Communication Monographs

Vol. 78, No. 2, June 2011, pp. 256271

What is the Role of the

Communication Discipline in Social
Justice, Community Engagement,
and Public Scholarship? A Visit to
the CM Cafe
Sarah Dempsey, Mohan Dutta, Lawrence R. Frey,
H. L. Goodall, D. Soyini Madison, Jennifer Mercieca,
Thomas Nakayama, with Katherine Miller

In early December of 2010, the virtual doors of the CM Cafe were swung open. Seven
scholars were invited to the opening*Sarah Dempsey (University of North
Carolina), Mohan Dutta (Purdue University), Larry Frey (Trinity University,
University of Colorado at Boulder), Bud Goodall (Arizona State University), Soyini
Madison (Northwestern University), Jennifer Mercieca (Texas A&M University), and
Tom Nakayama (Northeastern University). These scholars were invited to the Cafe to
join in a discussion about social justice, community engagement, and public
scholarship in the communication discipline, and all were excited to bring their
experiences from various areas of the discipline*organizational communication,
performance studies, applied communication, communication and culture, rhetoric,
health communication*to the table in a wide-ranging conversation.
The CM Cafe was facilitated through a private group on Facebook and remained
open for about two weeks. As scholars arrived at this virtual Cafe, they often joined
the conversation with brief introductions structured by questions posted on the
chalkboard overhead. But through the days, new issues were introduced, old ones
revisited, and scholars, media personalities, and others outside the Cafe walls were
called forth in argument and support. The invited scholars popped in and out of the
Cafe as their busy schedules allowed*some were able to linger over many cups of
coffee, though others just stopped by for a quick bite and some conversation. Shelly
Blair and I stood behind the counter and listened, throwing in only an occasional
question or comment. I think it is safe to say that we were all challenged and
enlightened by our time in the Cafe*the conversations managed to strike that
precarious balance of cordiality and challenge that we strive for in academic debates.
In the following pages, you will be privy to some of the comments and
conversations that emerged during the December 2010 opening of the CM Cafe.
ISSN 0363-7751 (print)/ISSN 1479-5787 (online) # 2011 National Communication Association
DOI: 10.1080/03637751.2011.565062

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Because the amount of conversation generated in the Cafe was voluminous, only a
small portion of the dialogue is included here. In parsing together this piece,
I decided to organize it around the three questions I initially posed to Cafe guests: (1)
What does it mean to be a social justice scholar? (2) How can and should
communication scholars do community engagement? (3) What is the role of the
academic in the public sphere? For each of these questions, I will first present some of
the initial reactions provided by Cafe participants, and then move on to more
extended conversations that developed around related topics. All of the material
presented (except as indicated by brackets) is in the words of Cafe scholars, although
I clearly have not included all of their words and I have taken liberties in reordering a
few segments of the conversation. Additionally, because Facebook does not allow the
use of paragraphs within regular posts, I inserted paragraph breaks when they seemed
appropriate. Within these constraints, however, these pages allow you to listen in on
a fascinating conversation about communication and social justice, community
engagement, and public scholarship. So, pull up a chair, pour yourself a favorite
beverage, and read on.
What Does it Mean to be a Social Justice Scholar?
BUD: I dont define myself as a social justice scholar but instead as a
communication scholar interested in social justice. For me, the two concepts*
communication and social justice*are joined by theoretical and practical concerns
that are organized by an ethic of care and fairness; habits of minds that value civil
dialogue and alternative ways of knowing and being in the world; and a commitment
to the use of communication in all of its forms to help coconstruct a better*and
more just*world. I agree with Eric Eisenbergs observation that the enemy of
communication is fundamentalism, which I have also found is the enemy of social
justice.
TOM: To me, it means that we are scholars who are driven by a sense of social
justice. Our academic agendas are shaped by a concern for helping to build a better
world. These are very value-laden terms, since better and justice are not absolutes.
Academic agendas are played out in the classroom, in our academic publications, our
non-academic publications, our participation in various kinds of work. Some of our
colleagues work with immigrant rights groups, some work with gay/lesbian rights
groups, others focus on other kinds of activism. Social justice scholars are pushing the
status quo to something else (alongside many others).
JEN: I think that it can mean different things*from teaching in prisons like my
mentor and dissertation direct Stephen Hartnett does to organizing boycotts and
protests like our UT colleague Dana Cloud does, to more quiet, less confrontational
methods, like teaching courses that question dominant paradigms and ask[ing]
students to engage critically with the world around them. I bet that most
Communication scholars have some level of social justice in their teaching,
whether it is overt or not.

