What is public scholarship?

What is Public Scholarship? What is public scholarship? What does it mean to be a public scholar? Or a publicly engaged scholar? Or to do community engagement? These are valid questions. Thankfully, and for simplicity’s sake, I’ve counted no less than two dozen published definitions and explanations. Just try googling ‘public scholarship’ or ‘public engagement.’ […]
Why do we assume the public is not interested in our research? Thoughts on the knowledge deficit model.

There is much to be said about the knowledge deficit model and its impact on how researchers and scientists think about communicating with the public. Get this: scientists more or less hold negative feelings about the public’s base scientific knowledge. To add insult to injury, researchers who already have negative views about their potential public […]
Public engagement, reappointment, tenure, and promotion

The incentive structure for research faculty at institutions of higher education in the United States and beyond hinges on knowledge creation through traditional research outputs (e.g., peer reviewed articles, books, conference presentations). Research faculty are awarded reappointment, tenure, and promotion based on a criteria of high productivity in research, teaching, and service. This is not […]
my 2022 reading and inspiration list

books. The Engaged Scholar: Expanding the Impact of Academic Research in Today’s World by Andrew Hoffman is an engaging (couldn’t help myself), thought provoking, inspiring book. what the book lacks in practical advice, it makes up for it with a healthy discussion on the systemic ways in which the academia continues to trip over itself. […]
build your professional brand via social media – part II

this is a part II of a two part series on building your brand via social media. part I can be accessed here. social media is one way to develop your professional brand. social media can help build your reputation as a thought leader in your research area. social media’s prevalence in today’s society, along […]
build your professional brand via social media – part I

this is part I of a two part series on building your brand via social media. part II can be viewed here. one way to establish your expertise as a public scholar is to develop and maintain a public scholarly/professional brand. a professional profile represents you, your research, and what you want the world to […]
twitter for citations

for the love of twitter! there is a hate / love / hate relationship with twitter and the people who inhabit its corner of the internet. i, for one, think it is one of the best cyber places on earth. sure, twitter is rife with shit and shit people. but when you successfully create your […]
a catalog of research and inspiration

i am constantly and consistently doing research and reading about public scholarship as a part of my journey to become more forward facing as well as to guide researchers and scholars on their own unique public scholarship journey. to support the proposition that academics are content curators, i created a curated catalog of information for […]
academics as content curators

let me ask you something. on any given day, how many web browser tabs do you have open, saving articles and pieces you will eventually read because it sounds interesting/important/informative? and i am not going to even ask if you use multiple web browsers. is there a better way to keep track of all the […]