Legacy

Lynne M. Webb
@ The University of Arkansas

Introduction

Professors are the original multi-taskers. We teach, advise, theorize, and conduct research. We write, chair committees, evaluate administrators, develop course proposals, search for new colleagues, evaluate applicants to graduate programs, and entertain visiting scholars (usually picking up the tab for dinner). We select textbooks, revise curricula, review for journals, submit papers for conferences, and submit manuscripts for publications. We edit journals, theses, dissertations, self-study reports, manuscripts for colleagues, and graduate student papers for conference submissions. We consult, speak at scholarship dinners, give talks to community groups, and provide training for non-profit organizations. Many of us completed these tasks in just the first five years of employment in order to earn tenure. Then, we took on the more difficult tasks of starting new journals, organizing new graduate programs, and providing leadership to our professional associations.

I write this long list, not to sing my praises, or even the praises of my own generation of young Turks who have so recently come of age. I know many Communication scholars have accomplished so much more than I have accomplished, and I know many have accomplished it so much earlier in their careers than I have. Rather, I write this list to illustrate what is so obvious to us in the academy and so invisible to the public: that being a professor is an impossibly busy job. It is impossible—there are not enough hours in the day—to do all one could and perhaps should do to satisfy the interests of the many constituencies we serve.

Given that professors can never accomplish all they might or perhaps should do, what can we say about two young, talented scholars who devoted multiple pre-tenure years to developing the first multimedia e-journal in Communication? Let us examine the first three years of the product they created and its prospect for the future, in light of a general analysis of appropriate conduct, perspective, and motives for Communication scholars. Indeed, the purpose of this essay is two-fold: (1) to advocate a specific type of scholarly agenda for professors in Communication and then, (2) in light of that scholarly agenda, to evaluate the American Communication Journal as the work-product of its first two co-editors. Let us begin this essay with two important questions that contextualize any discussion of an appropriate scholarly agenda: How should a young scholar choose to spend his/her professional time? How should tenured, more mature scholars spend their time?

Allocating Scholarly Time and Defining "Time Well Spent"

The traditional answer provided to the young scholar is that he/she should concentrate on research and writing (or perhaps on research and teaching if he/she is employed at a teaching-institution). The conventional wisdom is that these bright, eager, energetic scholars should do what they have to do to ensure that they will have a job five years from now. Note that administrators and senior colleagues do not advise young scholars to balance competing interests or to manage their time in a way that serves the best interests of the academy, the discipline, or their home institution. Rather, we advise them to concentrate selfishly on their own research, thus furthering their own careers, often at the expense of providing meaningful service to their students, colleagues, departments, universities, and the public at large.

How can one justify a myopic focus on research that eclipses other meaningful scholarly activities? Perhaps a well-planned research program ultimately serves multiple constituencies. For example, one could argue that research ultimately benefits students by advancing the knowledge in the discipline (i.e., producing important knowledge that appears in the textbooks that allow future students [perhaps the children of the current students] to learn more perfect knowledge about communication). Further, one might argue that this same well-planned research program ultimately benefits colleagues, departments, and the university by placing the name of the institution on the pages of well-respected publication outlets and thus providing a public relations function. Even further, we could argue that the public is ultimately served by advancing knowledge, as knowledge advances civilization, thus making our society a better place in which to live.

Friends, Am I the Only One Not Buying This?

Does anyone really think that a tuition-paying student would rather have a professor come ill-prepared to class because he/she is finishing an important manuscript than come to class prepared to offer a stimulating, well-planned educational experience? My students would prefer the latter. Would you rather have a colleague miss an important committee meeting or faculty meeting so he/she can finish one more manuscript this semester, or would you rather have the colleague allocate his/her time in such a way that a reasonable number of manuscripts are completed and the individual also finds time to be a good citizen of the department? Further, do you want your program to earn a reputation for excellent and abundant scholarship accompanied by poor teaching and inept self-governance? Finally, and perhaps most importantly, do you really think the public endorses a "publish or perish" mentality for untenured assistant professors (or for professors in any career stage)?

