“A Note on Boyer’s ‘Taxonomy of Scholarship’ ”
— These notes have been constructed by synthesizing many online sources. —
New categories for describing scholarship have emerged from a perception that the diversity of American higher education requires differing types of scholarly activity from faculty members. The traditional definition of "scholarship" as independent research culminating in a juried publication, while continuing to occupy a major position in faculty training and institutional rewards, does not account for the variety of scholarly enterprises now undertaken by university faculty. Ernest Boyer proposed the following categories in his 1990 Carnegie Foundation report: Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. The categories have been further refined in Scholarship Assessed: A Special Report on Faculty Evaluation, by Glassick, Huber, and Maeroff (Carnegie Foundation: 1997). The categories are particularly useful: they provide a framework within which the diversity of scholarly activities of faculty can be described and evaluated. No faculty member can be expected to present accomplishments in all four areas. Each faculty member's scholarly and professional development would be expected to be in accord with the mission and vision of the department and would be expected to be sustained, showing development over time, often with changing emphasis.
The Scholarship of Discovery
reflects the traditional understanding of scholarship as research, though the term "discovery" emphasizes the original character of this kind of scholarship. This scholarship pursues knowledge for its own sake, and is based on rigorous inquiry and, most often, disciplinary paradigms. Because of the high premium placed on the responsibility of teaching, the "scholarship of discovery" will most often occur in relationship to a faculty member’s teaching area. The scholarship of discovery receives its significance when it becomes public; thus, the scholarship of discovery is most often realized in publications and presentations.
The Scholarship of Integration
compliments the scholarship of discovery, but does so by moving out of disciplinary pathways. The scholarship of integration is often, but not exclusively, collaborative, and its goal is the synthesis or connection-making between discoveries in various disciplines. A faculty member pursuing the scholarship of integration may be stepping outside his or her academic discipline to consider the implications of that discipline within a broader framework. Some activities, as writing or editing a textbook, are by their nature synthetic and integrative. As with the scholarship of discovery, the scholarship of integration must also be public to be meaningful; publications and presentations may occur in interdisciplinary contexts.
The Scholarship of Application
proposes scholarship as an act of engagement. The scholarship of application responds to the question, "How can knowledge be responsibly applied to consequential problems?" (Boyer). The goal of the scholarship of application is the use of knowledge or theory to strengthen practice and/or solve problems. The scholarship of application may frequently be carried out in settings with nonspecialists, and in forms including consultations; instruction via short courses, seminars, or workshops for non-university audiences; development or design of community-based projects; analysis or exploration of community problems or issues; editing journals or participating in leadership roles in professional organizations. Faculty members assuming administrative roles may find that their scholarship is focused on the scholarship of application as they link with professional organizations, publications, and forums that pursue topics and issues particular to the organization of the academy. Very often, the scholarship of faculty in professional schools will be the scholarship of application — these faculty members are a resource for the larger communities (for instance, health care, business, education) and frequently offer their expertise to those communities to analyze issues or work out problems. The scholarship of application is not service; service is an act for the sake of the good; scholarship is intellectual inquiry. The scholarship of application may be perceived by its audience or recipients as service; however, when the faculty member documents that knowledge or expertise is applied to a problem or situation in a scholarly way (creativity, rigorous and honest inquiry, reflection, public presentation), that faculty member's work can be understood as the scholarship of application. The scholarship of application may be the subject of presentations and papers that assume a traditional academic format, yet it is most often characterized by the engagement of the academic specialist with problems and issues in a community beyond the academy.
The Scholarship of Teaching
includes all public scholarly activities focused on teaching, either generically or within a discipline. The scholarship of teaching investigates teaching as an intellectual problem, and topics or problems in the scholarship of teaching may range from quantitative studies of student learning, to ongoing testing and evaluation of pedagogical strategies, to qualitative investigations of course designs. The scholarship of teaching may be presented in public forums that are focused on disciplines or focused on teaching, and may take the form of presentations, panels, publications, demonstrations, workshops, and consultations. The category of the Scholarship of Teaching proposes that the transmission of knowledge via the frameworks offered by the academy is as significant and worthy a subject of inquiry as a traditional "pure" research project.