What Difference Does It Make?

Criticizing the so-called "Scholarship of Teaching and Learning" these days is like setting an American flag on fire with a flaming baby seal . SoTL, as it is fondly known to its devotees, is a fixture on university campuses literally around the world. I just wish I could figure out what the hell it is. I'm all for reestablishing teaching as a priority. Teaching is the reason why I entered academia. But I can't get excited about the jargon and the breathless testimonials and the prospect of endless meetings chock full of "Kumbaya." That's why my career as a Secondary Education major ended before my first day of college. Why should I give valuable time to stuff like this?

The Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning - or CASTL, as it fondly calls itself - was founded in 1998 to "build on a conception of teaching as scholarly work." You can read all about it right here. In 1999, SMSU hopped on the CASTL bandwagon with coffee and doughnuts and press releases and hours of meetings attended by well-meaning faculty members, many of whom were among the institution's finest teachers. Copies of Boyer's Scholarship Reconsidered and Glassick's Scholarship Assessed were stacked like cordwood in the Academic Affairs office, waiting for someone or anyone to take and read. After all due deliberation by the well-meaning faculty members, the following definition of SoTL was arrived at:

The definition of the scholarship of teaching and learning at SMSU, as established by the faculty in 1999 is: A systematic exploration and evaluation of teaching and learning processes that involves ongoing dialogue, documentation, and dissemination of results.

"Established by the faculty." This disingenuous phrase is typical of the way that CASTL and SoTL were more or less crammed down the University's throat. It suggests a wellspring of grassroots involvement from a wide range of faculty constituencies. Nothing could have been farther from the truth, although one would never have known it from the torrent of news releases about "distinguished off-campus visitors" and "Campus Conversations" and "SoTL Fellows." CASTL was in fact nothing more than useful window-dressing: it could just as well have been called the Potemkin Academy. While the CASTL Steering Committee preached to a continually shrinking number of the already converted, Academic Affairs went on its merry way managing the production of educated persons. CASTL, like the Academic Development Center, was a typical corporate approach applied to whatever was wrong with the teaching here. Buy something, throw it at the problem (hint: the real problem was faculty morale), and forget about it. If the problem persists, it's not management's fault.

If only Academic Affairs could have been bothered to lead.

This perception is not unique to Missouri State University. Eileen T. Bender's 2005 Change article, "CASTLs in the Air," offers a detailed review of CASTL's progress to date. While fundamentally sympathetic to CASTL and its goals, she is ultimately realistic about its achievements.

Thus even these optimistic CASTL exemplars must acknowledge the continuing gap between their own transformation as Carnegie Scholars and the un-transformed academy at large. The central idea of teaching as scholarship is parroted today by campus spokespersons--but their words are not matched by changing policies.

That observation is not only echoed but even magnified in reports and observations drawn from the rank and file of the professoriate across institutional types. When we move from the rarified air of CASTL and its scholars, a somewhat more discouraging picture emerges about the actual penetration of SOTL into the deep structures of academe.

Has SoTL actually penetrated into the deep structures of Missouri State University? What difference does it make? The official CASTL site at http://www.missouristate.edu/carnegie was last edited August 31, 2005: the date of the Great Name Change. It directs questions about CASTL to the email of a faculty member who retired from the Biology Department in 2006. Clicking on the "Discussion Group" link gets you an Error 404 page. The 2007-2008 Committees Handbook contains no sign of a CASTL steering committee. Here is what President Nietzel had to say about SoTL in his 12 September 2007 Report to Campus:

And finally, we want to look at the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Faculty need to have the opportunity to compare and contrast different strategies of teaching and to see what we learn by conducting research on our own scholarship.

So much for CASTL. The President obviously knows what SoTL is, but he doesn't see many signs of its effect here. So what difference does it make? It makes none. What is the next flavor of SoTL going to be?