Scholarship Reconsidered

Earnest L. Boyer. Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1990. 147 pp. $8.00.

If you ever searched for the words to explain scholarship in Extension, I've just the book for you. Boyer's thoughtful and thought-provoking report, Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate is based on the results of a 1989 survey of faculty across the nation sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Boyer says we must "...break out of the tired old teaching versus research debate and define, in more creative ways, what it means to be a scholar" (p. xii). I see in Boyer's report a major catalyst for our ongoing attempt to make Extension a more understandable and desirable venue for academic toil.

Perceptions are reality. We all know colleagues who can spot a "real academic" with only a glance at the first entry on the vita. These terminally arrogant academics are beyond our help. However, many unjaded and reflective toilers in the vineyards of academe remain subject to reason. Boyer finds many of our colleagues are dissatisfied with their professional life and the definition of scholarship they confront.

He provides an explanation for much of this dissatisfaction and gives us new arrows for our intellectual quiver. He calls for broadening the conventional definition of scholarship beyond basic research. He reviews the history of the American university in structure and function and finds the foundations for teaching, service, and research. Boyer traces an evolution in focus from building character through teaching to reshaping society through service and most recently to the academy's growing commitment to basic research. He concludes that much of American higher education "...moved from an emphasis on the student to an emphasis on the professoriate, from emphasis on generalized education to specialized education, and from loyalty to the campus to loyalty to the profession" (p. 13).

Boyer says a new vision of scholarship is required to assure relevance of America's colleges and universities to the realities of contemporary life. He describes four types of scholarship recognizing the diversity of contributions today's faculty can make, "...the scholarship of discovery; the scholarship of integration; the scholarship of application; and the scholarship of teaching" (p. 16).

Each of these is relevant to those working in Extension. Boyer may have given us the most insight by outlining the scholarship of integration and application. The scholarship of integration is "...making connections across the disciplines, placing the specialties in a larger context, illuminating data in a revealing way, often educating nonspecialists, too." He goes on "...we mean serious, disciplined work that seeks to interpret, draw together, and bring new insight to bear on original research" (pp. 18-19). The best educators working in an Extension context are continually involved in the scholarship of integration. Extension virtually requires the ability to bring together the results of several areas of research to define meaning and insight. Most of Extension education requires ideas and research results from several disciplines.

Extension is also an excellent environment for the scholarship of application. Application, according to Boyer, involves the following sorts of questions. " 'How can knowledge be responsibly applied to consequential problems? How can it be helpful to individuals as well as institutions?' " and further " 'Can social problems themselves define an agenda for scholarly investigation?' " He goes on "...the term itself may be misleading if it suggests that knowledge is first 'discovered' and then 'applied.' The process we have in mind is far more dynamic. New intellectual understandings can arise out of the very act of application" (p. 23).This comes as no surprise to those working in Extension. It's precisely the richness of understanding from application of ideas to real problems that attracts us to work in Extension. Our colleagues find joy in the scholarship of discovery and we find satisfaction in the insight from application.

I found myself cheering as I read: "Now is the time, we conclude, to build bridges across the disciplines, and connect the campus to the larger world. Society has a stake in how scholarship is defined" (p. 57). We have a major challenge to show our role in institutions that recognize all the elements of scholarship. This is difficult terrain that requires more than "moaning" about the current system. In too many instances, our Extension response has been to develop our sense of community by isolating ourselves. If we're to help realize a broad vision of scholarship across the university, we'll need to be at the center of the debate.

We have the opportunity and the obligation to help our academic colleagues understand that the unusual organizational structure called Cooperative Extension provides an environment that's especially rich in opportunities for scholarship. Boyer's small report is must reading for all of us. It's the best $8.00 addition you'll make to your library this year.