Valuing Community Engaged Faculty Work
Valuing Community Engaged Faculty Work
It is commonplace for universities to say they foster inclusive excellence and support diverse forms of scholarship. However, the rubber hits the road in academic reward systems. Too many institutions maintain narrow definitions of scholarship, criteria, metrics of impact, and systems of peer review that disregard, and devalue community engaged faculty work and exclude the critical work of faculty. In addition, evaluation of engaged scholarship often lacks context, clarity, and accountability. This presentation and discussion will focus on the challenges engaged scholars and teachers face, and how their work might be better recognized and rewarded.
Dr. KerryAnn O'Meara
Dr. KerryAnn O'Meara is Professor of Higher Education, Director of the ADVANCE Program for Inclusive Excellence, Affiliate Faculty in Women’s Studies and Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs and Graduate Studies in the College of Education at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is also president-elect of the Association for the Study of Higher Education, the premier research association of scholars who study higher education.
KerryAnn's research examines faculty careers and academic rewards systems with a particular focus on organizational practices that support and limit the full participation of women and URM faculty and the legitimacy of diverse forms of scholarship in the academy. KerryAnn's work has been published in the Journal of Higher Education, Gender and Education, American Educational Research Journal, Review of Higher Education, and Research in Higher Education, among other venues. Her work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Kettering Foundation, Luce Foundation, College Board, TIAA-CREF and Teagle Foundations. KerryAnn consults with higher education institutions on promotion and tenure policy reform, faculty development programs, and organizational practices that sustain equitable workloads. KerryAnn is PI of an NSF ADVANCE IHE-PLAN grant, the Faculty Workload and Rewards Project, to work with academic departments in MD, MA and NC state systems of higher education to design for greater equity in academic workload and reward systems. She was named Outstanding Women of the Year for her equity work at the University of Maryland.
