Fulfilling the Promise: Looking at public service role of universities

By SUE WUETCHER
News Services Associate Director

"If we focus our attention on this, if we genuinely tie research, teaching and serviceŠuniversities will better fulfill their promise of advancing and transmitting knowledge to advance human welfare," said Ira Harkavy, an associate vice president at the University of Pennsylvania and the director of Penn's Center for Community Partnerships.

"And if we really fulfill that promise, then America has a very strong probability of achieving its promise as a fair, decent and just society for all of its citizens."

Harkavy was keynote speaker at the symposium on linking public service, or service learning, with research and scholarly activities held for faculty and staff by the Office of the Vice President for Public Service and Urban Affairs.

Following his remarks, members of a panel of UB deans and faculty members, many of whom are involved in service projects, discussed the issue of service learning at UB. While they applauded Harkavy's viewpoints, some panelists wondered if the effort could thrive at UB under the current award system.

R. Nils Olsen, vice dean for academic affairs and director of the clinical studies program in the School of Law, noted, for example, that in the past, "there has been a very inflexible definition of scholarship and teaching at the university level that has hampered even the professional schools" because it doesn't take service learning into consideration when it comes to granting tenure.

He added: "If there isn't an effective reward system that encourages people to do this, we will continue our record of talking grandly about having a major impact in the community but having that impact largely segregated in the professional schools."

Harkavy said American universities have had a deep tradition of the integration of research, teaching and service, and of having service at the very core of their function. He cited as examples contributions at the turn of the century by scholars associated with Columbia University, the University of Chicago and the Wharton School at Penn.

World events, however, have impacted negatively on that tradition. World War I, Harkavy noted, led to a model that questioned whether "ideas could change the world for the better, that human beings could promote progressŠ" Following World War II, competition with the Soviet Union led to the development of "big science" and the predominance of universities that focused on the physical sciences. Once the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, he added, "long-festering, chronic crises, long denied, became highly visible."

Harkavy said that not only can universities "no longer turn their back," but the whole mission structure of higher education has changed.

"The question is, given these developments, and given what has occurred in terms of American society's deep service tradition in education, what strategies can take us from here to there?" he asked.

Harkavy noted that many valuable service-learning activities involve students working in the field and taking their experiences back to the classroom for discussion.

Although some say the role of universities is to educate people to be citizens, not to solve problems, "my assumption is that is not what major research universities are about. That kind of relationship still views poor people as subjects to be studied."

He added: "The (correct) strategy seems to be a service-learning strategy that engages the range of academic resources and other resources of an institution to solve problems and advance learning and advance teaching."

"The notion here is that, in fact, service is both a goal and a motivator, and progress could and should go hand in hand; students are not just reflecting on an experience, but trying to improve the quality of life, not just in terms of 'what I have learned, but what good I may do'."

In the panel discussion following Harkavy's remarks, Olsen noted that over the years, the UB School of Law has integrated clinical education, which he described as "learning through application," into the curriculum, into the promotion and tenure standards for faculty, and into the school's definition of scholarship.

"As a result, the program has been enriched because it hasn't been treated as something separateŠand it has become a remarkable part of the community."

He cited the school's Affordable Housing Clinic, which has leveraged $26 million in outside funding and created approximately 350 units of housing in the Buffalo area in partnership with the Archdiocese of Buffalo, and the Community Economic Development Clinic, which is devising effective models for affordable, sustainable day care, which Olsen called critical in light of welfare reform.

"This is all done by tenure-track professors who are hired to do this. They teach courses in the law school, they write about what they do."

Faculty in the law school have a good record of recommended tenure based on teaching, service and scholarship, Olsen said. "The problem is when we get over to the university where there is a very narrow, cramped definition of scholarship," which has created serious tenure difficulties for some individuals, he said.

Hugh G. Petrie, dean of the Graduate School of Education, said that four years ago it approved a statement that broadened the concept of scholarship to include original scholarship, the scholarship of teaching, the scholarship of integration and the scholarship of interpretation. The statement also included professional service, which depends on a faculty member's scholarly expertise, instead of public service. "It's not coaching Little League," Petrie said.

Professional service, teaching and scholarship, he added, are the three categories the school uses for considering recommendations for promotion to full professor. Professional service, however, is not considered in recommending promotions from assistant to associate professor.

G. William Page, professor and chair of the Department of Planning, noted that if a university has faculty tackling serious urban problems, "it seems there should be a way to write something that is publishable and to work for tenure from that experience. While there may be a philosophical divide over higher learning and experiential learning, it does not seem to me they should not be insurmountable," he said.

"If you were advising someone starting an academic career, advising them to tackle real problems, serious problems, is generally good advice."

Harkavy noted that for public service to fit into the current faculty reward system, the argument must be made that it will produce substantive scholarship and better teaching. Moreover, there must be a commitment to public service at the top, at the presidential and provostial level. "It won't come from each school and discipline doing its own thing," he said.