[Air-l] What is a discipline - and publishing tips.

[Steve Jones]

At 7:27 AM -0500 11/7/02, radhika gajjala wrote:
>This discussion on disciplinarity has been very interesting so far, 
>and I just know its going to feed into a small presentation I have 
>to give here at my university tomorrow (entitled "tips on 
>publishing" - what do *I* know about that - but if they dont mind 
>hearing me, of course I'll talk;-)) . So thanks all (I'll make sure 
>to acknowledge "the list").
>
>The problem of inter/cross/trans disciplinarity - when this issue 
>becomes a battlefield - in the case of promotion, tenure, getting a 
>phd etc in the US (so I am being very US centric and self-centric 
>here) is accentuated in relation to publishing.... where you publish 
>etc - and some publications in some disciplines dont allow the 
>saying and asking of certain types of questions and critiques (again 
>I'm simplifying and being extremely polite...) - which is why of 
>course those of us who do more than token feminist and cultural 
>studies type work (however much I may mumble and grumble about some 
>kinds of appropriation of these - these are still some of the only 
>academic spaces that even allow  certain kinds of conversations) 
>sometimes have an interesting time in relation definitions of 
>disciplinarity.
>
>Now with "Internet studies" being "interdisciplinary" however - I 
>find less resistance (again depending on the kind of *questions* one 
>asks in relation to the Internet...this resistance is less or more) 
>- perhaps because the Internet "sells" (in relation to the corporate 
>world, I mean) better than critiques coming from various 
>counter-mainstream locations?
>
>So when we talk about ethics of inter/trans/cross etc disciplinarity 
>in relation to Internet studies - what are we selling?

I'm going to quickly respond to this with two articles from the same 
issue of today's Chronicle of Higher Education email digest 
(hopefully this won't make this email too long!) that well 
illuminate, I think, the complex issues that Radhika brings up, and 
that have been discuss in relation to disciplinarity. The issues 
therein are rather western, if not only US centric, but the 
consequences that publication, disciplinarity, legitimation, 
hegemony, etc., have, must be considered both at an institutional 
level, which is the one at which I think they have largely been 
discussed on air-l, and at the individual level, and that is why I 
find these two articles of interest.

Thanks,
Sj

----------

>The Chronicle of Higher Education
>Thursday, November 7, 2002
>
>http://chronicle.com/free/2002/11/2002110701t.htm
>
>Scholarly Publishers Aim to Woo Librarians Away From Self-Published Research
>By SCOTT CARLSON
>
>A group of scholarly publishers will begin a public-relations 
>campaign this month that is intended to improve publishers' image 
>among librarians and academics. The campaign aims, in part, to quash 
>a newfound enthusiasm among some librarians for self-publishing 
>research results online, a practice that lets scholars bypass 
>academic journals that many researchers say are too slow and too 
>costly.
>
>Supporters of the campaign also say that it will be an attempt to 
>mend relations with librarians and academics. "The long-term goal is 
>to re-establish that we are allies with the academic world," says 
>Lynn Rienner, the founder of the social-sciences publishing company 
>Lynn Rienner Publishers, who has helped shape the campaign.
>
>She says relations between librarians and publishers have been 
>portrayed as "adversarial" and as "warring camps" in the press, a 
>characterization that hurts her. "It was because of librarians that 
>I got into publishing," she says.
>
>The campaign is sponsored by the scholarly-publishing division of 
>the Association of American Publishers and will be run by Edelman, a 
>giant public-relations firm based in Chicago and New York. The 
>publishers and the firm are still working out details of the 
>campaign, but mailings, advertisements, summits between librarians 
>and publishers, and speakers at conferences have all been proposed.
>
>"It's something that we'll have to keep at for years," says Ted 
>Nardin, vice president of the scientific and technical division of 
>McGraw-Hill, a leading publisher. "It's not just a six-month 
>program."
>
>Beyond smoothing ruffled feathers, the publishers seek to reach 
>academics and librarians who advocate distributing research results 
>on the Internet. Marc H. Brodsky, the executive director and chief 
>executive officer of the American Institute of Physics, which 
>publishes several prominent journals, says the campaign will 
>emphasize the perks that working with traditional publishers brings: 
>money for marketing, the prestige of a well-known journal, the 
>expertise and mediation of an editor, and the management of peer 
>review.
>
>"There is an illusion that electronic publishing is cheap," Mr. 
>Brodsky says. "There are ways of putting things on the Web that are 
>cheap, but not ways that give the value that publishers provide."
>
>However, the campaign will not focus on the sharply rising cost of 
>journal subscriptions -- one of the main rubs between publishers, on 
>the one hand, and academics and librarians, on the other. "I really 
>don't see it as the key issue," says Mr. Nardin, of McGraw-Hill. "My 
>view of this program is that our objective is not to convey pricing 
>but to convey what publishers are doing."
>
>But Kenneth Frazier, director of libraries at the University of 
>Wisconsin at Madison, says that rising journal costs have been the 
>driving force behind Internet-based alternative-publishing efforts. 
>"The problem is that a lot of commercial publishers are not only 
>addicted to profits -- they are addicted to high revenue growth, 
>too," he says. "That creates a situation that is sure to motivate 
>alternative systems for disseminating knowledge."
>
>Journal-subscription rates have gone up an average of 8.5 percent 
>per year since 1986, while library budgets have risen 5.6 percent 
>per year, according to ARL Statistics, a publication of the 
>Association of Research Libraries.
>
>"The notion of doing some work of repairing the relationship between 
>publishers and librarians is not a bad idea," adds Mr. Frazier, who 
>founded the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, 
>or SPARC, which supports alternative-publishing strategies. But "if 
>we're going to disseminate knowledge, we're going to have to have a 
>more affordable model of scholarly communication. That is the big 
>question that I would want to raise."
>
>Copyright © 2002 by The Chronicle of Higher Education

