(Update on 02/29/00. You are at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln, USA).
A recent book, Scholarship Assessed (Glassick et al.), highlights
the need in a faculty hiring decision to think about the personal qualities of a
scholar giving special consideration to Integrity, Perseverance and Courage.
In fact, these features may be substantively more important than "the school"
where the individual studied, or even the technical skills the individual has
accumulated.
Integrity is perhaps the foundation: Honesty. Truthfulness. Fairness.
Objectivity. Regarding the
latter, integrity seemingly requires (Glassick et al. citing American Historical
Association, p. 64) “.. an awareness of one’s own bias and a readiness to
follow sound method and analysis wherever they may lead.”
Integrity also pertains to standards of civility, which govern how
scholars relate to one another as they engage in reasoned discourse... both
within and outside the university... perhaps the most important feature of
a university community.
Perseverance makes it all work, as shown in a lifetime pursuit of
scholarship. In hiring, as well as
in tenure, promotion, and the renewal of long term contract decisions, perhaps
the question needs to be asked (Glassick et al. citing Booth, p. 64): “Is this
candidate still curious, still inquiring... and is it thus probable that at the
age of forty, fifty, or sixty-six, he or she will still be vigorously
inquiring?” Perhaps (Glassick et
al. citing Mills, p. 65) this is “...a choice of how to live as well as a
choice of career.”
Perhaps the most important quality is Courage, the need to (p. 65)
“...risk disapproval in the name of candor,” “take on difficult or
unpopular work” and (p. 66) “...possess the courage of convictions so
that... work ends up feeding the debates of the day.”
In fact, tenure is primarily for the purpose of encouraging and protecting the
courageous who dig deeply for knowledge and true wisdom, and then share
what has been learned, while continuing to learn, in dialogue with various
communities of learners.
All-in-all, we see a moral dimension, a value system at work behind the efforts of a scholar much like a value system undergirds the efforts of all other individuals. A multiplicity of such value systems provide the glue holding the economy and society together.
Glassick, Charles E., Mary Taylor Huber, and Gene I. Maeroff. Scholarship Assessed, Evaluation of the Professoriate. San Francisco: Jossy-Bass Publishers, 1997.