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Chapter 3

S€«e&A«SHlP UP blSCOVfiRY: ~ JE ADVANCEMENT OF KNOWLEDGE

1 At the heart of ^ny rnnr-jptWr^ scholarship is the

exhilaration that comes with discovery—the excitement of

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learning something new. All faculty should be scholars because

it is that spark of learning that keeps the academic enterprise

alive. It is that special quality—an unabated curiosity—that

attracts young people to an academic careefîn the first place

and sustains intellectual vitality across life's course.

Thus, the first element i-n thic biuadur cûncefttlon of

scholarship-^lîri a critical piece—is the advancement of

knowledge. On this £ace-te, everyone agrees. Indeed if tjais jr^

effort to expand the view of scholarship wereînterpreted as, in

any way, a denigration of specialized research, we would have

been profoundly misunderstood,

Ihe pursuit of knowledge for its

own sake, needs to be assiduously defended, particularly in a

all too often concerned more with whether something works over

the short term than with whether it is of lasting valued1 We are

also deeply concerned about efforts to move basic research beyond

the campus to government centers or industry. Such a move could

compromise the integrity of this aspect of scholarship and

undermine the intellectual strength of the whole academy.

Scholarship vas-ife is jûêntly defined tends to be framed in

terms of a professor '-a -discoverires—and contjibutions to the

storehouse of human knowledge. Who are the Scholars?- They are

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tfre ones engaging in research on the frontiers of knowledge, the

ones unearthing new ideas. In 1919, in his famous address on

"Science as a Vocation,^Max Weber pointed out that the Western

world had entered into a phase of specialization previously

unknown and he acknowledged that:1^

)nly by strict specialization can the scientific worker become fully conscious, for once and perhaps never again in his lifetime, that he has achieved something that will endure. A really definitive and good accomplishment is today always a specialized accomplishment.

^--Weber goes on to speak of the ecstasy that can be experienced

only on the leading edge of a field. There is no disputing that,

if scholarship is to be sustained in our day, the advancement of

specialized knowledge is^ie^uired. A

Making the case for research in the American university is

not difficult. The evidence is overwhelming and the achievements

speak for themselves If—one- wanted to engage in- the chauvin-rsin—-

implicit in the debatejfraer international loadoFgtrtp^ it would

have to be admitted t h a T e c o n o m i c productivity and even

education, generally, tne United States is falling behind. But,

when research universil/ies and achievements in academic

disciplines are compared, America continues to be the envy of the

world. J

To make the point^ne has to look only at the field of

physics, -the science on which-ail athers~build. A recent survey

conducted by the National Research Council states that: "Until

World War II, physics was predominantly a European activity. By


the war's end the center of physics had moved to the United

States." The survey reviews the advances in everything from

elementary-particle physics to cosmology and concludes: "The

United States has led the world in physics ever since. . . . "

If we take as our measure of accomplishment the number of

Nobel Prizes awarded since 1945, the United States received 56

percent of the prizes in physics, 42 percent of the awards in

chemistry, and 60 percent given in medicine. Prior to the

outbreak of the second world war, American scientists had

received only 18 of the 129 prizes in these three areas of basic

research.

The benefit of open inquiry unfettered by ideological or

immediate pragmatic calculations is most evident in the life of

twentieth century America. Whether one is concerned with the

technological innovations, or even national security, the value

of the unrestrained pursuit of knowledge becomes clear. It is

particularly evident in the history of medicine.

The basic science initiated in the last decade of the

nineteenth century on the role of bacteria and viruses paid off

in a significant way in the late 1930s when it contributed

directly to the development of immunization for diptheria,

tetanus, lobar pneumonia, and other bacterial infections. On the

basis of painstaking research over decades, the taxonomy of

infectious diseases was introduced and penicillin, streptomycin,

and other antibiotics were made possible. In reviewing these

extraordinary medical breakthroughs, Lewis Thomas observes:


We need reminding, now more than ever, that the capacity of medicine to deal with infectious disease was not a lucky fluke, nor was it something that happened simply as the result of the passage of time. It was the direct outcome of many years of hard work, done by imaginative and skilled scientists, none of whom had the faintest idea that penicillin and streptomycin lay somewhere in the decades ahead. It was basic science of a very high order, storing up a great mass of interesting knowledge for its own sake, creating, so to speak, a bank of information, ready for drawing on when the time for intelligent use arrived, (p. 205)

Freedom of inquiry—the opportunity to question critically,

to follow an argument where it leads—is fundamental to the life

of the university and college. There is no tenet in the academi

profession that has endured longer than the commitment to

knowledge for its own sake, to the value of dispassionate reason

to the objective study of nature, society, and the individual.

