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ERIC Number: EJ1004771
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2013-May-13
Pages: N/A
Abstractor: ERIC
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0009-5982
EISSN: N/A
Cultivating Partnerships in the Digital Humanities
Pannapacker, William
Chronicle of Higher Education, May 2013
Academics can be too snug in their institutional silos. They sometimes think of one another as competitors for students, and as a result they duplicate scarce resources in mutually damaging ways. In this article, the author wants to argue that teaching-focused institutions have much to gain from partnerships with research universities on the digital humanities, and vice versa. Consider the Praxis Network, which includes the University of Virginia, Michigan State University, the City University of New York's Graduate Center, University College London, Duke University, and two undergraduate institutions: Brock University, in Ontario, and Hope College, where the author teaches. Praxis was developed as a partnership to share information about efforts to reboot graduate education and prepare Ph.D.'s for a range of career paths wider than tenure-track research positions. While each program in the Praxis Network approaches that goal in a different way, they all include an emphasis on the digital humanities. Now the network is bringing humanities and social-science programs into dialogue with each other to support new forms of pedagogy and scholarly production--across institutions and disciplines--that focus on the experiences of students and the realities of the contemporary workplace, both within and beyond academe. The strong mission of liberal-arts colleges--to create engaged, self-sustaining citizens in a free society, critical thinkers, and the creative class needed for economic growth--is not well served by an escalating cycle of costly competition, siloed scholarship, diminished equality of access, and unsatisfactory job placements. Countering those tendencies through greater collaboration is something the digital liberal arts can support. In an era of diminished resources and growing need for education, institutions of higher learning need to stop competing against one another. They need to celebrate one another's missions, differentiating when necessary, but also working together to achieve larger projects in which they have a common interest.
Chronicle of Higher Education. 1255 23rd Street NW Suite 700, Washington, DC 20037. Tel: 800-728-2803; Tel: 202-466-1000; Fax: 202-452-1033; e-mail: circulation@chronicle.com; Web site: http://chronicle.com
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Opinion Papers; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Canada; Michigan; New York; North Carolina; United Kingdom (London); Virginia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A