Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Revising Promotion and Tenure Standards According to Boyer

Abstract

If one acknowledges that scholarship comes in many shapes and forms, and if one agrees with Boyer's argument that it is time to reconsider scholarship in light of the role of faculty members within departments, colleges, and universities, the next logical step then is to see if Boyer's principles can be effectively applied in a university setting. At the 1995 NAPEHE conference, Boyer acknowledged that the next step, as indicated by the title of the Carnegie Foundation's forthcoming sequel Scholarship Assessed, is to identify ways to fairly and equitably evaluate faculty scholarship within the context of the professoriate in general, and in higher education institutions in particular. The authors argue the case for differential application of standards within and among universities, based upon the diversity of missions and goals. Following that, examples are given for how Boyer's classifications have been applied to promotion and tenure standards at one comprehensive land grant university in the midwest. A...