Let me take a moment to say that I speak here not from sour grapes, but rather from the position of having "played in the big leagues" and found it wanting. As I wrote my dissertation and sent out applications for my first tenure-track position, I decided that I wanted to spend my professional life living and working in the Southeastern United States, preferably at a Research 1 institution with a PhD program in Communication. Through luck and circumstances, my dream came true. My first tenure-track position, with the ink still wet on my diploma, was at the University of Florida. I was awarded tenure and promotion in a timely manner. I subsequently have held tenured appointments at two additional flagship institutions (the University of Memphis and the University of Arkansas), each with an outstanding graduate program in Communication. I know of which I speak.

Further, my critique of the standard advice to young scholars (i.e., that they should focus on research) is not intended to discourage young scholars from writing, publishing, and developing their research agenda. Indeed, I hope young people will be encouraged to contribute regularly to the knowledge base of the field, but at a reasonable pace that affords them to opportunity to develop excellence in teaching and service skills at the same time. My argument is intended to encourage our discipline -- and specifically its leaders -- to reconsider our priorities. My hope is that our discipline will develop a well-articulated disciplinary standard for tenure and promotion that includes (1) a reasonable amount of research, teaching, and service as well as (2) the requirement that untenured colleagues demonstrate commitment to and quality work in all three areas. I posit this as an operational definition of "time well spent" for untenured scholars.

Having considered the question of how young, untenured professors should spend their time, let us turn to the related question of how tenured, more mature scholars should spend their time. Following tenure, is the faculty member finally freed to pursue excellence in teaching and service as well as research and scholarship? My experience in "the bigs" is that this is an emphatic "No!" Post-tenure faculty are expected to maintain the same furious pace of pre-tenure publication and, additionally, shoulder more of the self-governance "burden." Often, the Chair position was awarded not on merit, but rotated among scholars who’d rather write a grant than a letter of evaluation for a colleague. One of my former chairs carved out 2 days a week, every week, to spend in the lab rather than the Chair’s office. The senior professors admired him for doing so and argued that a chair must protect him/her self from "falling behind in research!" I never heard one tenured faculty member express a concern for students or the fate of the Department under a part-time chair, yet alone address the issue of the chair’s failure to raise private monies for departmental needs outside his/her own research program. Indeed, in this particular department, senior faculty were actively discouraged from holding offices in professional associations, joining editorial boards, or speaking at community functions, as these activities served others outside the Department and took time away from producing scholarship. Senior faculty, even those well-known and well-published, who failed to produce at least two nationally refereed articles in any two-year period were summarily removed from the graduate faculty. It was a publication-mentality gone mad.

I realize a teaching-only mentality can be just as myopic. While finishing my dissertation, I accepted my first full-time academic appointment at a small, private, liberal arts college in the South. There, I watched professors teach from 25-year-old yellowed notes they had prepared as graduate teaching assistants. I watched colleagues praised in faculty meetings and rewarded on payday for advising the French Club; for having students to their homes for dinner; and, for participating in local community theatre rather than for publishing, presenting conference papers, or serving as officers in professional associations.

This was the institution where -- at a lively committee meeting during my first semester on the faculty -- a senior professor said to me: "All you new professors come to us full of ideas. In 10-15 years, you finally get over it and accept that we have our own way of doing things here." That night, I did the math and discovered that this small college with a total of 125 faculty members hired 20-25 new professors every Fall. They were replacing about 20% of the faculty on an annual basis! Many of the best and brightest new professors stayed only a year or two and then moved on. I stayed two years and then moved to where I belonged -- to a large, public land-grant university. However, I left with a clear understanding of what it is to focus myopically on merely one of the important missions of a university. When student services are placed center stage, the advancement of knowledge in the discipline as an important enterprise can be lost. Further, ignorance of research and scholarship leads to a devaluing of new ideas, a failure to recognize the importance of staying current in intellectual thinking, and an unwillingness to employ cutting-edge technology, pedagogy, or research methodologies. Instead of privileging innovation, the faculty came to privilege thinking inside the box, and a narrow box it was at that.

