Rick's comments echo my thoughts exactly. In addition, to the extent
that scholarly research might not help society as much as it could, isn't it
reasonable to think that may be because of active resistance from people who
denigrate scientific methods (for example, as "mere Eurocentric
constructions") without understanding them? Certainly our scholarly
knowledge FAR outpaces its application to public service, and that baseless
resistance must bear quite a bit of the blame.
Several years ago I taught a small seminar based on John W.
Gardner's excellent series of "Leadership Papers". The most interesting part
to me was the discussion of the responsibilities of _followers_. Here in the
U.S., we complain constantly about the qualities of our leaders, but I can't
see any sign that our problems stem from a lack of quality leadership as
much as they do from a basically ignorant and lazy constituency. For
example, I'll bet that not one in a thousand of us (in general, not those on
this list) has ever taken the time to research a pending bill and write our
representatives to express our opinions on it. In my opinion, that's more
basic than voting.
I assume that the parallel with applications of scholarly research
is obvious. If the aforementioned professor who failed to get tenure did not
emphasize the application of his specialized understanding of scholarly
research to his community service, then I don't believe that he deserved
tenure. At my institution, at least, our community service criterion
includes that kind of application. Service that fails to use one's
disciplinary knowledge really doesn't count towards tenure or promotion.
It's fine as far as the community goes, but it doesn't make one a
professional.
Paul Smith
Alverno College
Milwaukee
