Abstract
All academics find their work subject to judgement by many different people and they are constantly having to make judgements on the work of others. The exercise of judgement is central to the daily life and work of an academic. Such judgements are often a blend of the technical and the ethical, matters of competence, as well as elements of character. This chapter puts academic judgements under the spotlight, exploring their nature and importance, the criteria deployed in their exercise and the factors that influence their outcomes. Examples are provided of typical academic judgements about students and colleagues called for in the course of an academic’s work. The chapter ends by situating these judgements within the broader context of personal ideals and religious beliefs.
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- 1.
For an exhaustive study of university rubrics and rituals that articulate, disseminate, protect and promote academic standards through grading systems, examinations, degree awards, staff appraisal and research evaluation, all with an extended historical perspective, see William Clark, Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006). I omit consideration of comparative institutional rankings of universities in this chapter, although such rankings play an increasingly important role in shaping the priorities of university leaders, and thus, either directly or indirectly, they add to the pressures upon faculty.
- 2.
Charles W. Anderson, Prescribing the Life of the Mind (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1993), p.ix. Of course, standards for other kinds of judgement than truth seeking are also required of academics in leadership positions, mediating between perspectives at ‘ground level’ and institutional management. Such standards might take into account the learning gain by students between arriving at and leaving universities, the attainment of students at the end of courses, student satisfaction, the rating of quality by external (and possibly internal) monitoring procedures, economic measures, such as value for money of academic and support programmes (for example, in relation to inputs or costs and outcomes). There might be standards laid down for students’ employment levels after graduation, the contact hours that students have with their teachers, student engagement in learning, the speed (and quality) of feedback by lecturers on work given to students, and also for ratings by students of their lecturers.
- 3.
Ibid., p. 3.
- 4.
Jerome Kagan, The Three Cultures (Cambridge: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 2.
- 5.
Ibid., p. 3.
- 6.
Ibid., p. 40.
- 7.
Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Future (New York: Penguin, 2006), p. 217.
- 8.
Ibid., p. 218.
- 9.
Ibid., p. 220.
- 10.
Daniel C Russell, Practical Intelligence and the Virtues (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2009), p. 29.
- 11.
Frank Furedi, ‘Our job is to judge,’ Times Higher Education 17 March 2011, p. 37.
- 12.
Loc. cit., p. 38.
- 13.
Ibid.
- 14.
Ibid.
- 15.
Ibid.
- 16.
As one example, the set of criteria used to evaluate assignments for a Master’s programme in Christian school leadership that I taught for several years included: evidence and use of appropriate reading; critical analysis; quality and clarity of argument; awareness of the complexity of issues; adequacy of answer and relevance to the question or assignment; connection to school context and realities; presentation (spelling, grammar, referencing, layout); engagement with and deployment of Christian principles and their bearing on educational and leadership practice.
- 17.
Michèle Lamont, How Professors Think (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009).
- 18.
A helpful description of reflexivity is offered by Elizabeth Schlüsser Fiorenza: ‘Explicit articulation of one’s rhetorical strategies, interested perspectives, ethical criteria, theoretical frameworks, religious presuppositions and socio-political locations.’ Elizabeth Schlűsser Fiorenza, ‘The Ethics of Interpretation’, in Theological Literacy for the Twenty-First Century, edited by Rodney Petersen & Nancy Rourke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), p. 222.
- 19.
Lamont, op. cit., p. 182.
- 20.
Ibid., p. 168.
- 21.
Ibid., pp. 195, 242.
- 22.
Ibid., pp. 167–168.
- 23.
Ibid., p. 172.
- 24.
Abby Day, How to Get Research Published in Journals (Aldershot: Gower Publishing, 1996).
- 25.
Lamont, op. cit., p. 167.
- 26.
Ibid., p. 204.
- 27.
Ibid., p. 8.
- 28.
Ibid., p. 131.
- 29.
Ibid., p. 195.
- 30.
Ibid., p. 241.
- 31.
Leslie Paul Thiele, The Heart of Judgment (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p.ix.
- 32.
Ibid., p. 3.
- 33.
Ibid., p. 5.
- 34.
Thiele, op . cit., p. 281.
- 35.
Ibid., pp. 282–283.
- 36.
Ibid., p. 285.
- 37.
Thiele, op . cit., p. 287.
- 38.
Thomas L. Haskell, Objectivity is Not Neutrality (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), pp. 148–149.
- 39.
Haskell, op . cit., p. 149.
- 40.
Ibid., p. 149.
- 41.
Ibid., p. 151.
- 42.
‘The most basic problem is not the presence of presuppositions that may color one’s judgment; it is the awareness of these presuppositions, the ability to deal with them methodologically, and the effect they may have on one’s capacity to attend to the uniqueness of an alien system or doctrine Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Intellectual (London: Collins, 1965), p. 108.
- 43.
Thiele, op . cit., p. 1.
- 44.
Andreas J. Köstenberger, Excellence (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2011), p. 38.
- 45.
Ibid., p. 47.
- 46.
Ibid., p. 231.
- 47.
Paul B. Blowers, Maximus the Confessor (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), p. 276.
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Sullivan, J. (2018). Academic Judgements. In: The Christian Academic in Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69629-4_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-69629-4_4
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