Abstract
Faculty members in tenure-track positions must demonstrate proficiency in teaching and scholarship, although different types of higher education institutions carry different sets of expectations and requirements in these areas. Teacher-scholars, who integrate teaching and research through diverse means, largely work at teaching focused institutions. Even in such teaching-focused institutions, however, there has been a growing demand for faculty to have high levels of scholarly productivity, typically in the form of peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations...At the same time, teacher-scholars, due to limited resources, do not have great access to national conferences, leading them to rely more heavily on regional conferences to display their scholarly work. This study examines the utility of regional associations in meeting the career needs of teacher-scholars. Examining conference programs from the Pacific Sociological Association for five recent years, and comparing them to the national conference (the American Sociological Association) we show that teacher-scholars rely heavily on regional conferences to highlight their successes, often extending beyond scholarship. Regional conferences also offer a more flexible program than the national conference for defining the work of teacher-scholars. While teacher-scholars and Ph.D. granting faculty alike engage at both the national and regional conferences, both conferences tend to perpetuate a hierarchy of academia that emphasizes more traditional standards of scholarly success.
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Notes
Applied and Teaching sessions were combined because they often overlapped. They were an alternative session format from the traditional paper sessions, but appeared similar in structure to the traditional sessions, with each presenter having a title for their presentation.
Panel, Discussion and Workshop sessions were combined because they had a similar structure, with no titles connected with each presenter, instead just a list of participants.
Using this criteria clearly articulates those programs that will denote more traditional modes of success, i.e. Ph.D. programs in order to remove those faculty who most likely would not fit within our definition of “teacher-scholar”. This will allow us to focus on teacher-scholars and not all groups. Faculty from Research One programs instead are used as a comparison of teacher-scholars. Regardless, the programs, and really faculty who cross lines would likely be robust.
We did not include networking receptions or committee meetings in our analysis of session type and frequency.
Presidential sessions are highlighted and/or designated by the President of the Association as key sessions, often focused around the conference theme. The sessions are usually invited and organized by the President or associates of the President.
It is also worth noting that we cannot distinguish between presenters who are faculty members and those who are graduate students. While Master’s students might present their research in traditional or roundtable sessions, it would be very unlikely to find them in other sessions (teaching/workshops). This may over-represent the proportion of presenters we classify as “teacher-scholars” in the traditional sessions but should not have much impact on other session types.
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Migliaccio, T., Murphy, J. Do Regional Associations Meet the Career Needs of Teacher-Scholars?. Am Soc 45, 274–291 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-014-9227-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12108-014-9227-8