Ladies and Gentlemen of MG-ED-DIV:
Recently an interesting debate has surfaced at my institution. The debate
surrounds the concept of the "scholarly-practitioner." I am involved in a
professional doctoral program that strongly advocates the concept of the
scholarly-practitioner.
From my personal investigation thus far, the scholarly-practitioner debate
(from the academician point of view) seems to center around the issue of the
"appropriateness" of applied research in the scholarly environment and what
scholarly contributions to the epistemology of the discipline the doctoral
student makes after graduation. There seems to be concern regarding the
preparation of scholarly-practitioners from professional doctorates to enter
the world of academe.
How have other institutions dealt with this issue?
What definitions of the scholarly-practitioner were chosen? What
behaviors (knowledge, skills and abilities) were associated with the
scholarly-practitioner? Was the issue of continuing education or periodic
scholarly achievements (publishing) addressed?
Was the concept rejected? Why? Was an alternate concept embraced?
Any thoughts from the MG-ED-DIV community would be welcomed (be they from
scholars, practitioners, or scholarly-practitioners). The debate is growing
and the faculty and students seem to welcome the discourse. I am in the midst
of preparing a paper on this subject for one of my classes and with
appropriate "tweeking" I hope to publish my findings afterwards.
Sincerely,
Bruce Pawlak