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The Modern Language this week released guidelines by which faculty members, department and institutions may evaluate publicly engaged humanities scholarship. The group says the guidelines are needed to drive the peer-review process for work published in nonacademic venues and that reaches audiences beyond academe. With a particular emphasis on the ethics of community engagement, the MLA suggests considering the public humanities project’s: scope and impact; form and dissemination; extent of existing “deliverables” and, where relevant, its future trajectory; and nature and extent of collaboration, where applicable.
As for adopting the guidelines, the MLA proposes using them to review program bylaws for tenure and promotion, incorporating them into an evaluation rubric, and reviewing hiring practices to ensure that candidates’ public-facing work can be reported and involving students. “Humanities departments must take the lead in developing robust internal processes to evaluate and recognize public humanities scholarship,” says an MLA report on the guidelines. “Rather than capitulate to preconceived notions of acceptable scholarly genres, tenured faculty members have a responsibility to make the case that the unique outputs of public humanities scholarship are, in fact, accepted and valued forms of scholarship.”
