Where Is Extension Scholarship Falling Short, and What Can We Do About It?

Introduction

I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in this seminar on the scholarship of Extension. Scholarship is about creating, synthesizing, and applying knowledge to address the issues important in our world. Scholarship is also about respecting and learning from the knowledge and wisdom of others, our colleagues and the citizens with whom we work. Extension educators are full and essential players in the scholarly process of knowledge creation, synthesis, and application.

The Question

The question I address is "where is Extension or outreach scholarship falling short, and what can we do about it?"

Perspectives

This question is one that I have faced daily throughout my 33 years in higher education--as a graduate student; faculty member with research, resident teaching, and Extension responsibilities; regional director for Extension; academic department head; dean of a major college of agricultural sciences; and director of cooperative Extension and associate vice president for outreach. My perspectives on this matter are grounded in my experiences and reflections during those years, and while they are cast as generalizations, I realize that there are personal and institutional idiosyncrasies associated with each one.

Challenges

I see six key challenges for Extension or outreach scholarship, which reflect where current scholarship is falling short. These challenges are:

1. Achieving a scholarly mentality;
2. Broadening our view of scholarship as philosophy and concept;
3. Understanding the scholarship of engagement;
4. Conducting research on the scholarship of engagement;
5. Developing and implementing action proposals for change, and
6. Developing tools to assess and document outreach scholarship.

Achieving a Scholarly Mentality

Every Extension educator must think of himself or herself as a scholar. We need a stronger sense of our individual and collective selves as scholars, and we need to view our work as a form of scholarship. We must be sure the work we do is grounded in current and emerging knowledge in disciplines relevant to the issues we are addressing as well as new developments in the field of education. We need a stronger drive to continuously reinvest in and renew our personal disciplinary expertise and scholarship.

Broadening Our View of Scholarship

We need to establish a more generally accepted, widely held philosophy and concept of scholarship in Extension and in our universities. This requires a philosophy and concept that fully embrace and clearly define the scholarship of engagement and how it is related to scholarship more generally. Changing our own and our universities' culture of scholarship is the key, instrumental challenge facing Extension and outreach scholars.

Understanding the Scholarship of Engagement

At the same time, we need to develop a deeper, richer, more widely held understanding of the scholarship of engagement. Such understanding involves gaining deeper insights about the craft and practice of Extension or outreach scholarship and how certain scholars come to do their work the way they do.

We need better understanding of the barriers, obvious and subtle, to outreach scholarship, and we need better understanding of the institutional platforms, both within the academy and in communities, that make effective outreach scholarship possible. The academic and civic value-added of outreach scholarship must be assessed, documented, and communicated to people within and external to the university. And finally, we must better understand the politics of engagement and its impact on the practice and effectiveness of Extension or outreach scholarship.

Conducting Research on the Scholarship of Engagement

We need much more research on the scholarship of engagement. We need concerted, systematic scholarly initiatives with such a focus. This work should be empirical, historical, critically reflective, futuristic, and action-oriented. Above all, it should result in proposals for institutional change in our universities. This work has opportunity to reflect the scholarship of discovery, integration, application, and education. Currently, there is notable dearth of such scholarship.

Action Proposals for Change

We need action proposals for changing the culture of scholarship in our universities, and we need to vigorously pursue implementation and institutionalization of these proposals. Important topics for these action proposals include:

• Promotion and tenure policy,
• Graduate education reform,
• Faculty and Extension educator professional development,
• Scholarly expectations created by our disciplinary professional associations, and
• Needed institutional leadership and structural adjustments.

Assessing and Documenting Outreach Scholarship

Assessing and documenting outreach scholarship is an issue, but it is not, to my mind, as problematic as many think. Actual assessment and documentation of outreach scholarship is not the "mystery" that some suggest. Scholarly expectations are clear:

• Excellence,
• Sound disciplinary and research grounding,
• Peer review and critique,
• Communicating to peers through scholarly journals and other outlets not only about what we do but how and why we do it,
• Positively affecting the learning and behavior of students,
• Peer and citation recognition of one's work,
• Acquisition of financial and other resources for outreach initiatives,
• Scientific advances in our disciplines and their application in society (academic and civic value-added), and
• Organizational citizenship.

This issue is problematic to the extent that others think it is problematic. There are many models and examples of how to assess and document Extension or outreach scholarship. We need to do a better job of cataloging these models and examples, and sharing them broadly within our universities.

Addressing the Challenges

Part of the question posed is how to address the challenges facing Extension or outreach scholarship. I see three fundamental responses:

• Action,
• Leadership, and
• Graduate education reform.

Action

Action--urgent, concerted action--on these and related challenges is needed. We must "ratchet up" our discussion and action, and resist the temptation to become complacent. Moving the outreach scholarship agenda forward may require that we set aside some of our current, usual work.

Leadership

Strong, vigorous, persuasive, visionary leadership is essential to create sustainable institutional change. Within and across their spheres of influence, faculty and Extension educators; academic department heads and Extension regional directors; presidents, provosts, vice presidents, and deans; stakeholders; and students must provide leadership for the civic mission and institutional change within our universities.

Graduate Education Reform

The graduate education experience is the most important socializing experience for faculty, academic administration leaders, and field-based Extension educators associated with our universities. This experience is key in establishing perspectives on the university and its role in society, including what is appropriate, acceptable scholarship.

In my view, if we hope to institutionalize outreach or Extension scholarship as an integral part of our university culture of scholarship, we must initiate fundamental reforms in graduate education. Above all, we must meaningfully incorporate the craft and scholarship of Extension, outreach, and engagement in the graduate education curriculum and experience.

Conclusion

In my judgment, few if any issues are more important to the future of Extension than the issue of scholarship. It is essential that Extension educators strengthen their scholarship and scholarly practice if Extension is to continue as a viable provider of research-based, non-formal education in the twenty-first century.