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SARAH: A basic assumption of social justice scholarship is the need for

transformative social change, although the particular analysis, form and practice of
those changes take a wide variety of forms. Importantly, a social justice scholar is not
satisfied with the status quo, but assumes that there is an urgent and immediate need
to transform social and material relations. Social justice scholarship brings with it a
diagnosis and a call to action.
Through the analysis of oppression, social justice scholarship works to reclaim
suppressed conflicts, opening them up to scrutiny. However, scholars take more or
less activist orientations in pursuing the commitment to dismantling systems of
inequality. One important form of intervention (intervention is a very problematic
term) is through pedagogical practice. Other forms include (but are not limited to)
community-based organizing, translational and public research, direct actions and
protest. A wide array of practices do *and should* count as social justice
scholarship. Part of the work of social justice scholarship that is communicationcentered includes working to create the conditions within which people can make
better quality decisions, as well as be able to meaningfully participate in shaping the
outcomes of decisions affecting them.
Finally, although a social justice approach is rooted in an understanding of how
systems of oppression reproduce inequalities, and a rejection (hatred?) of those
systems, it is an ultimately hopeful, and progressive vision, because it assumes that
together we can remake our worlds for the better.
LARRY: I have written quite a bit about what I see as constituting a communication
and social justice perspective. My colleagues and I at Loyola University Chicago
started from the notion that such a perspective meant engagement and advocacy with
and for those who are marginalized and oppressed with regard to human rights. Since
then, Kevin Carragee (Suffolk University) and I have articulated a form of scholarship
that we call communication activism for social justice scholarship, in which
communication scholars bring their resources (their theories, methods, pedagogies,
and other practices) to bear to attempt to make a positive difference in situations
where peoples lives are affected by oppression, domination, discrimination, racism,
conflict, and other forms of cultural struggle due to differences in race, ethnicity, class
religion, sexual orientation, and other identity markers (Broome, Carey, de la Garza,
Martin, & Morris, 2005, p. 146), and they study the process of doing so. In that sense,
there is an important difference between communication activism for social justice
and communication activism for social justice scholarship, because I am first and
foremost a scholar who has chosen to work in the academy rather than somewhere
else. Such scholarship involves communication researchers intervening into discourse, and documenting the processes and products of their efforts, as opposed to
solely observing, interpreting, explaining, critiquing, and offering suggested practices
for a community that is studied. Hence, communication activism for social justice
scholarship involves conducting first-person-perspective research rather than the
typical third-person-perspective research. It involves attempting to make a difference
through research rather than from research.

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Conversation*Forms of Social Justice Research