----------

>The Chronicle of Higher Education's Career Network
>Thursday, November 7, 2002
>A Look at the Record
>http://chronicle.com/jobs/2002/11/2002110701c.htm
>
>By DENNIS BARON
>
>First Person
>
>Personal experiences on the job market
>
>Previous articles
>
>Allison Porchnik's tenure and promotion case was typical rather than 
>ideal. It illustrates how tenure happens -- or sometimes doesn't 
>happen -- at my institution. Although her tenure case probably kept 
>her up nights for a year, and it gave me some unquiet moments along 
>the way, I won't keep you in suspense: In the end, she was 
>successful.
>
>In my first installment of this series on the tenure-and-promotion 
>process, I offered my own subjective observations and 
>interpretations of how promotions work in my shop. And I promised to 
>introduce you to some "typical" promotion candidates and follow 
>their cases through the system. That brings us to the case of 
>Allison Porchnik, which is, of course, not her real name.
>
>The tenure process began for Porchnik before we hired her: She used 
>her job interview to show us that she had already produced 
>outstanding scholarship and was already a highly effective 
>instructor. Keeping the bar high from the start means there is less 
>chance of a negative tenure vote six years later.
>
>Once she was hired, annual reviews kept the department informed of 
>Porchnik's developing record of scholarship, teaching, and service. 
>After one review I advised her to stop reviewing books: It takes 
>time away from "real" work, and besides, why make enemies so early 
>in a career? A year later I told her not to volunteer for so many 
>committees. She complied and kept her research program on schedule. 
>Other assistant professors seem less able to budget their time. One 
>told a previous department head that there weren't enough hours in 
>the day for him to teach and to do research. The head told him, 
>"Sleep less." It wasn't long before both of them took other jobs.
>
>I met with Porchnik in the spring of her fifth year to discuss her 
>promotion. This is the tenure profile that she brought to that 
>meeting, together with some comments on that record.
>
>Research
>
>Porchnik's book, accepted by a strong university press, was being 
>copy-edited and would be in print by October, when the department 
>makes its tenure decisions. The book was crucial to the promotion. 
>If Porchnik had finished her manuscript six months sooner, we would 
>have been able to send reviewers the actual published book instead 
>of page proofs. Reviewers who receive a physical book discuss its 
>strengths and shortcomings, evaluating it in the context of recent 
>work being done in the field. But if I send them proofs, or worse 
>yet, a manuscript, some reviewers treat the work as still "in 
>progress," asking for revisions of whole sections or wondering aloud 
>if the author should take an entirely different approach. Such 
>advice may be on target, but it's too late to do the tenure 
>candidate any good.
>
>I have seen assistant professors with weaker records than 
>Porchnik's, and some with stronger ones. Alvy Singer brought to his 
>fifth-year review a publisher's contract for a manuscript only half 
>done. On his vita, he listed the book as "forthcoming." I had to 
>tell him that college promotion committees want the book in 
>production before they'll believe that it is "forthcoming." Forget 
>about the advance contract, I told Singer, write the book.
>
>My discussion with another assistant professor, Carol Lipton, after 
>her third-year review took a different tack: Because her book had 
>been published to rave reviews and she was getting invitations to 
>apply for other jobs, I told her that the department wanted to 
>consider her for early promotion.
>
>In Porchnik's case, her vita showed four articles in peer-reviewed 
>academic journals, in addition to the book. One of the articles was 
>a dissertation chapter that later found its way into her book. It 
>wouldn't do much to enhance her record. Another appeared in the top 
>journal in her field. It's becoming more and more important to crack 
>the top-tier journals. The third presented material from Porchnik's 
>next major research project, offering evidence that she would 
