Management Professor Notes II

That's a good, but tough, question.

I think that it should contribute but the question is where in the triad of research, teaching, and service it fits.

We need a new category because I think that there is one important element of academic life that does not fit into those three niches and needs a niche of its own and where blogging would fit.

I feel that much of a student's life in college would be enriched by having outside of class interactions with faculty that transcend the boundaries of courses. These could be social interactions at parties and intellectual interactions via forums, panel discussions and the like, where serious issues are discussed in an informal way. It is in such environments that students get to see the workings of a scholarly mind when it is applied to broader problems, and faculty get to see a side of students that is not revealed by homework solutions, exams, and the other paraphernalia of course work.

Blogging fits into this same category or niche, which should be called "enriching the life of the college" or something like that, because the kind of open intellectual activity that blogging represents enables us to connect with people whom we might have never encountered.

My own blog has put me in contact with students and staff whom I would have never known otherwise, and this has been one of the unexpected delights for me as a blogger.

Mano Singham has articulated something important here. I have been thinking of blogging as something quasi-creative and quasi-scholarly, but that leaves out the crucial aspect of community.

Sandy, thanks for subscribing. And for the kind mention in your LiveJournal post. My tenure saga is drawing to a peaceful end; best of luck with yours next year. And, if you feel like it, post about it!

I'm happy to see that more academic bloggers are concerned about this important topic: not only does blogging question the role of the professoriate, but it points to an issue that's only going to become more important as technology becomes an even more integral component of (higher) education than it already is. Blogging might not last, but its effects will are indicative of the computer's merging with education (and everything else for that matter).

Mano's observation is helpful in that we must try to place blogging in the area that is most appropriate for the work we do at our own institution. Perhaps, in a college like mine, it will be most appropriate listed under teaching. Perhaps another will think of it as professional service. However, it will take quite a paradigm shift for it to be accepted under scholarship. Maybe trends in the commercial market will be felt in academia eventually.

Good luck with your tenure application. I'll be approaching mine in the next two to three years, also. By all means, blog about it.

The one thing I recall about my own undergraduate experience was that I was able to learn as much outside the classroom as within. Whether this involved analyzing East German literature with friends in the pub, exchanging recipes with my music professor in the coffeehouse, or attending rallys in protest of the latest american military invasion, there were multiple opportunities for eye-opening discourse with both faculty and peers.

I think it is very true that the blogs can play a role in this type of interaction. While blogging is no substitute for conversation, it certainly fills a niche. While I may run into Prof. X or Y at the Barking Spider or Arabica, I may not run into Mano there. But by reading his blog, I still have the opportunity to gain from his insights, and share my opinions--all irrespective of time or location.

In this way reading the blogs has provided me one more source of brain candy.

Here is a link to papers presented at a conference on blogging that has some on using them in teaching.