SOYINI: Its interesting the way activism is being articulated through social justice.
Im drawn to the distinction between activism for social justice scholarship and
(or) activism for social justice. Bluntly, I assume this means those who engage with
scholarly discourse within the academy (and produce social justice discourse) and
those who engage with people outside the academy (who produce reports on them).
Thus, Larrys distinction of first person engagement and third person
engagement*those who work through research and (or rather) those who
work from research. I understand the importance in acknowledging the distinction
(while it still makes me nervous) and why it is sometimes necessary to do so.
I appreciate that in making the distinction that we are not putting the two in
competition with each other or making any discreet hierarchical judgments about
what one engagement does more or better than the other. In thinking about what it
means to be a social justice scholar, the distinction reminds me that we are able to
make a choice as US scholars who do social justice work exclusively through our
scholarship. I appreciate those who are committed to this scholarly labor because its
been crucial in my social justice work from research in the field, often far removed
from the academy. Its been those scholars and teachers, active in the world of
discourse and pedagogy, who equipped me with knowledge(s) that cracked open,
with precision and courage, critical paradigms, generative vocabularies, contested
theories, and impossible questions that transformed my thinking and my being about
what counts as truth in this or that place and time, particularly in the myriad ways
truths are hidden and distorted by debilitating regimes and economies. If I am
persuasive as an activist or effective as an advocate it is largely due to those
transformative discourses that now lie under my flesh and disallow inactivity.
LARRY: I like the way you [Soyini] put it that these two discourses are not in
competition with one another; indeed, my goal in carving out a space for
communication for social justice scholarship is to say that the two can go together,
especially if planned from the get-go. I just have seen too many cases where academics
separate their social justice communication activism from their scholarship, labeling
it most likely as service and then not getting rewarded for it in the ways that they
would like. I am just trying to carve out a space for those who seek to make a
difference through their research.
MOHAN: So from [this] conversation, we can think of social justice scholarship in
terms of (a) scholarly reports of social justice movements and processes (this is
something that Sarah also talks about), (b) critical scholarship that is transformative
in its insights and offers entry points for engaging with the truths that are hidden or
erased. To this, I would like to add a category (c), referring to scholarship that
provides the sorts of evidence that social justice scholars might need to utilize in their
work to make certain kinds of claims, both in academic spheres as well as public
spheres. This scholarship might not be critical or social justice-directed in its explicit
emphasis, and yet can provide the very base for making certain social justice
arguments.

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Conversation*Political Reform and Social Justice

JEN: Ive been very impressed with everyones descriptions of their work as aimed at
promoting social justice and Ive been wondering at some of the small differences
between what I think Ive been doing and what youve described. Perhaps it is my
background in political theory, constitution construction, and political science, but I
see my work as about working to make the political system more just, which might be
different from social justice as you all have been employing the term. I wonder now
if social justice is not the same as political justice (perhaps the difference being that
one works through political systems and the others may or may not?). Does any of
that make sense to you all?
LARRY: Jen, I guess my answer to your query would be that it depends on what you
are calling the political system. Promoting social justice always involves confronting
politics, thats for sure, and it certainly involves confronting systems, as the goal is to
create systemic change. However, promoting social justice might not involve the
formal political system (for lack of a better term) if that is what you have in mind.
There are scholars working to promote social justice within private organizations,
which would not necessarily involve interacting with the formal political system of
the law or government, but they certainly would be confronting political systems
within those organizations. Hence, political justice would be a particular type of
social justice from my perspective.
JEN: Yes, I think that describes the difference that I mean. I hope to reform the
political system and I hope that that, in turn, will lead to more justice writ large.
I might even argue that reforming the political system is the necessary first step to a
more just society, but Im not sure if I want to go that far. Im also not sure that it is
possible, to be honest, which leaves me a bit confused about how I could ever really
help to bring about a just society. I believe that people are fundamentally good
(political theory is always premised upon a view of human nature), but I also believe
that political power always corrupts. Im not sure if I see a way out of the problem of
political power. James Madison and other Founders thought that they had a way to at
least balance interests against one another to create stability, but I believe that that
stability does as much harm as it does good. Direct democracy has the benefit of
allowing everyone to act to make the laws that they will live under and with offices
rotating by lot you solve the problem of incumbency, but I cant see a way to change
the republic to a democracy. Ive tried political parties and they are only interested
protecting their own power, they are not interested in empowering the people. I try to
teach my students about how we have been prevented from acting to control the
government and give them the tools they need to act in the ways that they can within
the current political system, but it is pretty small work. Sigh.
LARRY: Jen, I certainly agree that reforming the political system is a necessary act
to a more just society, although I might not agree that it is the first step per se. People
just work at different routes to accomplish social justice. I also am not as dejected as
you sound, although you have much experience trying to work that political system
and, hence, probably deserve to be dejected! I revel in small steps so thats helpful.

