Friday, October 28, 2011

Promotion & tenure when the scholarship is interdisciplinary & collaborative

[Announcement from Comm-engagedscholarship listserv]


Dear community-engaged scholarship colleagues,

We thought you'd be interested in this article.  Although not focused on community-engaged scholarship (CES), the points and strategies may be applied to CES.

Thanks,

Rahma Osman
Program Assistant
Community-Campus Partnerships for Health

From: Rick Reis <reis@stanford.edu>
Date: 27 October, 2011 9:06:17 PM EDT
To: tomorrows-professor <tomorrows-professor@lists.stanford.edu>
Subject: TP Msg. #1130 Tenure Across Borders

       The University of Southern California offers an exception to that general
       trend. In recently amending its tenure and promotion guidelines, USC
       became one of the first institutions in the country to provide
       departments and committees with clear and explicit instructions on how to
       weigh interdisciplinary research and collaborative scholarship when
       rewarding faculty.
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Folks:

The posting below looks at a new approach at the University of Southern California to make explicit the requirements for tenure-based interdisciplinary reseaarch. It is by Dan Berrett from the July 22, 2011, issue of INSIDE HIGHER ED, an excellent - and free - online source for news, opinion and jobs for all of higher education.  You can subscribe by going to:
http://insidehighered.com/.  Also for a free daily update from Inside Higher
 Ed, e-mail [scott.jaschik@insidehighered.com]. Copyright ©2011 Inside Higher Ed Reprinted with permission.


Regards,

Rick Reis

Tomorrow's Academic Careers

Tenure Across Borders 

For many full-time faculty members who have not earned tenure, the prospect of conducting interdisciplinary research or collaborating across departments can be, professionally speaking, a risky gambit.

While many colleges and universities say they want their faculty members to do work in these areas -- and they may even make joint appointments across departments or award grants to carry out such research -- institutional support often falters when it comes time to decide tenure and promotion. Faculty members can be daunted at the prospect of negotiating factions not just in their department, but in another one as well. Turf battles and a misunderstanding of what qualifies as interdisciplinary scholarship also can make it difficult for those sitting on committees to accurately render judgment.

The University of Southern California offers an exception to that general trend. In recently amending its tenure and promotion guidelines, USC became one of the first institutions in the country to provide departments and committees with clear and explicit instructions on how to weigh interdisciplinary research and collaborative scholarship when rewarding faculty.

"I actually haven’t seen anything like this before," said Anita Levy, senior program officer of the American Association of University Professors. "I think this is really a model that, with some tweaking, could be emulated by many institutions quite successfully."

In January, USC's University Committee on Appointments, Promotions and Tenure, a group of full professors that advises the president, produced a new manual
(http://bit.ly/vYQO0y) that spells out how tenure and promotion should be determined. Frequent references to the merits of independent scholarship -- the kind of language that leaves many researchers worried not just about interdisciplinary research but about co-authored books or articles -- were made less conspicuous, and a general approach to discipline-spanning scholarship was made more explicit. The university, says the manual, "welcomes interdisciplinary work equally with that within disciplinary cores, including work that crosses from social sciences into the humanities or transcends the home department."

In order to adequately evaluate interdisciplinary and collaborative work, the manual advises a candidate's tenure or promotion committee, which is based in the home department, to include one or more members from relevant outside departments. These colleagues should be consulted on the selection of referees from the other disciplines; those who share the candidate’s interdisciplinary focus should be chosen as well. Candidates are also reviewed by committees at the school and university levels.

The manual also assigns a candidate's committee with the responsibility of appropriately judging publications that are outside the core discipline, of recognizing interdisciplinary graduate teaching and of crediting faculty who advise graduate students outside the home department. "The committees should make special effort to understand other disciplines’ customs on co-authorship, sequence of authors, and use of conferences, journals or monographs as premier outlets," the manual reads.

Departments and schools should take note when a candidate’s scholarship spans disciplinary or school boundaries, the manual continues, or when it makes a link between fundamental and applied research, or focuses strongly on problems of social importance. "It is essential to strive to evaluate such work properly when it differs from the usual expectations of the home department or discipline," the manual states.