>continue to be a productive scholar. And the fourth had been 
>solicited by an editor for a special issue, a sign that Porchnik was 
>emerging as a presence on the national scene.
>
>Porchnik had also published two book chapters. Book chapters will do 
>less for a tenure case, since promotion committees generally assume 
>that essay collections receive less scrutiny from peer reviewers 
>than journal articles. One of Porchnik's chapters appeared in a 
>collection edited by a friend at another university. It would be 
>treated with suspicion. The other one -- solicited by the editor 
>after he heard Porchnik at a conference -- demonstrates her 
>competence, not her connections, and would at least be received 
>neutrally.
>
>I have found that this is not a message assistant professors want to 
>hear. To them, a publication is a publication, so what's the problem?
>
>But in preparing tenure papers for the college and campuswide tenure 
>committees, I have to comment on the prestige of the journals and 
>the presses where the candidate publishes, and the rigor with which 
>submissions are reviewed. I'm routinely asked, "How good is this 
>journal?" or "What's their rejection rate?" Of course a publication 
>in a "friendly" source -- a chapter in a book edited by the 
>candidate or a friend, for example -- can be groundbreaking, but it 
>must first prove itself in the marketplace of ideas.
>
>I recall a tenure candidate who published just such a chapter, in a 
>book that he edited himself. Although he was promoted on the basis 
>of other work, he remained miffed that promotion committees 
>discounted that book chapter as self-publication. As it turned out, 
>the work was widely cited by other scholars, and quickly became a 
>minor classic in the field.
>
>I also recall a book chapter by another candidate that had less 
>success. A sound piece of work from all accounts, it never saw the 
>light of day. The collection it was to appear in, edited by the 
>candidate's former partner, was shopped in vain from press to press 
>and eventually dropped from the faculty member's vita.
>
>Porchnik's vita listed four papers presented at professional 
>conferences, and one lecture at another university. Lecturing and 
>conference presentations offer positive evidence of professional 
>energy and engagement beyond the department and the campus. One 
>science department I know of requires its fifth-year assistant 
>professors to go on a lecture tour, which the department organizes 
>and pays for. This increases the chances of getting external tenure 
>reviewers already familiar with the candidate's work.
>
>Unfortunately, most English departments can't underwrite that kind 
>of professional exposure. Porchnik also guest-lectured in a class at 
>Illinois, and helped to organize a local conference. However, local 
>work, which typically undergoes less rigorous evaluation, does not 
>count as scholarship for the purposes of a promotion bid. I advised 
>Porchnik to move these two items from the research section of her 
>vita to the teaching and service sections.
>
>Teaching
>
>Students regularly placed Porchnik on the university's list of 
>instructors rated excellent by their students, and members of the 
>department who had observed her classes were uniformly impressed 
>with her teaching. She served on several dissertation committees. 
>Teaching was clearly not a problem. While many students found her 
>demanding, she was also supportive, and she motivated students to do 
>their best work in her classes.
>
>By contrast, another tenure candidate -- let's call her Professor 
>Mellish -- was also a demanding teacher, but appealed only to the 
>top students in her classes. Her student ratings were low, and while 
>her peer observers commented favorably on the high standards she 
>set, they expressed concern over Mellish's unwillingness to address 
>the needs of the other two-thirds of the class. When I tried to 
>discuss this with Mellish, she proved intractable. She let me know 
>that she operated on a high intellectual level because students 
>needed it, and she had no sympathy for students who couldn't keep 
>up. Mellish's scholarship was unassailable, but though she did 
