Higher education has a relatability problem. The general public often feels excluded and disconnected from higher education—the social sciences in particular—as researchers study trends and outliers within the general public, often in hopes of securing funding from private and government organizations for further research.
Let’s imagine higher education as The Ivory Tower, the general public as Main Street, and private and government funding organizations as Wall Street. Despite Main Street being the most important constituent, it often seems that The Ivory Tower and Wall Street meet regularly to discuss ways to benefit from Main Street without always giving much back to Main Street.
The Ivory Tower samples subjects from Main Street to conduct research, thereafter analyzing data and disseminating it, often through peer-reviewed outlets that require Main Street to pay to access the data, with the intention of gaining the attention and approval of Wall Street to fund more research on Main Street. If we were to take the perspective of Main Street, it would seem as though The Ivory Tower requests our time and resources to publish findings we don’t have ready access to so that Wall Street can give The Ivory Tower money that we also don’t have ready access to.
It’s obvious why The Ivory Tower and Wall Street would collaborate with minimal Main Street inclusion: Main Street is populated enough that it isn’t hard to find many who would participate in research studies with little to nothing in return. While The Ivory Tower operates in “publish or perish” and Wall Street operates in “if you don’t use it, you lose it,” resulting in an exponentially greater sense of urgency in producing peer-reviewed publications and funding innovative research, Main Street’s sense of urgency often lies in the day-to-day. However, despite the perceived efficiency and effectiveness of minimal Main Street inclusion, we must consider the ethics of taking so much from Main Street while giving back so little.
I’ve written about the case for public scholarship for tenure; it may be time to take a more intentional approach to involving Main Street in the affairs between The Ivory Tower and Wall Street. Incentivizing public scholarship in addition to peer-reviewed work can be a good start; this can be done by drafting public scholarship expectations for tenure-line faculty that mirror peer-reviewed expectations. Public scholarship that Main Street can readily access could favorably impact public sentiment and incentivize Wall Street to adapt assessments of funding applications from The Ivory Tower to prioritize Main Street public sentiment.
Main Street has been left out of the loop for so long, often resulting in unfavorable impressions of The Ivory Tower and Wall Street, that being included at all is a good starting incentive. However, all three should be equal beneficiaries of the relationship, so free and easy access to all data and findings, peer-reviewed and public, along with complete transparency of the information and the money exchanged between The Ivory Tower and Wall Street, would be an even better starting incentive. Eventually, a truly symbiotic relationship would appoint Main Street as an equal party with input on the information end and financial compensation on the monetary end, though that’s more of a long-term endeavor.
The Ivory Tower, Main Street, and Wall Street: the tale of three cities that presently seems to disproportionately benefit only two. In the interest of fairness and ethics, we must do more to engage Main Street fairly, not just as a necessary evil to appease only to the extent of maintaining a pipeline to more research subjects and data for analysis and dissemination through inaccessible peer-reviewed work. We must ask ourselves: what do we take? and are we giving something commensurate in return? If the answer is no, then we must ask why. Our system is good, but we can do better.
References
https://heterodoxacademy.org/blog/the-case-for-public-scholarship-for-t…
https://intellectualtakeout.org/2023/01/academic-writing-nobody-reads/
https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/prof-no-one-is-reading-you#:~:text…
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/half-academic-studies-are-nev…
The Ivory Tower, Main Street, and Wall Street
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23.05.2024
Higher education has a relatability problem. The general public often feels excluded and disconnected from higher education—the social sciences in particular—as researchers study trends and outliers within the general public, often in hopes of securing funding from private and government organizations for further research.
Let’s imagine higher education as The Ivory Tower, the general public as Main Street, and private and government funding organizations as Wall Street. Despite Main Street being the most important constituent, it often seems that The Ivory Tower and Wall Street meet regularly to discuss ways to benefit from Main Street without always giving much back to Main Street.
The Ivory Tower samples subjects from Main Street to conduct research, thereafter analyzing data and disseminating it, often through peer-reviewed outlets that require Main Street to pay to access the data, with the intention of gaining the attention and approval of Wall Street to fund more research on Main Street. If we were to take the perspective of Main Street, it would........
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