Relative to this latter point, we also undertook a comprehensive
revision of our School’s guidelines for faculty
appointment, promotion, and tenure to ensure that true scholarship in the area of education and instructional innovation
could be appropriately identified, recognized,
and rewarded. Our current approach defines the scholarship
of education as the practice of teaching and intellectual
pursuits that advance the educational process, and
places an equal value on all 3 traditional areas of scholarship:
education, discovery (often viewed as ‘‘basic research’’),
and application (including many elements of
‘‘translational research’’). It is our view that an academic
organization must provide a credible path to promotion or
tenure, in conjunction with other recognition and reward
mechanisms that might be available, if it truly wishes to
foster innovative educational scholarship.