“Rescue Tenure From the Tyranny of the Monograph” by Lindsay Waters in The Chronicle of Higher Education argues that we are spewing out too many second-rate books as we force new scholars to publish one or two to get tenure. His remedy is to return to a few excellent essays for tenure and to publish fewer books that are full of “gusto” (accessible and moving to a larger audience.)
The realities of the pressures to get tenure are unlikely to change, so I doubt the community can easily change course, but what if the form in which early publishing took place were changed? What if blogs, wikis, discussion list participation, and other forms of social/network writing were assessed. Early in a career is when academics should be writing with and for others in order to establish their network of ideas. Books can come later out of what has been tested in the creative common.
How would one assess quality (and quantity) for such writing? I can think of some bibliometric methods (Google as tenure tool), but they would be crude and easy to manipulate. Ideas?
Some quotes:
Is the university a place where intelligence is made manifest? It is, and always has been, a place where careerism makes itself manifest? But what about intelligence? (p. B8)
I am afraid we M.L.A. types are a bit like the railwaymen who thought that their job was building and maintaining track, train, and station, and not moving goods and people. They did not keep their eyes on the prize. But just like them, our job in the humanities is moving people and understanding what moves them. Why do we want people to write? Why do we want to see their writing? Because we want authors and readers, alike, to be humanists. An old-fashioned word, “humanist,” but not outmoded. A humanism that dares speak its name speaks in a way that is persuasive to humankind. (p. B8)
Sales of individual titles are down for university-press publishers not because we are so good and society is so bad, but because we can’t convince even ourselves that what we are doing makes a difference. (p. B9)
From The Chronicle of Higher Education, April, 20, 2001. B7 – B10. (Thanks to Joe for this.)