In 1995 Oregon State University defined scholarship as creative intellectual work that is validated by peers and communicated. The university revised its promotion and tenure guidelines to reflect this broad view and to recognize scholarly achievements across all university missions including teaching and outreach. In the same year the university made organizational changes to reflect its commitment to extending education beyond the campus. An important change moved the tenure homes for all Extension faculty members from Extension to academic departments and colleges. Specific implications of these fundamental changes in how and by whom faculty members are evaluated, tenured, and promoted are discussed. The experiences of Extension faculty members with new promotion and tenure criteria, processes, and peer evaluations are described. Similar changes are beginning to take place at several other universities. An upcoming national forum on these topics will be held in October 1998.
Weiser et al. (Sat,) studied this question.