Thread by @natematias

So you want to be an activist/citizen/engaged scholar working on pressing societal questions:
- what does that actually look like?
- what challenges will you face?
- how do people overcome them?

Beaulieu, @BretonMylaine, Brousselle have a *great* summary: journals.plos.org/plosone/articl…

1st: what do scholars actually do? Faculty have 3 jobs:
- research
- teaching
- service (often imagined as service to the university and to their field)

Problem: a public mission isn't part of the job, as Boyer points out in this inspiring essay: eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1097206

Boyer observes that:
- academics aren't incentivized by institutions to get out and contribute to society
- governments & other powerful orgs also prioritize conversations with lawyers, activists, and public intellectuals over academics, despite what we have to offer

What can universities do? Boyer says:
1) Keep supporting "scholarship of discovery"
Also support & reward faculty for:
2) scholarship integration, bringing disciplines/communities together to make progress on important issues
3) Knowledge-sharing
4) The application of knowledge

Problem: universities still prioritize discovery over integration, sharing, & application. So what happens?

In the standard model, when faculty spend time on something that has direct benefits to society, they could be risking their career on things that aren't rewarded.

The academics you admire for being engaged in the world: writing op eds, serving on task forces, launching public-interest projects— depending on the uni, those things might actually put their career at risk 😮🤯

I saw this personally when 3 of my own mentors were denied tenure

(Aside) I get weary of civil society & companies when they make self-satisfied comments about how out of touch academia is & then ask for free help from public-interest scholars without learning & supporting what we need to stay in the game & do transformative work

Why do publicly-engaged scholarship if many universities don't reward it by default? Beaulieu, Breton & Brousselle (call them B3) summarize 20yrs of research on values:
- Social justice: working toward equality/democracy
- Citizenship: bringing expertise to the democratic process

You might wonder if engaged scholars are biased. What principles do they actually hold (B3)?
- scholarly rigor
- reciprocity: maximizing societal impact & knowledge
- meeting community needs
- crossing disciplines to follow a problem wherever it leads
- democratizing knowledge

B3 describe how faculty creatively bring public-interest questions into every aspect of the job, including research, teaching, & service.

This chart shows a professor stretched between social good & university expectations in each part of their work. It sometimes feels that way!

Cultures that de-value "applied" versus "basic" research can be confusing, especially when they gaslight scholars on the value of their ideas & person

It's a false dilemma; In Pasteur's Quadrant (1997), Stokes observes that many scientific discoveries engage with societal needs

Boyer argued that to fulfill their full potential in democracies, universities should adjust how they work. B3 have a *great* summary of universities that are doing just that, in their:
- mission
- reward structure
- logistical support
- student support

Support structures can make a huge difference.

At Cornell, I have had two profoundly helpful years as a fellow at @cornell_oei which provided peers, mentors, readings, & funding to think/write about how to succeed at engaged scholarship and train the next generation💖