Don’t Wait Until Next Year: Community-Engaged Scholarship as an Asset in Tenure and Promotion
Junior faculty, as well as graduate students seeking academic positions, frequently get advice from colleagues to “wait until it’s safe when you have tenure” before doing community-engaged or social justice-oriented work. It is suggested that you play by the rules of your discipline and focus only on publishing work in peer reviewed journals. You should not “distract” yourself and veer from the well-worn career path that will lead to the security of tenure and approval from your academic peers. Do not take risks.
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As the director of a university-community collaborative research center over the past 16 years, a department chairperson for seven years before that, and an active member of the American Sociological Association, I question such advice. Such counsel is the voice of centuries-old academic conservatism that sees social justice and community-engaged scholarship as contrary to the principles of rigorous intellectual inquiry. However, a productive and effective university is a place where ideas are debated, the status quo is questioned, new ideas are developed, and the foundations for a more equitable, just society are built. Integrating social justice and community-engagement into our scholarship makes the work of the university—particularly a Jesuit university—relevant to the broader society around us.
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I am not suggesting that every faculty member integrate community-engaged elements in their research and teaching. Nor am I implying that all faculty position themselves on the front-lines of social justice movements at every moment. However, I am suggesting that when junior faculty show an interest in new perspectives and have the energy and passion to combine their scholarship and social justice work, do not discourage this work. Rather their fresh energy and commitment to justice should be encouraged as contributing to the vibrancy of our university and our work.
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There are different motivations behind all of our academic careers. While I certainly have found enjoyment and personal fulfillment in contributing to my discipline, I never intended to spend my working life just reading Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, or even Karl Marx. It has been the potential that my work might contribute to a more just society that has provided much of the personal motivation and energy behind my 37 years in the academy. From the four years I lived in an industrial community and studied what forces help to sustain democratic, responsive, labor unions to more recent work on what produces stable, racially, ethnically, and economically diverse communities, combining scholarship with social change work has been a driving force.
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Community-based scholarship is an asset that can motivate and reward a faculty member. It may initially seem like a harder “dual” career track where a faculty member is working both the social justice and the traditional academic sides of the work. However, when such work is integrated into one’s scholarship and provides the material for the more traditional measures of academic success – articles, books, and professional presentations – it can build solid careers that integrate social justice in one’s work.
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At Loyola in recent years, Centers of Excellence have made this integration process easier for faculty. The centers provide support to faculty and students who seek to combine social justice work with professional rewards and advancement. In its 16 years, the Center for Urban Research and Learning (CURL), has not only been recognized as a national and international model for collaborative university-community research, but it has produced a supportive environment for faculty and graduate students unwilling to defer engaged, activist academic careers. Not only has it made connections between university and community easier, but it has created a “collective vitae” of particular value to junior faculty. Faculty working on CURL’s research teams – including new faculty – gain an instant research credibility in the eyes of foundations, community partners, and policy makers. They are immediately associated with the sum total of center publication history, positive working relationships with a broad range of community partners, and contributions to community, citywide, and national policy research. They become part of a network that opens up opportunities for justice-oriented research. They gain professional visibility both in the university and broader community. And most importantly, they are doing research that already has a built in “constituency” – community and government leaders who want their research and will be putting it to use.
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So before accepting the conservative, risk adverse advice to “wait until next year,” junior faculty might take a hard look at the supportive scholarly and activist environment around them. This university in particular has made significant steps toward not viewing social justice work and professional rewards as opposing goals. Don’t wait.
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More information on CURL is available on their web page (www.luc.edu/curl) as well as in the regular updates available through CURL’s Facebook page: www.facebook.com/loyolacurl ).
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Phil Nyden is the Director of CURL and Distinguished University Research Professor in Sociology.
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