The manual also furnishes guidance to departmental committees that judge collaborative work. A few of a tenure or promotion candidate's co-authors on collaborative work should be invited to be referees (in addition to five or six referees who are not co-authors) to testify to the contribution of the candidate. The manual also instructs departmental committees to bear in mind tenure criteria outlined by the National Institutes of Health which are designed to encourage and reward team science. These criteria include identifying the distinct intellectual contribution a scholar has made to the work of a multidisciplinary team, such as independent publication or the presentation of findings at conferences.

While Levy of the AAUP largely hailed the new guidelines at USC, her praise came with some minor caveats. She said the association would like to see more clarity regarding how long the probationary period should last for pre-tenure professors doing interdisciplinary work, and a more explicit placement of tenure for these faculty in the university itself, not their departments or schools.

USC wants to better support interdisciplinary scholarship largely because it serves a competitive advantage, said Randolph Hall, vice president of research.
Research institutions and laboratories tend to be more adept at embracing interdisciplinary approaches, he said, and at bringing people from diverse fields together. "We're not always innovative in how we do research," said Hall, referring to universities in general.

Changing the systems and structures that are in place, such as the tenure and promotion guidelines that drive many faculty members' behavior, was one step.
Another was to shift the larger university culture. It is a slow-moving process, Hall acknowledged, but one he hopes will start to take root within about five years. To start that process, the university has held six workshops on collaboration and creativity at the Norman Lear Center of the Annenberg School for nearly 60 faculty members from 13 schools and 30 disciplines, along with experts on collaborative research (http://bit.ly/tRjA1i)

USC also created a fund to support interdisciplinary and collaborative projects. The projects, which are selected by a faculty committee, must demonstrate significant interest from scholars in diverse fields, and its principal investigators must reapply for renewal each year -- $30,000 each year for three years. The idea of the grants, said Hall, is to provide seed money and a bit of buzz on campus. “We want to show that collaboration matters,” he said.

Most of the awards USC has granted in 2010 and 2011 have been to scholars in the physical and biological sciences and engineering, who, generally speaking, tend to be more accustomed to adopting a collaborative approach. For example, faculty in USC's engineering and pharmacy programs and its medical school are undertaking a project that combines technology and pediatrics; faculty in the schools of medicine, gerontology and dentistry are starting an initiative to repair neurodegenerative disorders. A computer scientist has joined forces with a psychologist to marry game theory and the study of human behavior. Similar melding of disciplines by the same computer scientist, Milind Tambe of the engineering, computer science and industrial and systems engineering departments, has resulted in funding from the U.S. Department of Defense's Multidisciplinary Research Initiative program.

With government agencies rewarding scholars for interdisciplinary work, it is perhaps not surprising that many universities do so, too. The University of Pennsylvania views such scholarship as not only legitimate, said President Amy Gutmann, but as "one of the university's very highest priorities." Since 2005, Penn has installed in joint appointments 12 faculty members whose research and teaching are interdisciplinary in nature. Even though Penn's tenure and promotion guidelines don't deal as explicitly with collaboration and interdisciplinary research as those of USC, Penn's investment in new faculty lines has had what Gutmann called a strong multiplier effect: it created a clearer path to joint appointments between schools and departments, as reflected in a new Integrated Studies Program and in medical research centers that have been organized into disease-based teams. Since 2006, Penn's provost’s office also has been awarding $6,000 grants to about a half-dozen interdisciplinary projects each year.

Still, Hall argued that the scale and systematic nature of USC's new approach to interdisciplinary and collaborative work were of a different order. “I can’t think of a university that has embraced it as much as we have,” he said.

— Dan Berrett
© Copyright 2011 Inside Higher Ed

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New Webinar - Inquiry into Service Learning: From Learning Outcomes to Dissemination

[Announcement from he-sl listserv]


Another great webinar sponsored by California Campus Compact, Iowa Campus Compact, Kansas Campus Compact and Minnesota Campus Compact!


Inquiry into Service Learning: From Learning Outcomes to Dissemination
Friday, November 4, 2011
2:00pm – 3:30pm Eastern / 1:00pm – 2:30pm Central / 11:00am – 12:30pm Pacific

Service learning has the potential to change the world.  Inquiry into our own service learning practice has the potential to change our teaching, our students’ learning, and scholarship in the academic disciplines and service learning itself.