The Balanced Professional Life

If I condemn both the research-strict and teaching-strict mentalities, what do I then advocate? A service mentality, perhaps? Actually, I have found the most rewarding kind of professional life is a balanced life. I find a steady diet of any one of our three scholarly staples (scholarship, teaching, and service) leads to a vision too narrow to sustain academic interest and vigor. For both the new and the tenured professor, I believe a balanced life would serve the best interests of both the scholar and his/her constituencies. I believe a balanced professional life is the operational definition of "time well spent" for both tenured and untenured scholars.

A balanced professional life has much to recommend it: Young professors develop the habit of practicing scholarship in all three areas, thus easing post tenure adjustment. Further, it leads to a more egalitarian professorate with fewer colleagues "ghettoized" as either "only teachers," "only researchers," or "only administrators." The major cost of a balanced approach is a clear lack of depth in any one area. Professors produce fewer articles, teach fewer classes, and/or carry a lighter service load than they would if they specialized in any one area. While much can be said to recommend depth, please allow me to illuminate three particularly compelling advantages to a balanced professional life that simply cannot be obtained via specialization.

First, a balanced professional life allows scholars to serve more constituencies both individually as well as simultaneously. Obviously, the balanced scholar serves the ends of students, disciplinary knowledge, and the institution simply through professional activities. However, it is possible through careful selection of scholarly activities (e.g., which writing projects to undertake, which classes to teach, and which service tasks to undertake) to simultaneously serve multiple constituencies. An obvious example is the applied scholar working with a not-for-profit organization in the community. If the scholar can collect data, involve students in the project, provide a meaningful service to the organization, solicit donations for the department, and obtain press coverage for his/her institution, then the applied scholar has served many constituencies meaningfully and simultaneously.

Second, a balanced life provides a fuller and more accurate perspective on the role of scholarship, teaching, and service in the accomplishment of the important goals of professional life (e.g., advancing the discipline). I have found that scholars who lead narrowly drawn professional lives, whether they are primarily researchers, teachers, or administrators, miss the big picture. They fail to see what is so obvious to anyone deeply involved and committed in all three venues: that it is all important, if not essential; that it is all exciting, if not ultimately engaging for the intellectual; and that each venue holds an important place in determining the future of all the others.

Indeed, these three venues are interconnected in ways we can never tease apart; these activities feed and nurture each other. Today’s undergraduate student is tomorrow’s graduate student (if the happy victim of engaged teaching), and further the day-after-tomorrow’s young scholar (if inspired by his/her advisors to pursue engaging questions). The young, inspired scholar discovers knowledge through research that ultimately appears in textbooks and his/her lectures as the circle of engaged teaching continues. Such teaching and research can only take place if there is a Program in, or Department of, Communication at his/her institution and a discipline of Communication to publish journals, textbooks, etc. Thus the engaged teacher/scholar readily becomes involved in service first at the Department level in advising and committee work related to student and curricular concerns. Next, the young teacher/scholar may be asked to review manuscripts for journals and read papers for a conference; the 'disciplinary service' responsibility can rapidly build from there. Further, an engaged teacher and inspired researcher will attract the attention of his/her community and institution; service opportunities will follow.

Through an active practice in teaching, research and service, professors see these interconnections and thus gain the perspective that the three primary avenues of scholarship are each important. This perspective (i.e., that the three scholarly staples of research, teaching, and service are interconnected and thus each important) is the perspective of the enlightened scholar, in the opinion of this author.

When the scholar him/her self recognizes the interconnections between scholarship, teaching and service, he/she can engage at important intersections and simultaneously serve several constituencies (as described above) as well as achieve important goals along multiple venues simultaneously, thus leaving a professional legacy for the future (as described below). I have no higher hope or aspiration for my protégées or myself, save to do this for a worthy cause. It is my belief that herein lies the formula for professional success in the academy; indeed, in the new multifaceted academy of the 21^st century.

