Tenets of Community-Engaged Scholarship Applied to Delta Ways Remembered

Lalita Anne Bharadwaj

doi:10.15402/esj.v5i3.70365

Abstract

This essay reviews challenges posed to community-engaged scholars regarding tenure/promotion processes in Canadian universities, with a note to characteristics of community-engaged scholarship that were developed by Catherine Jordan (2007) to address gaps in academic assessment of engaged scholarship. These characteristics are: clear goals, adequate preparation, appropriate methods: scientific rigor and community engagement, significant results/impact, effective presentation/dissemination, reflective critique, leadership and personal contribution, and consistently ethical behavior. These are then applied to a non-peer reviewed work that describes the cumulative effects of environmental change for people in the Slave River Delta Region of the North West Territories, Canada. The reader is asked to view Delta Ways Remembered, a 13-minute video employing an enhanced e-storytelling technique to share and disseminate traditional knowledge about the delta from a compendium of people as a single-voiced narrative. The purpose is to highlight the scholarship underlying non-traditional academic expositions not readily assessed under current paradigms of academic evaluation. This essay strives to illustrate how Jordan’s characteristics can be applied to evaluate non-peer reviewed scholarly work, and also to share rewards and challenges associated with the harmonious blending of Indigenous and western knowledge addressing societal/environmental issues identified by the Indigenous community.

Highlights

This essay reviews challenges posed to community-engaged scholars regarding tenure/promotion processes in Canadian universities, with a note to characteristics of community-engaged scholarship that were developed by Catherine Jordan (2007) to address gaps in academic assessment of engaged scholarship
Academic institutions continue to struggle both with supporting CES and with evaluating the quality and significance of the scholarly work derived from it (Gelmon, Jordan, & Seifer, 2013; Calleson, Jordan, & Seifer, 2005; Saltmarsh et al, 2009)
Many universities have adapted curricula and initiated reforms to disciplinary and cross disciplinary research and educational programming towards CES. This has been observed across Canada (Barreno et al, 2013) and specific examples can be seen at the Universities of Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Victoria, and McMaster, as well as others across the nation1

Summary

Introduction

This essay reviews challenges posed to community-engaged scholars regarding tenure/promotion processes in Canadian universities, with a note to characteristics of community-engaged scholarship that were developed by Catherine Jordan (2007) to address gaps in academic assessment of engaged scholarship These characteristics are: clear goals, adequate preparation, appropriate methods: scientific rigor and community engagement, significant results/impact, effective presentation/dissemination, reflective critique, leadership and personal contribution, and consistently ethical behavior. Several universities have supported experiential learning opportunities for students through community-engaged learning funds and coursebased or one-time grants to faculty engaged in CES2 Such initiatives are a laudable first step to encourage faculty already disposed to CES, it does not appear they can be readily geared toward faculty who do not currently implement CES approaches, as they must step out of traditional research paradigms for exploration of these opportunities. Workgroup members noted that CES was fundamentally absent from institutional verbiage around tenure and promotion (Barreno, 2013)

Objectives

Conclusion