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Public scholarship—linking weed science with public work

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Nicholas Jordan ,
Jeffrey Gunsolus ,
Roger Becker  and
Susan White
Jeffrey Gunsolus
Affiliation:
Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics, University of Minnesota, 411 Borlaug Hall, 1991 Buford Circle, St. Paul, MN 55108-6026
Roger Becker
Affiliation:
Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics, University of Minnesota, 411 Borlaug Hall, 1991 Buford Circle, St. Paul, MN 55108-6026
Susan White
Affiliation:
Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics, University of Minnesota, 411 Borlaug Hall, 1991 Buford Circle, St. Paul, MN 55108-6026
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Abstract

Weed scientists face complex and difficult challenges. Within our discipline, we must increase the sustainability of current weed management approaches and help respond to invasive plants as a component of global change. There also are major challenges that we share with other agricultural disciplines, such as mounting comprehensive efforts to address the problems of current agriculture. We believe that any effective response to these challenges will require public work, i.e., projects in which a diverse group of people work together—across lines of difference (professional, cultural, etc.)—to produce broad-based, systemic innovations that meet complex challenges. We propose that weed scientists should join relevant public-work projects by practicing “public scholarship.” We define public scholarship as original, creative, peer-evaluated intellectual work that is fully integrated in a public-work project. By full integration we mean that the scholar's work serves to fuel the social (i.e., collective) learning of the public-work group. This condition requires that the scholar be a full participant in the group rather than just being in a consultative or advisory role. We present several case studies of weed scientists practicing public scholarship. These scientists found this mode of scholarship to be a highly effective means by which to address their professional priorities. Barriers to the practice of public scholarship include the lack of relevant guidelines and norms within academic culture, e.g., with regard to quality-assurance standards. But public scholarship offers weed scientists a new way of responding to increasingly urgent demands to show that our work effectively produces public value in return for public investment. We believe that graduate programs in weed science should begin to offer students opportunities to learn skills that are relevant to public scholarship.

Keywords

Integrated weed managementsocial learningcivic sciencepublic sciencesustainability science
Type
50th Anniversary–Invited Article
Information
Weed Science , Volume 50 , Issue 5 , October 2002 , pp. 547 - 554
Copyright
Copyright © Weed Science Society of America 

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