Summary: Moving from a teaching to a scholarship culture. Be careful!! This one's worth all of your attention and , if necessary, a fight.
Liz Lawley has the following to say:
Mama Musings: reputation and scholarship. RIT is in the process of a major shift in institutional culture, moving towards a stronger emphasis on scholarship rather than a nearly exclusive focus on teaching. While scholarship has always been mentioned in our tenure policies (see #3), the reality has been that it was the least critical piece. We have full professors in this department who have never published a peer-reviewed article or book, and associate professors who would be hard-pressed to tell you the name of an academic journal or conference in their field of study. The primary criteria for tenure and promotion have traditionally been teaching...
In my experience, moving from a teaching culture to a scholarship culture is a huge shift and can have devastating consequences. I would argue that
Further, retroactive imposition of scholarly criteria upon those recruited, rewarded etc. under the "teaching excellence" set of criteria is fraught with moral and personal hazard. Particularly if, in the "teaching culture", teaching excellence criteria were the usual:poorly defined, inconsistently applied and highly colored by intangible within-house culture.
Don't let a powerful Board of Governors or a blithe and articulate Provost schlep this into overnight existence. Instead, insist on fully involved stakeholder planning of a carefully designed, phased changeover; focus on significant support (e.g, faculty development monies,course release time, travel and post-grad internships at institutions that have successfully made the changeover) accompanied by progressive phases of transitional standards for assessing quality of research [and teaching] activities.
Since (a)this changeover has been chosen by other than the faculty, certainly not by each and every faculty member, and since, up to this point, (b)good faith and good quality of exercise of academic responsibilities can be presumed on the part of those who have received tenure and promotions, it seems not only useful (teaching is still what educates students) but right and fair that Grandfather/Grandmother clauses are constructed which enable the creation and population of a respectable niche for those who are excellent teachers yet who will not/cannot make the new transition.
Clearly, there should be some rigorous standards that can be applied to this niche, too. In this niche they would be applied to teaching. As an example: each member of this [teaching only] niche will demonstrate adherence to a well defined set of criteria for teaching excellence. If this means more accountability for quality teaching (because prior standards and practices were loose) so be it! There is no administrative bad faith demonstrated by being more effective at measuring and supporting values that were always part of each faculty member's contractual obligations and expectations.
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