CM Cafe 261

BUD: Jen, I think there are a lot of ways that people work for social justice. Politics
is certainly part of it. For example, I think there is still a lot of work to be done
educating people about Glenn Becks anti-social justice message, and most of that
work is surely political. In my case, I choose to write about it. Id challenge him to a
duel with swords, but chances are good hed decline, or if not, Id go to jail (Im a fair
fencer, handy with a blade). Since most of his anti-social justice work is done via
mediated talk and published writings, I am trying to meet him on his home turf. And
sometimes, writing against those who are oppressive is a good enough activity.
SOYINI: I agree with Larry and Bud concerning the multidimensional formations
of politics against the equally various formations of social justice. But, I also think
you [Jen] have a particular concern. I was in Kenya this summer for the promulgation
of their new constitution. No one thought the day would come. It was the most
important day since independence. Given Kenyas history it was truly remarkable,
impossible, but made possible through a determined, relentless, and informed
citizenry. I have Margaret Meads familiar words pasted in my journal: Never doubt
that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it
is the only thing that ever has.
JEN: I believe that constitutions synecdochically represent a nations ethos toward
justice, just as they are one of the main constitutive discourse enabling specific
understandings of justice. With whom and how a nation chooses to share power
signals how people rank in the hierarchy, how the wealth and power are to be divided
and protected, and who counts and who is disposable . . . I know that many scholars
working for social justice see their work as existing outside of the realm of the
constitutional order, but I cannot. I believe that all follows from the way that the
nation chooses to organize power. And, I love that MM quote, thank you for bringing
it into the conversation!
How Can and Should Communication Scholars Do Community Engagement?
JEN: I regularly teach a course called Activism & Communication in which the
students write letters to national newspapers, write advocacy letters on behalf of local
charitable organizations and volunteer their time as a class to an organization (or two
or three) of the classs choice, get deputized as voter registrars and register voters, as
well as read and discuss aspects of the scholarly literature about active citizenship.
Recently I described this course to a few colleagues on another campus and they both
were curious that I called the course activism, for they had a much more
confrontational (and militant) understanding of activism. I like my view*activism
is active and engaged citizenship*but I can see that their view is also correct. Social
justice sometimes requires more confrontational tactics (which we learned from
Robert Cathcart, Frank Haiman, and others in the late 1960s), but Im not sure my
University would support my leading my classes to rebellion (although I have taken
them on fieldtrips to observe local protests), so Im not sure if there is a place for that
more militant style in teaching, although there may be in our scholarship.

262 S. Dempsey et al.

BUD: How can and should communication scholars do community engagement?

Lots of ways and there are others here who can speak to this issue better than
I can. For me, I have made a life and a career out of getting out of the office and into
the world to apply what I have learned about communication to practical issues,
problems, and challenges. As with any applied project, I have often learned more from
my immersion and the people I worked with than I brought to them, but over time I
hope it balances out. I am always reminded of Kenneth Burkes answer to a question I
asked him about why he got into this line of work. His reply: Because people dont
treat each other very fairly and I want to help them. Sounds right to me.
TOM: I am tempted to turn this around and ask how can social justice-oriented
communication scholars not do community engagement? There is a very valuable
dialectical tension that can be created by putting the community (and their politics,
goals, issues) in dialectic with the academy. For social justice scholars this
engagement feels very necessary, as others have pointed out. I do not want to create
the sense of a fixed, stable notion of a community out there*there are many
communities that come together in many different ways over many different issues.
I once worked on a hate crime issue that brought together a number of different
communities who are not in alignment on other issues.
Community engagement, however, is not simply dropping in. I have found that it
is far more helpful to be engaged and committed about the issues, not framed by the
start and conclusion of a research project. Like Mohan, I have found myself doing
many things as part of a larger commitment to community politics, including
cleaning graffiti, loading and unloading materials, hauling garbage and many other
things that are not related to the role of communication scholar. Much of this work is
enjoyable in a different way, as we are more than simply communication scholars.
I have learned so much from community engagement about social change on the
local level than I could ever have learned by not doing community engagement.
Communities have histories that have constituted these communities. These local
histories are not always obvious but can play a big role in their relationships with others
in the local scene. The complexity of the local is akin to the complexity of the
bricoleur that Le vi-Strauss writes about in The Savage Mind (1968). They make do in
a way that is innovative but also recognizes the limits of the situation at that moment.
Without this engagement off-campus, social justice is simply an abstraction.
Conversation*Problematizing Community
MOHAN: Tom, so good to read your post and I really like how you problematize the
basic definition of what the community is. How we define the community as
academics working on issues of social justice might in reality differ dramatically from
the multiple often competing definitions of the community that community
members might articulate. This again goes back to the privilege that we bring to
our relationship with the community and the lens through which we define our
predetermined notion of the community in our work with the community. For
instance, as someone who has grown up amidst privilege and in a very different