>manage to bring her student scores up to the average range, her 
>tenure case almost foundered on the teaching record.
>
>At one time, weak teaching got by with little more than a hiccup. A 
>science department once presented to the college promotion committee 
>a tenure candidate -- a big grant-getter and active publisher -- who 
>regularly garnered the lowest possible teaching scores. The 
>department head explained, "He's teaching a required course; we all 
>get lousy scores in that course." When I asked him if it was also 
>possible that his department could place more emphasis on effective 
>undergraduate teaching, he said, "Well yes, that too."
>
>Research universities like mine have a reputation for not valuing 
>teaching, and for expecting humanities faculty members to teach 
>better than their counterparts in science and math. Illinois has 
>done a lot in recent years to reverse that situation by offering 
>pedagogical mentoring. Our goal is to hire a faculty of cutting-edge 
>researchers in all fields who are also first-class teachers, and the 
>fact that promotion committees now scrutinize teaching assessments 
>conveys this important message to the entire faculty, not just the 
>new kids.
>
>Service
>
>Porchnik served on the department's graduate admissions committee 
>and was an elected representative to the department's advisory 
>committee. She helped out with a faculty search and was a member of 
>the committee on women in the profession for one of the professional 
>societies she belonged to.
>
>My department tries to protect junior faculty members from heavy 
>committee loads so that they can establish their research programs 
>and become confident instructors. But we must also foster a sense of 
>departmental citizenship so that when faculty members are promoted 
>they willingly take on their share of service, and professional 
>visibility will foster the development of a national reputation for 
>the scholar.
>
>Porchnik's service is very satisfactory, but other departments in 
>the college assign junior scholars significantly more committee 
>work, and that means I routinely have to explain why our promotion 
>candidates present such a "thin" service record.
>
>After going over her vita at our spring pretenure meeting, I shifted 
>to the nuts and bolts of promotion. I would need from Porchnik the 
>names of five external reviewers, all of them full professors at 
>peer or better institutions. Senior department members also provide 
>a list. I would then secure two reviewers from Porchnik's list and 
>three from the department list.
>
>Finding external reviewers is no easy task. Even though I start 
>earlier each year, I still get told, "I've already taken on as many 
>reviews as I can handle." One person I asked to review Porchnik told 
>me, "I can't do this because my life is falling apart right now." 
>Tenure candidates may find it reassuring that even full professors 
>at peer institutions are living on the edge. Although I almost 
>blurted out a ghoulish, "Tell me more," because inquiring minds do 
>want to know, I muttered an apology and moved on to the next person 
>on my list.
>
>The external reviewers read and reported on the tenure materials 
>that Porchnik helped prepare: a vita, copies of her publications, 
>and a three-page statement about her scholarship, divided evenly 
>between accomplishments to date and the next research project. 
>Porchnik also prepared a three-page statement of her teaching 
>philosophy. We sent the materials to external reviewers by mid-June, 
>asking them to report by September 30. All of Porchnik's reviewers 
>reported on time, and in my next column I'll describe the kinds of 
>things reviewers said in their letters on Porchnik, as well as on 
>some other cases, and how tenure committees read those letters.
>
>Dennis Baron is chairman of the English department at the University 
>of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He will write a regular column this 
>academic year on the tenure process. The names of faculty members 
>mentioned here have been changed. Readers may recognize some of the 
>names, but that would be because they, like the author, have an 
>affinity for Woody Allen movies.
>
>
>Copyright © 2002 by The Chronicle of Higher Education