One of the strongest sources of sustenance among academics is their “discipline,” their academic home, their department, their “field.” These entities define success for an academic. They collectively identify important contributions to knowledge. They distribute the coveted awards. They determine who’s “hot” on the academic market.
I’ve written already about certain weaknesses in this state of affairs (see CATALYZING INTERDISCIPLINARY PROGRAMS). One problem is that disciplines tend to be internally focused. This is a strength but also makes it difficult for them to learn of external needs and opportunities for knowledge advancement. The unsolved problems of the world may not have solutions that yield themselves to one discipline’s knowledge.
When the needed new knowledge comes from two disciplines or fields, it’s helpful to have university appointments that span the two fields.
Not all minds fit the joint appointment mold. Not all problems can be solved by joint appointments. On the other hand, scholars working in multiple fields simultaneously are doing some of the most important knowledge expansion now being experienced.
Georgetown does not have many examples of true joint appointments that I have seen at other research universities. On those campuses there are scholar/teachers who make significant contributions to two or more units routinely and are treasured by their colleagues in each unit as bringing important perspectives to their fields.
Joint appointments work when three features exist: a) making workloads proportionate to appointment fraction, b) implementing a system of merit review that consistently values the joint contributions, c) having a fair system of tenure review that rewards the joint contributions.
How to do this? Let’s use a simple example of a professor who has a 50% appointment in department A and a 50% in department B. A sustainable relationship would have a 50% workload in each of the departments, including research, teaching, and service. Half of the committee service, half the number of classes. Hopefully, the research activity would be of benefit to both units, and the units should proportionately enjoy any financial benefits of the research.
At merit review time, those with joint appointments should be reviewed with criteria that reflect the same aspirations as with other faculty, but reduced expectations given the 50% appointment. On some campuses, the next higher level reviews the ratings to make sure the joint appointments are treated fairly (e.g., a dean level review of all joint appointments between departments within a school)
If a nontenured faculty member is given a joint appointment of the nature above, at time of tenure review, a review committee with members from both departments is formed. Each department votes on the tenure, using the joint committee report. If both departments agree, that is the outcome forwarded. If one department votes for tenure and the other declines, then another feature must be in place. If the university-level review step recommends tenure, that department voting for tenure absorbs 100% of the time of the candidate and the joint appointment is appropriately adjusted.
The impediments to successful joint appointments are generally administrative, not intellectual. They can be removed through administrative actions. We need more minds who can think across disciplines. Great universities have created administrative systems that nurture such minds.
I’ve been a Professor in both the dept of Chemistry (main campus) and of Biochemistry and Cellular and Molecular Biology (medical campus) for awhile now. As alluded to by our Provost in his recent post, there are indeed potent synergies between Chemistry, Biochemistry, Cell. & Mol. Biol., in both teaching and research, that have been recognized by most research Universities for a long time. Hence they have been actively promoted by these Universities in multiple ways, including with cross appointments. These synergies are driving research in my field and many others in unprecedented, enormously potent fashion. I’d like to think that my laboratory has made very good use of such synergy over the years. These synergies are also providing fertile ground for innovative teaching, and I see (and participate in) it every day. Many of my colleagues outside of Georgetown are quite envious that I can draw on intellectual and infrastructural resources in both depts. These range from intense tutorials on the merits of solid state vs solution NMR spectroscopy from my colleague Angel de Dios (in the Chemistry dept) to inspirational debates on traditional metabolic biochemistry vs modern “metabolomics” that I always looked forward to with a brilliant biochemist, Mark Smulson, that had the office next to mine on Basic Science 3 at GUMC. Both (and many more such interactions within both depts.) have catalyzed progress in my research group in rather important ways, and have yielded numerous benefits for my graduate, undergraduate and postdoctoral students (as well as my grant portfolio !)
Yet, best I know, I am the only Professor in the history of Georgetown University that has even pursued appointments in both these depts. More puzzling, at our fine University these depts are separated by only 100 yards. Many other research Universities have much wider gaps (physically and culturally), but nonetheless enjoy many more such cross appointed faculty in these disciplines. To my observation, the same phenomenon occurs for other main campus vs medical campus science depts, where “natural synergies” abound, and where those synergies represent much of the cutting edge in research and teaching, yet, cross appointments are few and far between. Why ?
The answers fill much more space than blogs are designed to accomodate, or that my writing skills might adequately summarize, but they are very much worth discussing. We are perhaps (slowly) changing, but moving forward requires serious and fundamental discussion of who we are, who we have been, and where we want our institution to be in the future. This discussion must be constant, and must embrace all sectors of the University, not just the natural sciences. Cross appointments in depts that are within a given campus (main, med, law) are more common for us and are no doubt just as synergistic as the one I have enjoyed, but in the natural sciences, many of the cross appointments that can have the greatest, most immediately positive effect on our trajectory as a student centered research University are only 100 yrds apart. I applaud Dr. Groves’ efforts at raising the profile of this discussion. For the natural sciences, it is long overdue. I hope the discussion will include renewed effort at analyzing and perhaps circumventing the unique challenges of main – medical campus cross appointments in our very fine science depts.
All the best
Paul
There exists a MOU that outlines all of this for joint appointments — no need to reinvent this.