During the late 1960s, however, something happened to the

legitimacy of the scholarship that had for so long passed as, if

not value-free, certainly "beyond ideology." Dissenting

scholars, exercising their right to question, found the

established scholarship, far from transcending biases, deeply

enmeshed in skewed perspectives rooted in the interests of class

culture, gender, and race. The new scholarship produced by

women, blacks, and representatives of various Third World groups

made the argument/ with special force.

The commitment to scholarship for its own sake must be

sustained, but in a broader, more inclusive context. The

^Lissenting voices must be heard, not excluded or silenced, and

the realities about the relationship of knowledge and power


confronted, not masked over. Only then will our chances of

approximating an unfettered scholarship be possible. George M.

Trevelyan, the Cambridge historian, claimed that "disinterested

intellectual curiosity is the life blood of civilization." The

academy must continue to be a sanctuary for the free pursuit of

-Jeas, but what it means to be "disinterested" faces more

gorous testing in our day and in this society than in his.

Research, further, contributes to teaching and the general

intellectual climate of a college or university by keeping the

process of inquiry alive. It is not just the research products

that are important, but the commitment and struggle to advance

knowledge that can contribute to the intellectual tension and

excitement in the life of an educational institution. All

faculty need to be engaged, in some way, in that process.

Rabindranath Tagore, the Hi poet said it most eloquently:

"A teacher can never truly teach unless he is still learning himself. A lamp can never light another lamp unless it continues to burn its own flame. The teacher who has come to the end of his subject, who has no living traffic with his knowledge but merely repeats his lesson to his students can only load their minds; he cannot quicken them. Truth not only must inform but must inspire. If the inspiration dies out, the and the information only accumulates, then truth loses its infinity." Rabindranath Tagore, Goheen, 1969, pp. 78-79.

It is that inspiration^ the exhilaration fueled not only by

the discovery of new knowledge, but by its quest, that enlivens

faculty and makes for vital colleges and universities. This is a

major reason to honor research and make the advancement of


knowledge a critical element in our broader view of

scholarship.

Practical concerns with the social, technological, and \ \ economic pay-offs resulting from the advancement of knowledge are

important and are most frequently invoked in making the case for

research. The scholarship of discovery has a deeper

significance,-on^ that transcends measurable ends. As William P^a* UwL

en put it: - r w ^ , Bowen put

\

JJt_ reflects our pressing, irrepressible need as human beings to confront the unknown and to seek understanding for its own sake. It is tied inextricably to the freedom to think freshly, to see propositions of every kind in ever-changing light. And it celebrates the special exhilaration that comes from a new idea" (1979, p. 31).

h *0r V ^ ^ ^ ^ A * ^ c/uhtjH- ^ a firming the^rmportanc6 crf the advancement of

knowledge and-supporting faculty research, we are concerned about

the distortions introduced into American higher education by the

prominence of the research function; the inordinate prestige

associated with it, and the narrowness of the specializations, fi- j f ^ ^

The academic revolution, about which Jenks and Riesman wrote,

gave to the research function such dominating significance that 'sfaxi

other scholarly responsibilities have been neglected and what

passes for research has been distended as other components of the

academy seek greater legitimacy through identification with it.

We ̂ re conviTtced—thrat the quality of research itself would be

entranced'Tj^anmoreHrai^TnTedT^^ view of

scholarship.

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The most serious distortion is the epistomological hegemony

that has been created—one way of knowing is seen as not only

dominant, but as the only way. For example, the language used in

reporting research usually assumes the separation of the knower

and the known. We speak of "findings," implying somehow that we

discover the world rather than "cOTt-fetir-ue it. We write and talk in

a voice void of any hint of the personal; it is always "the

author," "the subject," or "the researcher." An important way of

knowing—one that is abstract, reflective, and distancing—is

seen as the only way and as a result even the quality of research

itself suffers.

Of special importance is the disproportionate influence the

research priority is having on faculty evaluation and reward

systems across American higher education. In 1958, Caplow and

McGee in their landmark study of The American Marketplace

reported that faculty are hired as teachers and evaluated as

researchers. This we are concerned about. Particularly

troublesome, however, is the increased emphasis on research that

has emerged recently. Bowen and Schuster, in their national

study of the academic profession found that: "Campus after

campus has been moving aggressively to upgrade this importance of

scholarly productivity as a criterion for academic personnel

decisions . . . ," and they conclude, "the result is a veritable

surge toward research (Schuster and Bowen, 1985, pp. 15-16). The

Carnegie Faculty Surveys of 1984 and 1989 found faculty

confronted with the same increased pressures. Wg^eethis ^issue

as so\ significant we have/chpsen tp^clevote a later chapter to

faculty\#valuation.

