At many campuses, young profs are advised against writing a textbook until they have tenure. That conventional wisdom assumes textbooks somehow are so low on the rungs of academic accomplishment that they can work against promotion. But Robert Diamond says it needn't be so.

In Serving an Promotion and Tenure Committees, Diamond has gathered statements from six learned societies that recognize text materials n scholarship. Diamond, director for Syracuse University's Center for Instructional Design, cautions against cookie-cutter criteria for promotion and tenure, butt his message is loud and clear about the value of instructional materials.

Here is a discipline-by-discipline summary of the role that textbooks hold in formal statements by several learned societies, as collected by Diamond:

Business. The American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business suggests promotion criteria as basic scholarship, applied scholarship and instructional development. Applied scholarship is defined as "the application, transfer and interpretation of knowledge to approved management practice and teaching." This includes "adapting pure research of others into text (and) interpreting real world experience to classroom use that is generalizable and reusable." Instructional development is defined as 'the enhancement of the educational value of instructional efforts." These, according to AACSB, include textbooks.

Chemistry. The American Chemical Society recognizes four areas of scholarship: research, application, teaching and outreach. Textbooks are listed as an accomplishment in the teaching area, and K-12 enrichment is identified in the outreach arm.

History. An American Historical Association scholarship committee defines scholarship as the advancement of knowledge, the integration of knowledge, the application of knowledge, and the transference of knowledge through teaching. The integration of knowledge, according to the committee, includes synthesizing scholarship. The committee says textbooks can do this. The transformation of knowledge includes developing leaching materials. Specifically, the AHA committee cites writing textbooks and software and editing anthologies.

Math. The Joint Policy Board of Mathematics does not mention text materials explicitly in its 1994 statement on scholarship, but says scholarship includes:

• Synthesis or integration of existing scholarship.
• Development of courses, curricula or instructional materials for teaching in K-12 and college.

Religion. The American Academy of Religion says original, creative scholarship includes teaching, then says: "Excellence in teaching demands the best integrative and communicative skills as well as the imaginative capacity to foster the passion for learning, the ability to educe emerging ideas in one's student, and the skill to guide collective inquiry." Teaching activities, says the AAR, include developing courses, course materials and software.

Theater. The National Office of Arts Accreditation in Higher Education says creative work and research includes advancing the pedagogy of theater. This includes developing "instruction materials, curricula and technology that have broad impact on the field."

Despite its value in debunking the notion that textbooks are unworthy of scholarships, Diamond's book has a wider purpose. Subtitled A Faculty Guide, the book is a 52-page primer to help profs work through the issues when serving on promotion and tenure committees. His first principle for such committee work is being sensitive to perspectives of different disciplines. By way of example, he says: "The scientific paradigm that values traditional research and publication may work fairly well in the social and natural sciences, but it may be inappropriate when applied to major areas of faculty work in the humanities, professional schools and creative arts." Diamond notes that different universities and academic units have distinctive missions that may influence promotion and tenure deliberations.

There are myths that afflict promotion and tenure work, he cautions. Among them is that scholarship necessarily fuels good teaching. Diamond cites work by Patrick Terezini and Ernest Pascarella, "Living With Myths: Undergraduate Education in America," in the January-February 1994 issue of Change, that only a small correlation exists between scholarly production and instructional effectiveness.

Review by
JOHN VIVIAN
TAA president, 1993-94

(507) 523-2294
jvivian@vax2.msus.winona.edu