization, AACN, adopted Boyer’s dimensions of scholarship as the framework for its position statement on scholarship in nursing in 1999. The values and elements of the model are slowly seeping into schools of nursing’s appointment, promotion, and tenure practices, and by extention, influencing univeristy-wide promotion and tenure processs. The operative word is “slowly", and this is probably appropriate, given the tensions between tradition and innovation in the university — between disciplines, and sometimes within disciplines.

Savina Schoenhofer, Professor at Alcorn State University, at 10:00 am EDT on October 2, 2007

I applaud, but. . .

I applaud Western Carolina for this move. However, it assumes that faculty care about their teaching quality and student student learning. That is a pretty big assumption at many large research institutions. Even though I work at one those large research institutions, I am partial to smaller institutions that have the flexibility to adopt meaningful innovative approaches. Go Western Carolina and other institutions for caring about teaching quality and student learning!

Jim, I applaud, but. . ., at 10:00 am EDT on October 2, 2007

Boyer’s model does not detract from the importance and necessity of research. It brings teaching and service to the forefront to show how vital all three are to higher education. The smartest, most well-published professor still needs to understand how to pass his or her knowledge on to others (i.e. teach) else the knowledge will die. Boyer’s model is a bit difficult to implement, but I commend those institutions who have embraced it.

Misty, Student at University of Alabama, at 10:20 am EDT on October 2, 2007

gaming the system

I applaud the transformation of the system of tenuring at West Carolina U. The flexibility called for by Boyer is necessary because too many aspiring for tenure had learned to game the system. The system that puts numbers #1 is much bigger than all higher education, so changing the system is hard. Those doing so I think deserve high praise. I have been talking about the issues of publish and perish all over the world because the unhealthy practices we have used have spread. What about the following for a New Rule? If in the humanities in the US you publish a book before, say, six years you will be denied tenure. We need evidence of a real contribution to scholarship, not makework.

lindsay waters, exec edtior at harvard university press, at 10:55 am EDT on October 2, 2007

New tenure rules

As more universities gain bargaining contracts, the review for tenure tends to broaden. Serving on a university personnel committee, I often pondered how I was to judge research in disciplines where I had little interest, and absolutely no interest, such as molecular biology. Similarly, when I served as the president of a math education organization, I had to write a monthly column for the newsletter. Was it good scholarship? Of course, I thought so, but ???? I once sat in the library at Knox College, and randomly pulled a book off the shelf. It was titled, “Mayan Art in the 15th Century” or something similar. Was it good scholarship. Of course, the author thought so, as did the three others who may have read it, but it was published. I thought the book was important, but some outside the academy probably deem it useless. What they don’t understand is that unless there are those who find joy in delving into such obscure topics, it will be lost to our culture. On the other hand, that should not be the only route to tenure. Yea for those institutions who are recognizing the benefits of expanding the concept of research.

Fred Flener, Retired, at 11:25 am EDT on October 2, 2007

Faculty Quality and Boyer’s Model

Our institution has been using the Boyer model of scholarship for many years. It generates many interesting and sincere discussions in the College Wide Tenure Committee. The proof in its effectiveness is the effect on the quality of the faculty over the years it has been in place. As a member of that tenure committee for two terms, I will submit the improvement has been enormous. And while traditional knowledge creation is not ignored, neither are the other dimensions of scholarship suggested by Boyer. I feel our institution is well served by his model.

Elf, St. Norbert College, at 11:50 am EDT on October 2, 2007

The Easy Path to Tenure

I suppose if you want a system that further expands the chasm between the elite public universities and everyone else, this is it. While the faculty at Western Carolina are developing teaching techniques that are shared with nobody beyond the county line, the professors at UNC-Chapel Hill and NC State will continue to publish their work in top journals and with prestigious university presses. The top students, who have never heard of Ernest Boyer, will continue to flock to the top-ranked schools. The only difference will be that upward mobility, both for institutions and individual faculty members, will be effectively abolished.

Of course, faculty members should be good teachers. Obviously, they should also, where appropriate, serve their community. But there is absolutely no reason that they cannot do both of these things while sharing their research with the profession and subjecting it to the rigorous scrutiny of their peers. There are thousands of productive scholars who also provide first-rate pedagogy and service. They should be our role models.

Publishing one’s research is hard work. I understand that. It is much harder than mastering classroom teaching or community service. (I didn’t say more important; I said harder.) That’s why top-notch researchers, as opposed to gifted teachers, are in such high demand and command such high salaries. It’s that supply and demand thing that our libertarian friends are always going on about.

Call me an elitist if you wish. I prefer to think of it as a preference for rewarding merit in *all* aspects of professional life. In the end, Western Carolina is simply giving its assistant professors a reason not to fulfill their highest potential. That is not progress.

(Quick disclaimer: While I have published my share of scholarship, I am not one of those academic “superstars” to whom I refer above. This is not an argument based on self-interst.)

Unapologetically Tenured, at 12:40 pm EDT on October 2, 2007

Gross Misunderstanding of Technology and Pedagogy

“So, what did this person do that any tech school programmer couldn’t? Nothing.” Besides being arrogantly dismissive of the bright people who program these machines that all of us depend on, that comment shows an ignorance of educational technology—and learning itself! We need only look as far as Blackboard to see a system that was designed by programmers who did not have a rich view of education. Developing tools that support real learning and do not fall back on outdated models of “students as empty buckets” requires understanding of learning theory, motivation, constructivism and much, much more. In general, I think it makes sense to recognize contributions of faculty in a way that encourages them to consider their teaching with the same precision, research, reflection and innovation as they use for their subject area research.

Terry, at 1:10 pm EDT on October 2, 2007

On target Jim and Onlooker

Jose and Onlooker. You betray your views on this issue through the total lack of rigor, thought or reasoning in your arguments against Jim and Jeff. Reading these I can understand why you two (if you are two people) are not in favor of reasearched based tenure.

Or perhaps you simply need to reread the issue: we are talking about campuses, not schoolyards.

Tutor, at 4:40 pm EDT on October 2, 2007

Reconsidering Boyer

The middle two paragraphs of Jeff’s post, in my opinion, are right on.

“If the work fell under Boyer’s category “Scholarship of Application,” which demands a unity of theory and practice, then we have to wonder what theory informed the tenure candidate’s work? It seems that Boyer is being interpreted to mean that certain kinds of practical work count as scholarship for tenure. Work of this kind is done mostly by people outside the university and without benefit of tenure. So, what’s different when the work is done in a university instead of corporate R&D? Nothing.

Scholarship is theory. There is no theory-practice dichotomy, no “good in theory but bad in practice.” If a theory doesn’t work, it’s a bad theory.”

Besides the obvious possibility that the work described in the article was either an effort to develop and test a theory or was an expression of a theory or set of theories, the other thing that I would like to address in Jeff’s comments is his statement that Boyer is wrong — Boyer’s work, as I understand it, doesn’t say that there are four different, separate ways of scholarship — as I understand it, Boyer is saying that scholarship (the “unity") has four dimensions — and that these dimensions all come together in the fullness of scholarship. I have to wonder if Jeff has actually read Boyer’s book on Scholarship Reconsidered? Jeff is definitely not the only person who grabs a superficial understanding of Boyer’s work and posits the straw man of unreflected-upon, non-theory based practice as non-scholarship.

There are others in academe who also function from the superficial understanding of Boyer’s work and the product of that IS lowering standards of scholarship in the university.

Savina Schoenhofer, at 9:45 am EDT on October 4, 2007