Bye-Bye Teacher-Scholar, Hello Teacher-Scholar ? Possibilities and Perils of Comprehensive Internationalization

Abstract

This article develops the claim that the Teacher-Scholar Model (TS) is ill-suited for the strategy of comprehensive internationalization (CI) which strives for global learning. CI depends on student engagement with international people and organizations. Although non-research collaborations promise to integrate the largest numbers of undergraduate students, the popular TS Model prioritizes international research collaborations. The basis of this prioritization is the contested association of scholarship with better teaching, and more recently evidence-based practice. This article considers some of the consequences of this prioritization, and proposes an update to the TS Model. The update is informed partly by; lessons from service learning and other community focused activities; a non-research collaboration involving Haitian stakeholders from the non-profit and public sectors and thirty extremely poor Haitians with disabilities; and the perceptions of fifty-seven undergraduates from a Carnegie R2 University. The proposal is also informed by an illustration of how different merit models might impact faculty who work on non-research projects. This article demonstrates that even in cases where global learning is enhanced, and collaborators’ goals are realized, the TS Model is likely to undervalue faculty work. The proposed update, the Teacher Scholar-Practitioner Model, (TSP) is consistent with evidence of complex knowledge flows between practice, scholarship, and teaching. This evidence, which confirms that practice can produce original knowledge and inform scholarship and teaching, is affirmed by examples from a few innovating institutions. Their uses of merit models that align with investments in social aspirational student learning can guide for advocates of comprehensive internationalization.