Provost Reed Dasenbrock is a consultant to a task force created by the Executive Council of the Modern Language Association of America, which has been struggling for the past two years with the complex issue of scholarly publication in electronic journals and the effect on faculty tenure. Recommendations were released this week.
Photo: Provost Reed Dasenbrock
In a survey of 734 institutions across the United States, the task force found that more than 62 percent of all modern languages departments report that publication has increased in importance in tenure decisions over the last 10 years. More than 75 percent of institutions report that scholarship is more important than teaching when tenure decisions are made.
Those statistics collide with the declining trend in the number and availability of printed journals that accept the work of scholars in the humanities, as well as the lack of standards within university tenure committees for evaluating electronic scholarship.
“The MLA is asking every department in the field of languages and literature and every institution to think hard about how the digital revolution may be changing the nature of research and scholarship in the humanities and how tenure and promotion standards should be shifting as well,” said Dasenbrock.
“At UNM, we have already put into effect a number of the changes they are recommending: faculty in the humanities get start-up support and research leaves, and we are open to digital forms of scholarship. But there will be food for thought in the recommendations the task force is putting forward.”
The full report includes 20 recommendations institutions should consider, including:
* Departments and institutions should practice and promote transparency throughout the tenure process.
* Departments and institutions should calibrate expectations for achieving tenure and promotion with institutional values, mission and practice.
* The profession as a whole should develop a more capacious conception of scholarship by rethinking the dominance of the monograph, promoting the scholarly essay, establishing multiple pathways to tenure and using scholarly portfolios.
* Departments and institutions should recognize the legitimacy of scholarship produced in new media, whether by individuals or in collaboration, and create procedures for evaluating these forms of scholarship.
The complete report is available at MLA Report.
Media Contact: Karen Wentworth, (505) 277-5627; e-mail: kwent2@unm.edu