Some time ago I posted a blog about the value of a university environment that nurtures combining knowledge across traditional boundaries (See Post: Knowledge on the Edges). Such campuses tend to be more nimble at exploiting new opportunities to solve important problems; they are also more resilient to changes in the external world, ones that demonstrate that traditional approaches need renewal. For universities that have missions to improve the world, it’s logical that such atmospheres permit the problem to define the needed knowledge sets instead of the knowledge sets solely defining what’s a legitimate problem.
In my travels around Georgetown in my first year, I’ve encountered a great strength of thinking across traditional boundaries. We have scholars whose individual research agendas are actively combining multiple fields. This is going on in the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences.
However, some of our structures and appointment processes are not serving well these interdisciplinary thinkers. Over the summer, the deans and I have worked on a set of new procedures to support joint appointments, offering greater nurturance of faculty who have talents and interests in multiple areas. These are a natural evolution of policies we have had in place that attempt to:
- Reflect different levels of intensity and length of time of such joint appointments
- Make explicit what are the rights and responsibilities of the departments/units, the jointly appointed faculty, deans, and provost in the appointment
- Set up procedures to manage any cross-unit issues that arise during the appointment
We’re seeking input from faculty on the draft policy over the next few weeks. Under the proposal, there would be three types of joint appointments, varying in intensity of citizenship:
a) “Affiliate faculty” is the shallowest of the shared citizenship models, well suited to a faculty member who wishes to teach or do research in another unit for a specific term or whose classes in their primary unit attract many students from the other unit, but do not wish to be active members of the other unit
b) Courtesy joint appointments would tend to last longer, with specific and agreed upon duties, with salary obligations in the primary unit, but specific duties in the secondary unit documented and supported
c) Shared joint appointments convey full rights, but fractional citizenship and funding in multiple units, with the permanency of the status appropriate to rank.
In all of these, the next higher level of administrative authority has the responsibility of making the “jointness” work (e.g., the provost would be responsible for joint appointments involving two schools). In all such appointments there would be written, explicit agreements on the duties of the appointees in the units, with assurance that their service, teaching, and research are proportional to the salary support provided by the unit (never exceeding 100% in total). The new proposed policy specifies merit review procedures that fairly combine the reviews from the multiple units. It specifies joint tenure and promotion review procedures that range from the primary unit merely seeking input for affiliate faculty under review to, for a shared joint appointment, a joint promotion review panel, separate votes of the two units, and explicit protections to the shared joint appointment candidate under the circumstance of split votes between units.
We have clear goals in drafting new policies. We want to make Georgetown even more inviting as a place to do original scholarship that spans fields. We want our departments and programs to be able to take advantage of faculty that offer alternative insights to students in those fields, even if they have part of their teaching and research life in another unit. We want our students to be exposed to the latest combinations of approaches toward the big issues facing this world.
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Great post. I truly hope renewed emphasis on this philosophy by our administration helps it to (finally) take hold more strongly. Another thing to perhaps add to the dialogue is our history. In the natural sciences, particularly anything related to biology or biomedical science, interdisciplinary, interdepartmental, cross campus appointments have been the norm at other top institutions for a long time. I was trained that way starting over 30 years ago (and I was by far not the only one), as a young professor starting out I held joint appointments in two depts at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Cornell Medical College, and I came to Georgetown 16 years ago in large part because the possibilities for embracing such a philosophy even more potently seemed boundless. The tools and language of chemistry, physics, psychology, genetics, ecology, and most other “basic” sciences one finds on an undergraduate campus are an integral part of biomedical science today (and have been for some time). At Georgetown then, due to the unique proximity of a top undergraduate campus and a top medical school the possibilities for the natural sciences are indeed endless. But institutionally, with a few exceptions we haven’t pursued them, and some of the people that have done such things regardless have been penalized as much as rewarded. I have always been amazed at this, and the severity of some penalties. Some younger faculty witnessing the penalties are discouraged from pursuing such cross appointments themselves. Potential recruits from outside Georgetown sometimes see or know of the penalties as well, and so we often have a tougher time recruiting one very important category of scientists that might do particularly well at Georgetown, in spite of financial or infrastructural constraints. These penalties, and the repercussions, have been known for a long time. We usually do not speak of them, and it is difficult to correct the consequences. So it is deeply heartening to see our new Provost openly embrace the philosophy, and to formally promote new policies that will work to eliminate some of the penalites. However, such efforts will have great difficulty unless the institution as a whole decides to better understand the history and collectively work to eliminate the penalties. That piece of the puzzle has never been easy.
This is very exciting! New joint appointments would encourage scholars to work across boundaries, and enrich both teaching and research at our school.
I would like to suggest that the new formal policies have some in-built flexibility, i.e. provide a scholar and the departments with sufficient opportunity to revise the arrangement periodically. Scholarly interests and research methods often shift over time, and so do departmental priorities. A contract between two departments and a scholar, should thus ideally be a “living document” that can be altered at times of transition without any hard feelings on any side. Finding this balance between clarity and flexibility, is of course quite difficult, but I know that at Georgetown we will find a unique way and hopefully be a good role-model for other schools!
As always, thank you for sharing these interesting thoughts and ideas!
Judgements regarding tenure is another critical issue. If a junior facuulty member is doing research and teaching that cuts across disciplines, (s)he must be judged for tenure for what (s)he is, not for what a disciplinary purist thinks (s)he should be. This applies both to the make-up of the tenure committee and the choice of outside referees.