GUL INNOVATION ABSTRACTS x22"
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Published by the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development
With support fram the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and Sid W. Richardson Foundation

 

 

 

 

GLADLY WOULD THEY LEARN AND GLADLY TEACH

"Gladly would he learn and gladly teach." Everyone who has ever had a course in early British literature
is familiar with Chaucer’s portrait of the clerk in the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales. The "scholar-
professor" is equally devoted to learning and teaching students. Although his image is something of a
cliche, there is in it a necessary truth about the vital interaction between scholarly learning and the teaching
of students that we seem to have lost sight of today. In American higher education we have come
dangerously close to divorcing these two dimensions into the isolated enterprise of basic research and
relegated it to the university; on the other hand, we have come close to insulating the craft of teaching from
the scholarship that nourishes it, by identifying certain colleges, community colleges in particular, as
"teaching" institutions, with the implication that scholarship is irrelevant to teaching excellence. My
purpose here is to raise to critical importance the issue of the relationship between teaching and scholarship
in the community college and to argue for the revival of scholarly activities at the community college. The
arguments are made in the belief that scholarship, rightly understood, is an indispensable adjunct to
excellent teaching.

An Important Relationship

The relationship of teaching to scholarship and research is confused because we have not clearly defined
and differentiated the concepts of research and scholarship. A concept of scholarship different from the
concept of basic research is appropriate to community colleges and is necessary if community colleges are to
encourage faculty to engage in such activity.

Cowley defines research as "the effort to discover new facts or to recover lost or forgotten facts: It is the
empirical element in the quest for understanding the nature of the universe and of man." This definition of
basic research includes the very specialized and sometimes esoteric discovery of knowledge. This kind of
research is not for community colleges and is best left to the universities.

Cowley’s definition of scholarship, on the other hand, could be expanded to be very useful to
understanding the breadth and depth of scholarly activity necessary for community college faculty.
"Scholarship is the organization, criticism, and interpretation of facts and thoughts of facts; it is the
rationalistic element in the pursuit of understanding." This concept of interpretive, rationalistic scholarship
is necessary to understanding the results of basic research, to organizing facts and information for quality
teaching, and to maintaining the currency in one’s teaching field. Perhaps most importantly, it is necessary
for maintaining enthusiasm for teaching and love for one’s academic discipline or technical specialty.
Cowley’s concept of scholarship can be appropriately applied to each of the traditional academic disciplines
and to each of the technical fields. The concept includes both rigorous library and laboratory work as well as
practical work experience.

A Program to Encourage Faculty Scholarship
In the belief that faculty scholarship is essential to quality instruction in a comprehensive community

college, Montgomery Community College recently developed a program to encourage faculty scholarship.
The college states that scholarly effort is important and encourages faculty to engage in scholarship by
providing some reassigned time to engage in scholarly activity. According to the College Policies and
Procedures Manual, faculty are given support for the following:

1. To conduct or complete the scholarship and writing for a paper or publication.

2. To prepare or complete a work of scholarly synthesis or opinion.

3. To participate in a performing arts activity, such as directing a professional community play or

conducting an orchestra.
4. To create or complete an artistic work, such as a painting or a musical composition.

 

ROP Community College Leadership Program, The University of Texas at Austin, EDB 348, Austin, Texas 78712