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context from the lived experiences of African American communities in Indiana,

I have found that I had very different perceptions of the communities walking into
my project on African American heart health than how the community members
defined their communities, their lived experiences, and the problems facing the
community. I believe we have to start by questioning our own privileges and the
ways in which these privileges create the very conditions of marginalization that
communities find themselves in. Here I am not talking about reflexivity as a navel
gazing exercise, but as a social justice tool in and of itself that turns its gaze on the
dominant discourses of engagement.
LARRY: Tom, I, too, find the term community problematic and, therefore, do
not tend to use it in describing the type of research that I do. But then again, I always
work with particular people located in particular sites, as opposed to engaging large
macro-level issues on a philosophical/theoretical/conceptual (use your favorite term)
level. I would ask you, Mohan, to provide some examples of social justice scholarship
that you would characterize as representing the type of problem that you point to in
your comments. I am sure that such nonreflexivity exists, but it just does not rise to
the surface for me as it does for you.
MOHAN: Larry, thanks for asking for examples. Lets take for instance the long
tradition of the work that was done by Lerner et al. in the Third World, taken up
by the Diffusion of Innovation folks, and continued to play out in the form of
entertainment-education programs in the contemporary landscape that often take up
the frame of social justice in proposing to bring development to the Third World and
enlighten Third World people. The Lerner tradition that blamed the poor for their
underdevelopment was juxtaposed amidst the diffusion of innovations framework
that examined the communicative processes through which innovations (such as
condoms) could be diffused in target communities of the Third World. These
programs, experts, and funding agencies, one might argue, were part of the very
problem in locating communities as passive, fixing the agency of community
members in terms of West-centric stereotypes, and serving the market rationalities of
donor countries and international financial institutions. Similarly, the increasing
involvement of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in, say, HIV/AIDS prevention
in the Third World raises important questions about the ways in which communities
are being defined for the goals of external actors, and, more importantly, the ways in
which community-targeted interventions are serving as the fac ade for consolidating
power in the hands of neoliberal hegemony and its principles of free market
expansion.
LARRY: I certainly understand your point, Mohan. The question that I might raise
is at what point does it become possible to not be implicated in ways that would
prevent one from acting in some manner to promote social justice? Given the notion
of examining the larger contexts within which one is located, would it ever be
possible to engage with local communities when researchers come, for instance, from
countries that enact problematic (to put it mildly) practices? The act of even being
able to engage other communities is a luxury that could be looked at as a top-down
practice, no matter how much one interacted from the ground up and no matter