In this webinar, learn how to ask good questions about your practice and your students’ learning that get at the big ideas and goals of your community-based work.  Develop your capacity to embed assessment that is ongoing, actively engages students, and provides documentation for future reflection.  Gain practical strategies for systematic and critical reflection on your success and failures.  And finally, learn how to share your new knowledge from inquiry in publications and other scholarly products to advance the field.  This webinar is appropriate for faculty who engage in service-learning or community based learning, or plan to engage in these pedagogies, and for staff and administrators who work with faculty.

Presenters:
David M. Donahue, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Education, Mills College, Oakland, California, works with teacher credential students preparing to teach art, English, and history in secondary schools and with graduate students investigating teaching and learning with a focus on equity in urban contexts.  His research interests include teacher learning generally and learning from the arts and service-learning specifically.  Most recently, he is co-editor of the book Artful Teaching:  Integrating the Arts for Understanding Across the Curriculum published in 2010 by Teachers College PressHe is also co-editor Democratic Dilemmas of Teaching Service Learning:  Curricular Strategies for Success published by Stylus in 2011.  In 2008, he was selected by Campus Compact as one of 10 Engaged Scholars for New Perspectives in Higher Education.

Jennifer M. Pigza is the chair of the graduate program in leadership for social justice and the associate director of the Catholic Institute for Lasallian Social Action at Saint Mary’s College of California. Jennifer has been invested in engaged pedagogy and social justice education for nearly 20 years, beginning with four years of non-profit work through the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. Her latest professional joys include the development of a new graduate program and co-teaching a course to Rwanda this January. Jennifer holds a bachelors degree in English literature (Loyola University Maryland) and a masters of education degree in higher education and student affairs administration (University of Vermont), and a doctorate in the social foundations of education (University of Maryland).


REGISTRATION DETAILS:
These webinars are part of an ongoing professional development series sponsored by California Campus Compact, Iowa Campus Compact, Kansas Campus Compact and Minnesota Campus Compact.  Faculty, staff, students, and other affiliated individuals at member institutions of the Compacts in these states qualify for half-price, discounted ticket rate; as do individuals from campuses that belong to Campus Compact, but are not members of a state compact.

Registrants will receive a confirmation email with log-in information for the webinar.

The regular registration fee is $60.00 per login
The discounted registration fee is $30.00 per login

Multiple people may participate in the webinar under one registration as long as they are using one computer.  While the registration fee is non-refundable, all registrants will have access to the webinar slides and materials.

For more information, contact John Hamerlinck at john@mncampuscompact.org or 320-308-4271.


And don’t forget these other upcoming webinars!


Using the Community Capitals Framework to Understand and Measure Community Impact
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
3:00pm – 4:00pm Eastern / 2:00pm – 3:00pm Central / 12:00pm – 2:00pm Pacific
Register at http://communitycapitals.eventbrite.com


Supporting Rural Economic Vitality through Campus-Community Partnerships
Thursday, October 27, 2011
3:00pm – 4:30pm Eastern / 2:00pm – 3:30pm Central / 12:00pm – 2:30pm Pacific


Service-Learning in Online Courses: Practical Considerations and Strategies
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
3:00pm – 4:30pm Eastern / 2:00pm – 3:30pm Central / 12:00pm – 2:30pm Pacific
Register at http://onlineservicelearning.eventbrite.com

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Call for Proposals: College English Association (CEA) 2012 Conference--special topic on Service-Learning in English Courses

[Announcement from he-sl listserv]


One of the topics of special interest to the CEA’s 2012 Conference is “Service Learning in English Courses: Composition and Literature.” Specific information about this topic can be found at the bottom of this call for proposals.  

College English Association (CEA) 2012 | BORDERS
43rd Annual Conference | March 29 - 31, 2012 | Richmond, VA
Submission deadline: November 1, 2011
Conference Website:

“Life is a petty thing unless it is moved by the indomitable urge to extend its boundaries.”
— Jose Ortega y Gasset
_______
Borders, boundaries, margins—what lines provide the perimeters to our profession? What demarcations continue to separate and define English studies in the second decade of the new millennium? When is “crossing a line” a desirable professional/pedagogical stance? How have scholarly fields evolved, dissolved, merged or consolidated in areas that we have traditionally viewed as distinct? Exactly where and how is English expanding and extending its borders?

Featured Speakers
The conference's plenary session will feature noted essayist Scott Russell Sanders, while the All-Conference Luncheon will be addressed by former United States Poet Laureate Rita Dove.

