US Leadership in Scholarship and Higher Education – the Implications for Hospitality Management Educators

Abstract

Research activities were always the primary focus and time allocation factor for scholars to achieve their scholarship credentials and tenure promotions (Glassick, Huber, & Maeroff, 1997; Rice, 1996). Teaching and extended service are also essential activities for students and communities and must be advocated as one of the scholarship standards for educators to follow and emulate. While the general public focuses more on undergraduate education, educators should spend more time on their teaching and applied scholarship instead of paying most attention to research activities (Glassick, Huber, & Maeroff, 1997).Collaboration between senior and junior faculty members has been the major problem in scholarship assessment and accomplishment. Junior and senior faculty members tend to have different perspectives and interests in their scholarship goals. Disparity of goals often creates tension and conflict as to what scholarly work should be.One of the driving priorities attracting graduate students to an academic career is autonomy. However, the notion of professional autonomy has been passed too far and misappropriated. Therefore, developing a collaborative organization will require reassessing the relationship between autonomy and responsibility in the faculty career (Glassick, Huber, & Maeroff, 1997; Rice, 1996).Because the educational goal of leadership development has been given little attention in higher education, the findings of this study are to reveal some characteristics and qualities of contemporary hospitality scholarship leaders (Kellogg Foundation, 2000). The findings will provide significant implications to hospitality faculty members regarding the scholarship trends that can lead them to be successful in their future scholarly careers.The views presented in this paper are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the University.