Third, a balanced professional life allows individuals to sample in a meaningful way a wide variety of activities to discover those that are "right for you." Such sampling allows each scholar to try a wide variety of professional activities to discover both (1) where his/her unique talents lie so that he/she can leave behind a unique legacy to the academy and (2) what he/she most enjoys doing and thus will do very well again and again, given the chance to perform in this area in an on-going way. For example, one scholar may discover that he/she appears more talented than most at connecting disparate notions to form new and unifying ideas. Such talent will be manifest in the classroom during discussions and lectures, during the interpretation of data in written scholarship, as well as in committee meetings, especially when working with colleagues from emerging colleges within the discipline. His/her ultimate legacy may be a more intellectually unified discipline. Another individual may be a consummate networker, connecting students with websites, colleagues with future collaborators, and manuscripts with potential publication outlets. His/her legacy may be a more interconnected scholarly community. Another scholar may find his/her talents lie in bringing innovative technology to the department, classroom, and the discipline. Such an individual would be an ideal candidate for editor of the first electronic journal in the discipline. His/her ultimate legacy may be a more contemporary and innovative discipline.

The value of such exploration cannot be over estimated. Few graduate students correctly identify their unique talents at the beginning of their careers. I can recall one eager young woman who was pursuing an MA degree with the hope of teaching at the community college level. When three senior professors realized she was among the brightest and the most hard-working graduate students to come through the program in years, they began a slow, but serious, and ultimately successful effort to persuade her to stay on for the PhD. Today she is a tenured professor in a well-respected Communication program and is widely recognized as one of the founders of and early publishers in a new specialty area in the discipline. Thank goodness her professors began to involve her in serious research endeavors during her MA program, encouraged her to attend National Communication Association conferences, offered her the opportunity to conduct training sessions for community groups, etc. How else would she have broadened her horizon, but for exposure to the wide world of scholarship in the many venues in which it is practiced?

Further, the notion of legacy fits especially well within the idea of a balanced scholarly life. A scholar who is publishing, teaching, and active in service can accomplish his/her legacy-goals along many venues simultaneously. For example, if a scholar’s goal is to improve the status of the Communication Department at his/her institution and leave the legacy of an extremely strong and powerful department, he/she can best achieve this goal as a balanced scholar -- by continuing to publish and present papers, thus contributing to the scholarly reputation of the Department while serving as an example to peers; by continuing to teach challenging and rewarding classes, thus encouraging the best and the brightest undergraduate as well as graduate students to major in Communication; and by serving meaningful leadership and service roles around the institution as well as the discipline, thus enhancing the reputation of his/her department as a community of competent scholars. Further, through the careful selection of projects, a scholar could achieve the same goal on multiple-levels simultaneously, as described above, thus building a legacy quite efficiently.

Perspective and Legacy

There are few things I value more in a scholar than perspective and a burning desire to leave an important legacy. Neither of these things necessarily correlates with intelligence. We are all familiar with the brilliant person who does the minimal amount of work and makes fun of the rest of us working drones (i.e., the lazy intellectual). We are equally familiar with the colleague who retired on the job years ago because the world became unengaging in some way, (i.e., the "dead wood" professor).

What seems to drive the desire to leave an important legacy is not intelligence, but rather commitment to a cause larger than self. I watched many an idol fall when it was discovered that rather than attempting to serve a cause larger than self, their acts largely benefited their own lives, programs, protégés, reputations, ambitions, or worse — lined their own pockets. We want, in our intellectual heroes, men and women who put the needs of others ahead of their own needs. When a disciplinary leader calls me to request assistance with a project, I want to know that my efforts will help the discipline rather than feed the ego or reputation of the colleague issuing the invitation.

I realize that I am here creating a false dichotomy. It is possible to work for a worthy cause and, in recognition of your efforts, earn an enhanced reputation among colleagues. Indeed, many have done so. However, I find the following test useful in determining whether my motivation is personal or professional: I ask myself, will this behavior serve to enhance my discipline, contribute to my students’ training, improve the professional lives of my colleagues, as well as benefit my department and my university? If I can answer yes to all five constituencies, then I have found one of those sought-after opportunities to serve multiple constituencies simultaneously (probably along multiple venues) and I should do it. If I do the task well, my success may enhance my reputation. In contrast, if I fail in the task, I may embarrass myself in front of multiple constituencies. However, I should not allow potential damage to my reputation to drive my decision. If I do, then my act is no longer selfless and representative of a commitment greater than self.