Call for Proposals
For our 2012 meeting, CEA invites papers and panels that explore the pedagogical and professional implications of borders.
We welcome presentations by experienced academics and graduate students on all areas of literature, languages, film, composition, pedagogy, creative writing, and professional writing. Proposals may interpret the CEA theme broadly, including – but not limited to – the following areas:
· Borders as demarcations: literature as reflective of cultures, regions, tribes, groups
· Borders and disciplines: cross-disciplinary studies; writing across the curriculum, etc.
· Borders as textual identifiers: genre divisions, breaches
· Borders of the page: design, paratexts, marginalia, illumination
· Borders in rhetoric: constructs of discourse, rhetorical models, collaboration
· Borders of the major: curriculum design; requirements v. electives; outcomes; assessments
· Borders in the academy: full-time/part-time; tenured/non-tenured; state/private
· Borders in the classroom: teacher and student; innovation and tradition; service-learning
· Borders and centers: canons, themes, models, templates
· Borders of the new and old: script to print; paper to digital
· Borders as change: activism, advocacy, healing, mentoring
· Borders and identity: class, gender, culture
· Borders, edges, and peripheries: inside/outside, edges/centers, transitions
· Borders: local, regional, international; migration and refugees; peace
· Borders and frontiers: borderlands, border culture, la frontera, transnational
· Borders of communication: intercultural communication, translation, mediation
· Borders as exclusionary; borders as inclusionary

General Program
In addition to our conference theme, we also encourage a variety of proposals in any of the areas English and writing departments encom­pass, including:
book history and textual criticism | composition and rhetoric | comparative litera­ture | computers and writing | creative writing | critical pedagogy | cultural studies |
film studies | developmental education | English as a second language | linguistics |
literary studies | literary theory | multicultural literature | online courses and the virtual university | pedagogy | popular culture | race, class, and gender studies | reading and writing across the curriculum | student placement | study skills | teacher education | technical communication.

We also welcome papers on those areas that influence our lives as academics: student demographics; student/instructor accountability and assessment; student advising; chairing the department; the place of the English department in the university overall; etc.

Special Topics Include:
Service Learning in English Courses: Composition and Literature
500-word proposals for 15-minute papers/presentations on the use of service learning in composition or literature courses. Papers should address issues like the following: Determining whether service learning projects—and what kinds—are appropriate to course material; matching key components of one’s course with appropriate service learning projects; establishing relations with off-campus service learning entities; framing project assignments that enhance service learning while maintaining course content integrity; developing an assessment model to measure outcomes. How many different service learning projects within a course? How long should such projects be? Level of difficulty? Challenges, risks, rewards? The presentation should be integrated with relevant service learning research to support experimental models and conclusions.

Metacognition, Active Learning, & Supportive Technology in the Literature or Composition Classroom
500-word proposals for 15-minute papers/presentations on the use of metacognition strategies in the context of active learning & appropriate technological support in teaching literature or composition in classroom settings. Metacognition encompasses “learning how we learn” activities and techniques. Active learning presumes learner-based instruction, and may include problem-based learning, inquiry-based learning, collaborative learning, or other forms of active learning, including the use of technology—PowerPoint, SmartBoards, clickers, the Internet (e.g., YouTube, Facebook, other learning sites/styles).

The form(s) discussed can be new in themselves or a novel use of an older modality, particularly regarding the effectiveness of such a scheme as tested with success in the classroom, perhaps accompanied by cautionary tales of what worked less well. Close attention to how to frame such metacognitive, active learning &/or IT models for effective use to ensure student participation is welcomed. Finally, attention to the literature on the subject to show the relation of what you are doing to what has been done, including theoretical concerns, remains an important consideration.

Submitters should contact Scott Borders, the Program Chair and 1st VP of CEA <sbborders@anderson.edu> with any questions. 
Proposals should be submitted by November 1, 2011.  Notification of acceptance to submitters would be made after Dec. 5, 2011.

