Toward Congenial Environments for Knowledge Utilization in Today's University

Abstract

Among the myriad discussions in which Howard Davis and I engaged, the most animated and provocative—yet agonizingly frustrating—ones were centered around a topic that conunuously plagued him, a problem, the searchfor a solution of which he sought, in vain, until the end of his days. I refer to Howie's passionate desire to come up with a plan whereby the science and practice of knowledge utilization might find a respected and enduring home in the groves of academe. Howie—what an unsuitable nickname, implying diminutiveness, for such a physically and intellectually towering personage—was bedeviled by the painful reality that unless scholars and professionals found a sympathetic home in academia, the field of knowledge utilization would never be quite whole, and hence would probably never flourish, let alone survive. Any field of study built to last and grow and maintain a solid and esteemed footing in the family of learned disciplines and professions needs to have the approval of one's scientific, disciplinary, and professional brethren. It needs to be able to attract "hard money" support as an intellectual endeavor and to be nurtured institutionally through good times and bad. Any field of inquiry or application, the survival of which is dependent upon outside support and is not viewed as an area worthy of institutional support, will be destined to live in a precarious hand-to- mouth fashion and will, probably, vanish before very long. Howie Davis "commissioned" me to enter into a continuing dialogue with him about thisproblem. We never did get very far in a systematic way, although I daresay that I enjoyed to the hilt and benefited enormously from the opportunity to ruminate over this problem, enabling me to grow and exult in the world of ideas through these delightful intellectual odysseys with the incomparable Howard R. Davis.