It is easy to understand why people regard academics as arrogant.
We choose our scholarly projects via a process that appears to be self-centered, deciding what topics are worthy of our research time and energy simply by asking ourselves. Without even a drop of input from our communities, we decide how we will conduct our studies and think through solutions to the problems we address. We then publish our results, too often just to each other, and, when we do share our work beyond academia, we have a tendency to frame our presentations in an off-putting way: “You have this problem. I know the solution. Here.” In other words, we say, in our best Captain Picard (of Star Trek Next Generation) voices, “Make it so.”
As a result, non-academics have coined pejorative terms for our hard work such as “ivory tower” thinking and “navel gazing.”
Even our plentiful, excellent, and admirable service work can possess a degree of self-reference to it. We decide there is a need, and we rush in to fix the problem, bringing our expertise and delivering it like a military aid air drop. And then we leave. Having worked on two ABA Rule of Law Initiative projects and a USAID project working with law teachers in three different countries, I must acknowledge my own, well-meaning service has involved some of this swooping in and out.
There is an attractive alternative. Community-engaged research or, as it is also known, the scholarship of engagement, is a national trend outside legal education. It is a different, arguably more humble, approach to planning and implementing the service and research projects we undertake. This form of research blurs the lines between scholarship and service and between researcher and community. Community-engaged researchers collaborate with community leaders in dialogues about the subjects they might choose to research, the methodologies they adopt for accomplishing their research objectives, and the solutions they develop. They do not delegate their scholarly agendas to their communities, but they do solicit, accept, and rely on community input. Read the materials at this link, from Loyola University Chicago, if you are interested in this movement.
Yesterday, my law school, UALR Bowen, and the UALR College of Social Sciences and Communication co-hosted a Community-Engaged Research Summit. We partnered with the College of Social Sciences and Communication because that college has a long tradition of community-engaged research, because my dean colleague there is herself an expert in such research, and because the faculty in that college possess the quantitative research design, survey construction, and statistical analysis skills needed for some of the projects we thought might be useful to Arkansas. If there is nothing I have learned from the humbling job of being a dean, I better know what I don’t know and make sure I get the help I need.
In preparation for the Summit, the two colleges surveyed roughly 350 Arkansas community leaders, including judges, legislators, agency heads, non-profit leaders, and law firm managing partners, asking for their input into our future research projects. Our response rate was good, over 20%.
Based on this input, the two colleges shared the survey results during the Summit, inviting community leaders to identify research projects that can serve the state and local communities. A large number of the faculty members from the two colleges have indicated a willingness to participate in at least one project that comes out of the Summit.
Our first Summit went well. We were heartened to discover that most community leaders do not see us as ivory tower-dwelling narcissists, and many had thoughts about research projects we should undertake. However, we were concerned that a significant segment of the respondents either did not believe our work could help them or at least did not recognize how our research work might serve their professional work. For a first-time event, attendance was pretty good. Attendees included the Arkansas Attorney General and a number of other lawyers in her office, a federal court judge and a state court judge, a legislator, the executive director of Arkansas Access to Justice, several prosecutors, a number of private practice attorneys, a prominent legal aid lawyer, two representatives of Arkansas’ medical school, and a senior employee of a high tech business. A second legislator asked me to send her the video of the event. Several collaboration connections were made. I am optimistic.
I wish I could “Make it so” and magically convince our government and community leaders to collaborate with us immediately, but we are at a starting line. I hope this post convinces other law schools to consider joining us here.