Please note: only one proposal per conference participant may be submitted.
To submit a proposal, please log in to http://www.conftool.pro/cea2012/



Ellen Oman
Service Learning Coordinator
Hilbert College
5200 South Park Ave.
Hamburg, NY 14075
(716) 649-7900 x 356

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Accelerating Social Entrepreneurship Conference

[Announcement from he-sl listserv]

Join The Phoenix Project, a Learn and Serve America grantee located in the George Mason Center for Social Entrepreneurship, for the 4th installment of the acclaimed Accelerating Social Entrepreneurship (ASE) conference series: Accelerating Social Entrepreneurship in the Age of Austerity, to be held on November 10, 2011 on George Mason University’s Arlington, Virginia campus.

This year’s theme tackles how governments, nonprofit and private organizations, educators, and students are applying innovative, sustainable, and scalable solutions to society’s greatest challenges in an age of limited resources but flush with opportunity. The current speaker line-up is shaping up to be unlike any social entrepreneurship conference in the national capital region to date. Speakers include:

•  Senator Mark Warner
•  Mario Morino, Founder
•  Diana Wells, President of Ashoka
•  Paul Carttar, Director of the Social Innovation Fund
•  Bill Shore, Founder of Share Our Strength
...and many more! 

The first 25 people who register will be offered a special discounted rate. You will receive the early bird registration rate for the entire registration process and not charged for the full admission price. To learn more, or to register visit http://masoninnovation.org/ase/. To receive the discount enter CNCS (all caps) when prompted for a "coupon code" at checkout.

Elson B. Nash
Acting Director of Strategic Partnerships
The Corporation for National and Community Service
202-606-6834

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

NSIP Inclusion Weekly National Service for Youth in Transition

[Announcement from he-sl listserv]

The National Service to Employment Project (NextSTEP) has been identifying strategies that help youth with disabilities to use their service experience during the school-to-work transition. National service can support young adults, including those with disabilities, to gain skills, explore careers, and develop networks that can lead to meaningful employment.

As part of a research initiative of the NextSTEP project, national service opportunities have been found to contribute to employment skill building for youth with disabilities*. For example, AmeriCorps staff, teachers, and students reported that participation in community service gave the students the opportunity to:

-              Practice interpersonal skill-building with adults, peers, and service recipients.

-              Learn appropriate workplace behavior such as time management.

-              Build confidence and introspection about work-related capabilities.

-              Work collaboratively, participating in group problem-solving and project implementation.

-              Shape interests and an understanding of how they might be used for work.

-              View themselves as providers of solutions to a community need.

National service, therefore, not only builds community but also represents a community-based, real world opportunity for transition age youth with disabilities to build employment skills. It also represents an employment development strategy worthy of adding to the current menu of transition practices used by school-based staff and employment support professionals, such as those from state Departments of Vocational Rehabilitation (VR).

For more information on career development and employment skill-building transition strategy for young adults, please http://www.communityinclusion.org/schooldays/.

Yours in Service,

Jaimie Timmons

* Timmons, J. (2011). [Project impact: Building character, building career, and building community]. Unpublished raw data.

Early Bird Registration is only $125 per participant now until November 4th, 2011. Registration is available at: www.serviceandinclusion.org/symp2011
December 8-9, 2011-Crystal City, Virginia Symposium on Service and Inclusion Improving Member Experience through Intentional Strategies

The National Service to Employment Project (NextSTEP) promotes service as a way to contribute to the community, gain valuable skills, explore career paths, and develop social networks that can lead to meaningful employment. NextSTEP is funded by the Corporation for National and Community Service (Cooperative agreement #09TAHMA001) and is a project of the Institute for Community Inclusion at UMass Boston in partnership with the State Employment Leadership Network of the National Association of State Directors of Developmental Disabilities Services and the ICI; and the US Business Leadership Network.

The National Service Inclusion Project is a cooperative agreement (08TAHMA001) between the Corporation for National and Community Service and the Institute for Community Inclusion at UMass Boston in collaboration with the Association of University Centers on Disabilities, the Association on Higher Education and Disability, CTAT Denver Options and Virtual Ability. The content contained does not imply endorsement from the Corporation for National and Community Service, the National Service Inclusion Project or any of our partner agencies. The National Service Inclusion Project (NSIP) is a Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) training and technical assistance provider. Through comprehensive training, technical assistance, and product dissemination, NSIP strives to ensure meaningful service experiences for all Americans, regardless of their abilities. Most services are free of charge. The content contained does not imply endorsement from the Corporation for National and Community Service, the National Service Inclusion Project or any of our partner agencies.