I believe in an expansive concept of scholarship.
The following is an edited excerpt from “Enriching Architectural Scholarship by Building on Boyer.”
Boyer’s concept of scholarship
Seeing limitations in the basic research model and a lack of diversity in scholarship at various types of colleges and universities, Ernest L. Boyer published his seminal text, Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate, in 1990. Boyer opened his argument by saying “The challenge...was to define the work of faculty in ways that enrich, rather than restrict, the quality of campus life.”
To this end, Boyer expanded the concept of scholarship to include the following four categories:
- The scholarship of discovery
- The scholarship of integration
- The scholarship of application
- The scholarship of teaching
The scholarship of discovery is those activities most closely associated with traditional research. Examples include basic research on such subjects as genetics, history, linguistics, and physics.
The second of Boyer’s categories is the scholarship of integration. The scholarship of integration involves “making connections across the disciplines.”
The scholarship of application refers to the implementation of knowledge to a particular problem. However, Boyer is careful to distinguish the scholarship of application from “the amorphous category called ‘service,’” which does not generate new knowledge.
As one would expect, the scholarship of teaching involves research that is concerned with teaching and learning. A distinct activity beyond basic classroom preparation and reflection, the scholarship of teaching requires a scholar to collect and publish results.
An expansion of Boyer
I believe that a further expansion of scholarship is warranted and proposed these additional categories of scholarship:
- The scholarship of design
- The scholarship of reporting
- The scholarship of speculation
Given its unique qualities, design is worthy of its own category of scholarship. Just as discovery is what scientists do, design is what architects and other designers do. Elevating design to its own category of scholarship is essential if the design disciplines (including but not limited to architecture, furniture design, interior design, landscape architecture, product design, and urban design) are going to achieve an appropriate level of respect in a diverse university environment.
The goal of the scholarship of reporting is collection—not analysis, not synthesis, which will be left to others. At times, just documenting evidence is essential—otherwise, a crucial meeting may not be recorded, a person may forget critical details, or a disaster site is changed before data can be collected. Excellent scholarship might be found in preserving this information.
The advancement of human knowledge requires the leap from what is to what could be. The scholarship of speculation celebrates that intellectual leap. Academics performing the scholarship of speculation would invent stories of some particular future—work that would be classified as fiction, or, very likely, science fiction.
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Boyer, Ernest L. Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. San Francisco: The Carnegie Foundation, 1990.
Cosper, Christopher (Chris) L. 2015. "Enriching Architectural Scholarship by Building on Boyer." 103rd Annual Meeting of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA). Washington, D.C.: Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. 316-323.