A Balance of Study and Teaching in Tenure and Promotion Cases
The enhanced role of teaching at majorresearchuniversities suchas Harvard and Stanford has sparked renewed interest and debate, but most of the academy would speculate that research and publication will continue to be a significant, if not major, requirement for tenure and promotionat most institutions. Page Smith, former provost of the University of California, Santa Cruz, suggested that the “publish or perish canon that so distorts the educational mission of the great universities” is alive and well (1991, p. 19). Indeed, it is apparent that the emphasis on publication has increased in the recent history of higher education. Arizona State University President Lattie Coor, when proposing the establishment of a major commission to explore the role of teaching at his institution, stated: “There is no question that the scholarly activity of a faculty member has assumed a greater place in university life over the past 20 to 30 years” (1990, p. 1). Still, recent stirrings suggest that institutions may be placing more importance on teaching. Ernest L. Boyer, for example, has argued eloquently for an expanded definition of scholarship that would include not only the discovery of knowledge (original research), but also the integration and application of knowledge with teaching (Boyer, 1991). It is not easy for the average university faculty member to meet tenure and promotion requirements, but it can be particularly difficult and occasionally frustrating for those who are in professional units such as journalism and mass communication. Faculty members in these departments often are involved in “creative activities” such as producing radio and television programs, writing newspaper and magazine articles, publishing textbooks and popular books, and engaging in media consulting. When submitted to university committees as tenure criteria, these activities may be considered weak or lacking in scholarly virtues when compared to the more traditional demand for publication of refereed journal articles. As a result, journalism and mass communication fac-
Evaluating Scholarly Book Publishers—A Case Study in the Field of Journalism
Abstract By adapting multiple metrics used for journal article evaluation and replicating recent publisher metrics, the authors tested methods for evaluating scholarly book publishers. Using monographs published in journalism between 2007 and 2011 as a test case, results indicate that these methods may be useful to other scholarly disciplines.
The New ‘U’
Today's talk about tenure must be framed within broader discussions about the role of the university. Our university system is now over one hundred years old, the “Old-Time College” is gone, the “cold war” university is no longer viable, and the foundations of the modern “multiversity” are cracking, so it is time to talk about change. But change is not necessarily reform, and resisting change probably will not keep things the way they are, so academics must understand the forces reshaping the university. Whenever I listen to colleagues defend the status quo by saying that the United States has a university system that is the envy of the world, I hear echoes of the Detroit automobile industry's casual dismissal of foreign competitors in the early 1960s. The decision not to change did not preserve the auto industry, and it is unlikely to preserve public universities as we know them. The current debates about tenure began with ideological attacks on “tenured radicals” who used their secure jobs to subvert conservative cultural values. The attack on tenure gathered steam as fiscal hawks in financially-strapped states looked for ways to save money and found huge state university systems with budgets to match. When asked why he robbed banks, the legendary Willie Sutton replied, “Because that's where the money is.” When asked why they are robbing tenure, legislators, regents, and administrators reply, “Because that's where the money is.” Personnel costs are a large share of university budgets and tenure ties the hands of administrators and legislators accustomed to using purse strings to control universities.