Leadership 104: the Teacher-Scholar Culture

摘要

The Carnegie Classification of colleges and universities presents a natural divide between those that are "teaching" focused and those that are "research" focused, with shades of gray sprinkled in between. This divide provides the basis for commentary such as, "we are a teaching school" or, "we are a research university" with no implied ties to the other function: scholarship or teaching. The teacher-scholar model is one implied in Boyer's book Scholarship Reconsidered where scholarship is divided into four discrete types with the "scholarship of teaching" set forth as an acceptable form of scholarly enterprise. The model is further described as a method whereby scholarship informs teaching, currency informs teaching, and pedagogy is developed or improved and turned into scholarship so that new pedagogy is available to other educators. Building a culture where "teaching faculty" accept the notion that scholarship is an important element in their role as a faculty member is one focus of this paper. Of equal importance is a culture where "research faculty" accept the notion that good teaching is an important element in their role as a faculty member is the second focus of this paper. Together these roles form the teacher-scholar as a necessary condition of the culture of the college or university. Formation of teacher-scholars is the responsibility of the leadership within universities and will be briefly discussed since without leadership, the teacher or scholar divide can become the preferential culture. It is common practice to accuse the "research" focused universities with forsaking teaching but it is just as easy for the "teaching" focused colleges and universities to forsake scholarship. A look at the necessary steps to achieve the teacher-scholar culture will compare the extremes perpetuated by the Carnegie Classification of colleges and universities.