On the surface, it may appear that to embrace a cause larger than self is somewhat inconsistent with the desire to leave an important legacy. We imagine that those who leave legacies have buildings and programs, if not colleges and prizes, named after them. Wouldn’t the adoption of a great cause, then, ultimately feed ego and reputation, regardless of original motivation? Is there such a thing as a truly altruistic scholarly act among academicians?

I believe many occur everyday, probably on every campus. There are graduate teaching assistants spending many thankless hours with undergraduate students, helping them struggle to make the "C" rather than the "D." Many senior professors buy a welcome lunch for the new untenured assistant professor, with no motive other than to welcome him or her to the Department. A junior professor will stay up half the night helping a colleague in another department stuff envelopes for a major data collection. A professor invites a graduate student who appears lost and confused to join a research team, just to get his/her "sea legs" at a demanding doctoral program. A department chair plans a retirement party for a faithful secretary and pays for it with his/her own funds. Yes, in a time when virtually every act seems aimed at earning another vita line or a public relations opportunity (if not both), I believe altruistic acts occur every day. I think what can and will increase their frequency is a desire for a meaningful legacy.

Identifying Your Legacy

What do you want your legacy to be? I ask this question of MA students struggling with the decision of thesis versus non-thesis options as well as the options of immediately entering the work force versus continued graduate training. I ask the question of doctoral students who are struggling to decide what kind of institution with which to affiliate as they seek employment. I ask this of junior colleagues who struggle with a research agenda, with which courses to teach, and with their choice of service projects. I ask this question of colleagues the year after they earn tenure and promotion to the rank of associate professor, and then again just after they are promoted to full professor. I ask this question of senior colleagues, just years from retirement if they seem to experience boredom or burnout. If these scholars have had a wide exposure to many venues for scholarship, and thus have developed perspective, they know they can find those overlapping opportunities for influence and quickly make a mark for their cause, thus engaging in meaningful professional behavior that enables them to leave a legacy.

Many worthwhile causes are available for the choosing: a stronger discipline, increasing the prestige of our discipline in the academy, providing outstanding training to the next generation of teacher/scholars in the discipline, strengthening the position of a given Communication program, department, or college at a scholar’s home institution, and so forth. While we may all agree with these laudable causes or goals, the challenge of the conscientious Communication scholar, the multitasker on a mission, is two-fold: (a) to identify his/her desired goal or legacy, and (b) then to identify the behaviors that will achieve the selected goal along multiple venues simultaneously and thus serving many constituencies simultaneously. If a scholar desires to serve a cause greater than self, he/she will want to serve this cause in all professional venues available, and certainly along the venues of research, teaching, and service. Further, if the behaviors are selected thoughtfully, they could serve this end along these multiple venues and their multiple constituencies simultaneously.

The Legacy of an Electronic Journal

One such behavior would be the establishment of the first multimedia e-journal in the discipline, the American Communication Journal. This act serves multiple important goals: Certainly it strengthens our discipline by increasing its credibility and accessibility. It places our field at the cutting edge of the technological revolution. It provides an additional publication outlet for scholars. Obviously, the founding editor may have had more in mind than a mere journal. At this juncture in time and space, however, we, the invited editorialists, were asked to comment on the journal per se. Thus, for purposes of this essay, let us consider the journal as a legacy in and of itself, with the full knowledge that it serves greater purposes as well.

The American Communication Journal serves multiple constituencies along the three venues of research, teaching, and service ends. First, it brings the scholarship of our discipline to the general public as well as to any Communication scholar or student with access to the Internet. I find that the first scholarly article in Communication that many of my students have read is one published in the American Communication Journal strictly due to its accessibility. The American Communication Journal has served the community of Communication researchers and writers by providing a venue for innovative scholarship that simply does not exist among our more conventional publication outlets. The American Communication Journal has served the best interests of college teachers of Communication by providing an obvious cultural artifact as a testament to the currency and innovativeness of our field for college students and university administrators to observe.

