"Faculty must assume a primary responsibility for giving scholarship a richer, more vital meaning."
- Ernest Boyer
Ernest Boyer's Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate
(1990) was written, in part, to put an end to the false polarity
between teaching and research in the academy and to recognize and
reward the vast array of faculty responsibilities. Boyer offered a new
paradigm of scholarship. He sought to overturn the dominant view that "to be a scholar is to be a researcher and publication is the primary yardstick by which scholarly productivity is measured."
Many have embraced Boyer's work, calling it seminal, and crediting him with
rejuvenating the concept of scholarship by validating teaching and
service as scholarly activities. Their endorsement, especially with
respect to the scholarship of teaching, is reflected internationally in
university mission statements, the movement towards certification in
university teaching, and the ever-growing interest in teaching
portfolios.