264 S. Dempsey et al.

how many voices of community members were included. I couldnt agree with you
more about the need to seriously examine our role in carrying out imperialism,
colonialism, and many other isms, but can we ever escape from that, especially if
looked at in more global contexts?
Conversation*Probematizing Intervention
LARRY (Responding to a parenthetical comment from Sarah that intervention is a
very problematic term): Very nicely put, Sarah. I certainly agree with just about
everything that you have said here. I was wondering, however, what makes
intervention a problematic word for you, as you did not elaborate on that
concern. For me, a communication intervention simply means using our communication resources (e.g., our skills in public speaking) to actively participate in a
conscious manner to do something about something. Given that we are experts in
communication, the interventions that we do are interventions into discourse,
interrupting the flow that would happen if we did not consciously act to reconstruct
the discourse in more just ways. Do you have something else in mind regarding the
term?
SARAH: Hi Larry. For me, intervention is problematic in part because of its
association with some of the worst excesses of the project of development. I agree that
interventions are often aimed at discourse, but by their nature, interventions have
differential impacts, some of which may be unintentional or unplanned, or not
immediately apparent. Even with the best of intentions, intervening into a time/space
is a power move, and can have dis/empowering effects. I wonder, too about the
history of the term. For me it also conjures up military associations*which is not
the kind of framework I associate with social justice.
LARRY: Sarah, I can certainly understand your reservations regarding the term
intervention, even though I do not necessarily associate the term with such
connotations. In particular, I find problematic the notion that an intervention
would be a power move; that just does not resonate with the types of expertise that
I see people using when they use it in a collaborative manner to promote social
justice; here is where our academic perspectives may actually get in the way of doing
some good in the world if that notion of intervention being a power move were taken
to its ultimate end, as people with resources might then not use them out of fear of
exercising power.
BUD: Intervention in discourse is our job. I love Mohans take on the ideological
formation of persuasion (and I would add, as Im pretty sure he would, propaganda)
and for that matter, the whole of theory and research methods. Some years ago a
scholar whose name Ive not remembered wrote an excellent indictment of the APA
stylesheet that opened my mind to the possibilities of that kind of critique. I wrote a
chapter in my Writing the New Ethnography (Goodall, 2000) about the persistence of
public speaking/argument as a model for ethnographic writing and posed dialogue/
conversation as an alternative. Since then I have been interested in the creative
nonfiction dictum: story drives information as a way of doing translation scholarship.

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But heres the thing, at least for me. In all of our comments thus far there has been an
emphasis on doing things outside the realm of academic tradition to further social
justice goals. In doing all of those activities, my guess is that all of us talk to people in
everyday language, tell stories, and otherwise try to help them imagine a better world
so they, too, can enter it. Isnt this sort of intervention a good model for writing and
performance?
SARAH: I agree with Larry and Bud about the urgent need for interventions into
all kinds of unjust and alarming practices. There is an urgent need to stop the defunding of public education in the US, for example. I dont think that pointing out
that intervention is a power move negates this need, however. Im not operating from
an assumption that power by its nature is corrupting, or that wielding power is
somehow off limits, or that it should be condemned. At the same time, there exists a
need to mark the act of intervening as always potentially problematic. Doing so draws
attention to the need for reflexivity and ethics.
What is the Role of the Academic in the Public Sphere?
JEN: Rather than thinking of academics as gadflies or ivory tower intellectuals, I think
of academics as people who approach problem solving from an academic perspective,
with academic methods. We have the luxury of being able to devote our time to
studying particular questions that interest us. I believe that we, in turn, have an
obligation to the community to disseminate what weve learned and to use what
weve learned to help to solve problems. I think that it is very important that
academics (and all citizens) understand and act consistent with their obligation to the
community, although I understand that obligation is an old-fashioned notion*I
spend a lot of my time in the 18th century, lol.
BUD: What is the role of the academic in the public sphere? Here again, there are lots
of ways to accomplish that goal. For me, I began as a volunteer in order to build my
credibility, then became a consultant, and now work both privately and professionally
to build interest in the public sphere for communication knowledge and best practices.
In my professional capacity, I have served as a US Department of State International
Speaker on issues of communication and terrorism. As a private citizen, I write The
Daily Narrative blog on my website, which generally is picked up by OpEdNews and
other media outlets for wider distribution. In my professional role, I also contribute to
Comops Journal (http://www.comops.com/), which reaches a focused international
community of diplomats, intelligence, and defense personnel on issues of narrative,
counter-terrorism, and public diplomacy. And in a blend of the private and
professional roles, I write books and articles designed to reach both scholars and
practitioners, the most recent examples being Counter-Narrative: How Progressive
Academics Can Challenge Extremists and Promote Social Justice (Goodall, 2010) and the
forthcoming coauthored volume, Master Narratives of Islamic Extremism (Halverson,
Corman, & Goodall, 2011). One comment that I feel compelled to share is that for
many years I have been vocal about the Communication field not being particularly
visible in the public sphere, on issues of social justice as well as the full range of our

