 |
 |
 |
|
 |
|
|
|
         |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| navigate: home: magazine: fall 2002: article | |
|
Outreach is more prominent in promotion and tenure guidelines By Celena E. Kusch | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Nearly 30 percent of Penn State’s 5,125 faculty statewide are involved each year in formal outreach activities through Continuing Education courses, Conferences and Institutes, Cooperative Extension, Distance Education, World Campus programs and Penn State Public Broadcasting productions. Hundreds more engage with communities through other avenues, including the application of research scholarship in the field; development of innovative community education programs; integration of public scholarship opportunities within courses; collaboration with K-12 educators or community and professional groups; and service as an expert on local, national and international commissions and boards. Recently, the University Faculty Senate passed legislation that will increase reporting and recognition of these activities in promotion and tenure. The updates to HR-23 promotion and tenure guidelines grew out of a report by the University Scholarship and Criteria for Outreach and Performance Evaluation (UniSCOPE) learning community chaired by Dr. Drew Hyman, professor of public policy and community systems. The UniSCOPE report, UniSCOPE 2000: A Multidimensional Model of Scholarship for the 21st Century, provides a framework for creating an equitable system for recognizing and rewarding the full range of university scholarship, including outreach forms. The new language of HR-23 general criteria emphasizes not just teaching, research and service in their most recognizable forms, but the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, the Scholarship of Research and Creative Accomplishments and Service and the Scholarship of Service to the University, Society and the Profession. Dr. Bob Secor, vice provost for academic affairs, explained the importance of these changes. “The fundamental understanding behind the new language is that faculty bring their scholarship to all of their endeavors—not only to their research and creative activity, but also to their students and to the contributions they make to society. It is through their scholarship that they integrate their teaching, their research and their service into outreach,” Secor said. Dr. Christopher J. Bise, George H. and Anne B. Deike Chair in Mining Engineering and chair-elect of the University Faculty Senate, illustrated the potential impact of these changes for faculty and colleges. As one of just five board-certified forensic engineers in mining in the United States, Bise often works with attorneys to investigate accidents. In these cases, he conducts extensive investigations into mine accidents and injuries. The outcomes of these investigations are substantial, contributing to improvements in machine design and in the safety of workers, as well as expanding the knowledge base in the field. However, the results of these efforts are often unpublished reports, rather than refereed publications. According to Bise, his department already values such outreach forms of scholarship and finds ways to recognize outreach activities in the promotion and tenure process, but not all do. “I’m part of a department where it’s considered part of the job to do outreach, but in many other departments, faculty members have trouble getting credit for their outreach activities, because there is no correlation between outreach and the dossier statements for the college or unit,” Bise said. This is the problem Bise sought to address when he served as chair of the Senate Committee on Outreach Activities for 2001–02. “When our committee started looking into ways to enhance faculty participation in outreach activities, we had trouble getting the word out about the contribution of outreach in faculty development. We found that very few college or departmental statements gave much visibility to outreach in the promotion and tenure process. It was particularly sobering to see that only one or two colleges even mentioned outreach activities in promotion and tenure. We recognized that this was one of the things that was holding up expansion of outreach in the colleges,” Bise said. “We wanted to identify those outreach activities that not only help shape a faculty member’s career, but also enhance the University, and to find ways to give them recognition in promotion and tenure,” he added. Faculty Senate representatives held a joint meeting of the Outreach Activities and Faculty Affairs committees to discuss how to better integrate outreach into the promotion and tenure guidelines. Based on the UniSCOPE report, which establishes a common context for comparing and evaluating many different forms of scholarship, the Senate Committee on Faculty Affairs worked to weave the language of UniSCOPE into the rainbow dividers. Dr. Andrew B. Romberger, assistant professor of physics at Penn State Berks and chair of the Subcommittee on Promotion, Tenure, Appointments and Leaves, led the effort to develop new HR-23 legislation. “Everyone on the subcommittee contributed greatly to the development of this legislation,” Romberger explained. “We viewed this as a way to clarify what it is that we as faculty members do. When we looked at the various categories of the rainbow dividers, it wasn’t clear where different activities—often outreach activities—could be placed. Many faculty members felt they had to just let outreach research or teaching go, because they were not listed in the dividers, but a large number of faculty are putting these activities down. We need to stress that nontraditional scholarship is valuable and important by making it clear to faculty members and their supervisors that these activities should be part of promotion and tenure whenever relevant to their scholarly work.” Secor praised the Senate’s efforts, saying, “As a result of the work of the Faculty Affairs Committee and the Senate as a whole in translating the recommendations of the UniSCOPE report to our promotion and tenure guidelines, there are now places for faculty to list in their dossiers such outreach efforts as new applications of research scholarship for government agencies and industrial associations, teaching workshops in support of outreach-based instructions, testifying as an expert witness and evidence of the impact in society of the faculty member’s research scholarship and creative accomplishments.” These new categories also reflect the past decades’ changes in the general scope of higher education itself, as many faculty and departments take advantage of new opportunities to work with practitioners outside of the academy as they produce and disseminate their research. “By passing the changes to HR-23, the Faculty Senate has embraced the notion of outreach scholarship presented in the UniSCOPE report,” Bise commented. “Approval of the legislation by the University President further emphasizes to all faculty that we must expand our levels of engagement with society. Now that the legislation is passed, next year’s committees will work hard to see that the spirit of UniSCOPE is carried out within colleges and departments and to achieve more in enhancing faculty participation in outreach.” Thomas E. Glumac, director of the Physical Therapy Assistant Program at Penn State Mont Alto and 2002–03 chair of the Senate Committee on Outreach Activities, added that the new changes will help guide the activities of that committee in the coming year. “Our committee will be in touch with the Faculty Affairs Committee and the vice provost for academic affairs regarding the implementation and progress of the recommendations for incorporating the UniSCOPE Model into HR-23,” he said. Romberger cautioned that the University will not likely see an immediate change as a result of the legislation. “Any significant change in University culture will happen gradually over a couple of years,” he admitted, “but my sense is that the faculty are ready for these changes and probably most faculty are already doing this kind of work anyway. As for the impact of these changes, I look forward to the next few years as the legislation promotes the sense that faculty members may recognize the less traditional things they do as accomplishments they can list in dossiers as important scholarly work.” Secor agreed, adding, “Perhaps the most important achievement of the changes that have entered our promotion and tenure process is what they signify: a University that, in the words of a recent Kellogg Commission report, is returning to its roots as an engaged university, committed not only to the discovery and integration of knowledge, but also to its application, not only in the classroom, but in the outside community with which it must be engaged, whether that community is defined as the Commonwealth, the nation or the world.” | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| University Faculty Senate Committee on Outreach Activities
The University Faculty Senate Committee on Outreach Activities is charged with recommending policy and advising the University on outreach activities. Outreach is understood as the exchange of information between the University and its many external audiences.
The committee is responsible for identifying University outreach, establishing evaluation methodologies to ensure quality and creating recognition measures to reward outstanding performance. Its responsibilities focus on noncredit instruction and service through continuing and distance education, Cooperative Extension and other programs beyond the sphere of resident education.
Members of the 2002–03 Committee on Outreach Activities are: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
© 2002 Outreach Communications, Outreach & Cooperative Extension, The Pennsylvania State University phone: (814) 865-8108, fax: (814) 863-2765, e-mail: outreachnews@outreach.psu.edu |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