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Research efforts that were suppose to be pursued freely, for

the purposes of advancing knowledge, have become means to ends

that have little scholarly connection. The pressure to publish

has become so intense in some institutions that many junior

faculty publish in order to qualify for tenure and promotion, not

because they have something significant to share with their

peers. Work is published prematurely and journals proliferate to

meet an extraneous need.

The national and regional meetings of the disciplinary

associations have been disfigured by misdirected efforts to

enhance the research productivity of faculty. At many colleges

and universities, funds for travel to professional meetings are

made available only to faculty giving research papers. The

national associations have accommodated to this bureaucratic

incentive by expanding presentation opportunities; as a

consequence, research reports are prepared too often, and again,

for the wrong reasons,

The singular focu^ on the research priority becomes

particularly pe^iicious when colleges and universities are

launching campaigns to review their commitments to academic

excellence. Frequently, this comes with the inauguration of a

new president. Excellence, improvement in quality, is defined in

terms of the increased /productivity of faculty, heightened

national visibility—njore research. The focus is on academic

prestige more than educational quality or the advancement of

knowledge. To "emerge" ^s an institution of quality, given the

current priorities/; mean$ emphasizing the research

accomplishments of faculty.


Some of dtrrjnost selective liberal arts colleges are

cultivating the designation "research college" in the hope that

they might better attract the federal research dollar. In the

public sector, there is the assumption that faculty research

productivity will influence budgetary decisions. In a recent

survey of academic deans, Peter Selpin found a dean from one of

the California universities claiming that: "High visibility is

the name of the game today. The state controls the budget, so we

push the faculty to publish, publ/ish, publish." Another dean,

this time from Texas, stated bluntly: "If the faculty doesn't

publish, the college will peris|h" (1989). Again, while advanced

research is a necessary component of scholarship, is the research

agenda being pressed inappropriately and for the reasons more

related to prestige and stati/s then the discovery of new

knowledge?

In our time, the advancement of knowledge takes place

primarily at the hands of highly specialized researchers working

on the narrow frontiers of a field. The discovery of new

knowledge is increasingly cloaked in obscurity, often seen as

esoteric, far removed from broader understanding and connection

with the rest of life. Jacques Barzun is only one of a number

alarmed about what is often referred to as the new scholasticism.

"Since William James, Russell, and Whitehead," Barzun claims,

"philosophy, like history, has been confiscated by scholarships,

and locked away from the contamination of cultural use." Others

complain of the "self-trivialization" of academic specialties

(Barber, 1989).


Much of this criticism can be dismissed as a refusal to

accept the necessity of specialization in an advanced society

when the issues are complex and the methods and language needed

to address them become increasingly sophisticated. Without a

broader conception of scholarship providing for integration and a

sense of the whole, however, intense specialization—as important

as it is—gets cut off, losing its meaning and even its

legitimacy. We are particularly concerned that many of our most

talented young people, ones who at an earlier time would have

been drawn to the challenges of an academic career, are finding

the research ethos uninviting—divisively competitive and

inconsequential. The exhilaration, the excitement, the joy of

surprise that are a part of the discovery of new knowledge are

seldom celebrated. The life of the junior faculty member today

is seen as dreary—not only unrewarded, but worse, unrewarding.

Research, which ought to be seen as a stimulation opportunity,

has been transformed into an obligation, the major hurdle on the •

way to tenure.

Research and the advancement of knowledge must be seen as a

signif jr^nt part _of scholarship^—btrt^or~as"~the~-whole-of—it. For

its own vitality, research needs to be pursued within a more

comprehensive scholarly context—certainly not in isolation,

either within the university or outside. The growing body of

research on optimum research environments indicates that

scholarly productivity increases when research is not the sole

preoccupation of the research worker (Black, 1972, Elton, 1986).


Specialized research needs to take place in a larger

scholarly context where the integration of knowledge is being

pursued and the advanced specialization is seen as one part of a

larger enterprise. This broader view would enhance the

appreciation for and significance of more esoteric endeavors.

Research needs to t^K^yplace in an environment where there is a

concern for the way in which knowledge is applied. There also

needs to be an appreciation of what can be learned from

practice. Again, some of the legitimate criticisms of the

disconnection of research would be addressed.

Finally, specialized research can benefit from being a part

of an ethos where teaching in taken seriously; in this larger

scholarly context the connection between research and teaching—

often claimed—can genuinely be made. Undergraduates,

effectively engaged and listened to, can raise questions that

will open promising new lines of inquiry; they will challenge the

unnecessary use of jargon—or repeat it so that it becomes

appropriately embarrassing; they can clarify a puzzle, or call

into question a connection that ultimately might prove

deficient.

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