266 S. Dempsey et al.

scholarship. Recently that trend has started to change, for which I am grateful, but there
is still a lot of need for what we know in the world beyond the academy. Bringing more
and better justice into the world is, after all, fundamental to the human project and is
(for me) a core principle of Progressive politics.
LARRY: With regard to the question regarding the role of the academic in the
public sphere, I certainly applaud those scholars who engage in translational
practices, attempting to make accessible to others the research knowledge that they
or others have generated. We undoubtedly do not have enough of those scholars in
our discipline (or in other disciplines), in large measure because we do not teach
students how to be public scholars. Hence, I applaud Jens pedagogy of asking
students to write letters to national newspapers and elsewhere, as well as Buds
contributions via his blog and other public writings, including his new book, which
I have read and highly recommend. I do not engage in much of that type of public
scholarship, although I do have students in my applied communication graduate
course write letters to newspaper editors that weave in some communication research
findings. I undoubtedly need to engage in more public scholarship.
TOM: Like Larry, I would like to see more public scholars and public scholarship
from communication scholars. As professors, we can nurture this growth in our
students. Public scholarship is tough, however, as it doesnt count as scholarly
articles do within the context of tenure, promotion and so on. Balancing is key to
getting everything done which is not always easy. Ive not been able to balance
everything all the time (perhaps I say yes to too many things).
Conversation*Rewards in the Academy for Public Scholarship
SARAH: Ive really appreciated seeing everyones insights into how to make our
scholarship more available to a wider variety of audiences, and especially am
fascinated by the potential of blogs. Mohan and Bud*its great to hear about your
motivations and approaches to your blogs. I also appreciate Larrys and Jennifers
comments about the constraints and possibilities of book publishing. I agree, Larry,
that we often take for granted that universities/colleges wont accept more publiclyoriented scholarship, which has a chilling effect. Do you all agree that public
scholarship becomes easier (both institutionally and individually) as one moves
through their career?
MOHAN: Sarah, I do agree with you that public scholarship perhaps becomes
easier both institutionally and individually as one moves through their career. This
also relates to the question that you raise about what counts as scholarship and how
we go about evaluating a scholars body of work. So would Buds blog or my blog
count as examples of social justice scholarship? What would be the criteria for
counting the impact of blogs? Readership? Traffic? Policy discussions initiated by
the blogs? Whether the blogs get taken up by media? At Purdue, for instance, we have
tenure and promotion cases that go up on the basis of engagement (this is the
terminology we use here for service). The issue that this brings up is How do
we evaluate scholarship and determine what counts as scholarship? So what does

