The Upstate Institute provided an opportunity for several colleges and universities in the region to discuss public scholarship in a roundtable meeting organized by Imagining America and New York Campus Compact, held at Colgate University on September 11, 2009. The daylong conversations focused on engaged learning and scholarship at several institutions, and considered how those institutions recognize public scholarship in the promotion and tenure process for faculty.
Imagining America is a consortium of college and universities committed to public scholarship in the arts and humanities. IA has recently created the Tenure Team Initiative on Public Scholarship, which seeks to articulate and support the work of publicly engaged scholars and artists, and then organized a series of roundtable discussions. Following the distribution of the report, these roundtable discussions were organized to stimulate dialogue and action.
The Colgate roundtable brought together representatives from twelve institutions to describe the state and status of public scholarship on their campuses and featured a panel discussion of three faculty who have engaged in scholarly work that produces a public good and that is planned and carried out by university and community partners. The agenda also provided time for each institution to develop action plans and participate in workshops on themes such as broadening the definition of public scholarship, fostering innovation in early career faculty, and garnering support from academic deans, chairs and directors.