Beginning any journal, but especially an e-journal, at a university with limited electronic resources involves sacrificial giving on the part of the founding editor. Certainly, the establishment of the American Communication Journal was an altruistic intellectual act on the part of its founding editor, Ty Adams and his co-editor Jim Kuypers. Think of how selfless scholars would have to be to devote their early years of promising professional careers to getting the first e-journal in Communication off the ground. A multitude of tasks demanded attention: technical concerns, assuring the quality of the content, a constant public relations campaign, convincing well-known scholars to serve on the review board, lining up the established, credible people in the discipline to write solicited articles as well as encouraging the rising generation of young scholars to submit their work—even though the journal may not yet hold the status of a "dead tree" journal.

Now, as the American Communication Journal moves to its next set of editors, thus at least tentatively establishing the expectation of longevity, it would be easy to characterize the development of a major e-journal in the field of Communication as inevitable. It would be easy, in retrospect, to say that its development was the obvious "next" thing to do. This argument belies the fact that the founding editor of the American Communication Journal approached several associations whose leaders rejected the sponsorship of an on-line journal. Who knows if the Communication discipline would have an e-journal even now, if the American Communication Association had said no, as did its sister associations the National Communication Association and the Southern States Communication Association? Further, had the discipline’s first effort at an electronic journal failed in any serious way (e.g., received a low number of hits, proved to be a low-quality publication outlet), Communication’s entrance into e-scholarship might have been set back several years. Instead, the American Communication Journal remains the jewel in the crown of the American Communication Association -- and a high-water mark for innovation in our discipline.

In reality, it takes a lot of courage to be an early adopter of new technology. It takes visionary leadership to imagine the future and then take actions that shape the future to serve the best ends of your discipline. The proactivity of our founding editor and his coeditor helped shape the future of e-scholarship for our discipline and for the academy, in general. Their actions (in terms of everything from formatting to review procedures, from searchability to posted links) set the standard against which future e-editors will react, revise--in a word, build. Their actions remain foundational and inspirational.

The Future of the American Communication Journal

What is the prospect of scholarly e-publishing in general and the American Communication Journal in particular? I recently had occasion to conduct a web-search for a specific legal e-journal. I was surprised to discover not only numerous legal e-journals, but also numerous searchable websites specifically cataloguing legal e-journals. If the field of legal scholarship is any indication, I suspect that we will see a steady increase in the number of e-journals in Communication. I think that the American Communication Journal will serve as the model for building new e-journals as well as the bench-mark for converting paper-journals in Communication to e-journals. I believe that the American Communication Journal’s leadership role can continue for decades to come, if the future editors continue its current traditions of (1) employing innovative new communication technologies, (2) publishing innovative forms of scholarship such as this collection of editorials, and (3) giving voice to innovative ideas in traditional scholarly articles.

Were I the founding editor or co-editor of the American Communication Journal, and if this journal were my projected legacy, I’d be proud of what I’d created. As it stands, however, I was a mere associate editor and occasional contributor during the first three years. I flatter myself to think that perhaps my willingness to stand-up and be counted as a supporter was useful, as well. After all, I hope my legacy will be a discipline that does business in a new and different way, in a more cooperative way, a way more accepting of the diversity of topics and methodologies in our field, a discipline welcoming of innovation, and a discipline responsive to the needs and desires of its bright, young scholars.

Congratulations to Jim and Ty! You buried yourselves in a cause greater than self, and in so doing, created a scholarly vehicle that simultaneously serves many important constituencies. Because you did not focus myopically on your own scholarship or teaching in your early years, the American Communication Journal stands as a testament to the high achievements of a balanced professional life. Hats off to Ty and Jim! I suspect your legacy will live on long after you and I are no longer cited for our authored work.

Good luck in your future endeavors and God speed.