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scholarship of engagement look like? We can certainly talk about what comes easy to
us, i.e., counting publications that focus on engagement, such as pubs on service
learning, etc. But what about other forms of engagement? Do public forums count as
engagement? What about work with the criminal justice system to change a specific
process or practice? What about community mobilizing work that focuses on policy
changes? These I believe are difficult questions and ones that dont have easy answers.
LARRY: The issue being raised seems to be about scholarship writ large, which
appears, from what I hear in Mohans post, to be virtually anything that a faculty
member engages in. It seems certainly fine to use the term scholarship in that regard,
but I would prefer to talk about teaching, research, and service, or other categories
that delineate the types of activities on which faculty members are and should be
evaluated. Once those categories are delineated, we can begin to see how some
particular activity might be labeled. For instance, it would be hard to see how a
faculty member leading a protest against city hall would/should be categorized as
research per se. Although such activity might be informed by research that others
have conducted, it would not constitute research in my view, as there was no attempt
to study and report the process. The type of study and reporting mentioned with
regard to blogs and other public forums certainly would count in my view as
research, although it might be labeled a particular type of research (e.g., public
scholarship), with no notion that such research is inferior to other types/forms of
research. I just do not know why we would want to count every action done as
research, if that is the gist of the argument.
BUD: This is very interesting and I think it is a good thing to be talking about
public scholarship in this forum. Maybe the questions we ask will serve as an opening
in our field for a wider discussion of how we count what we do and what
constitutes scholarly productivity. That said, allow me to offer a few comments,
speaking today in the voice of my former administrative self.
So, Mohan raises the issue of what counts as scholarship, problematizes the
traditional notion of it, and Larry responds with a solid defense of the traditional
three categories. Interesting. What I used to do when I hired someone was have a
frank discussion about what would count in those categories and how they would
be used to measure productivity. I found that one size did not, in fact, fit all
scholars and that documenting*from the outset of the institutional relationship
with the scholar*the agreement was a key to protecting both the scholar and the
institution. What I learned was that by and large most faculty were opposed to
counting protest activities, organizing activities, and other helpful activities as
anything other than service. And service, while important to department citizenship and equity, did not impact tenure or promotion, except in the most tertiary of
ways. So, basically, a person who represented her or his scholarship under the heading
of activism was still accountable for producing published work in scholarly outlets*
that was the baseline for measuring productivity. However, there was also broad
agreement (although never tested) that we should also be willing to count public
scholarship that was done in the scholars area of research and that contributed to the
overall impact he or she had in the community.

268 S. Dempsey et al.

I doubt that stand will change, even though as a person who produces public
scholarship, I think it should be modified. Why? Because the elephant in the
refrigerator during these cold assessments of merit is always this one: that it is
easier to do public scholarship than it is to publish a journal article or write a
scholarly book. The point is often expressed differently, as in there is no blind review
of the work or just showing up to work for a cause is like just submitting
something to a journal, but unless what you do gets published, it shouldnt count as
anything other than effort. What these objections underscore is the challenge that
public scholars have in documenting the impact of our work.
LARRY: It is not often that I am pictured as defending the status quo, thats for
sure! I actually dont support the three categories of teaching, research, and service (I
was merely pointing out that categories are inevitable and useful, and that not every
action performed should count in every category necessarily). I certainly support
different ways of going up for tenure and promotion, as one size certainly does not
fit all.
MOHAN: [Id like] to draw attention to some resources and conversations we have
been having at Purdue as an exemplar. [In] talking to my colleagues, I have learned
about several workshops they have been doing across campus on measuring
scholarship of engagement. Now what is interesting here is precisely the challenge
that both of you raise: What counts as scholarship of engagement? So we know that
writing counts (and that is what our senior faculty are traditionally familiar with).
But that is one specific kind of audience we are talking about. What about other
communities and kinds of audiences? And engagement of what other forms that
systematically work toward making a difference? So I am not so sure, Larry, about
dismissing the work of a colleague whose work manifests in leading protest marches.
If we consider that as a form of scholarship/performance, the challenge for us would
be to evaluate the systematic element in the performance and also then to start
working on figuring out ways to assess the impact. The challenge, then, as Bud points
out, becomes the assessment of the work and then being able to make a solid
argument about how that work matters.
Conversation*Reactions in the Public Sphere
JEN: Ive thought of this David Brooks (2010) post from earlier this year a few times
since we began our discussion. I wonder, if politics is about organizing hatred and if
in the current political moment (as Brooks argues) hatred is divided between people
with MBAs and people with PhDs, and if in states like mine (Texas) this antiintellectual sentiment runs deep enough to get Jefferson taken out of the history
books (for example), how do we continue to engage in social justice scholarship
without earning the enmity of a large and powerful sector of the public? In other
words, I worry that our outreach and other social justice programs are exactly what
they hate about us and, if so, what can we do to reframe these kinds of activities so
that they arent so threatening?

CM Cafe 269

MOHAN: Jen, what a thought provoking question you raise here! In doing our
social justice scholarship, it is always my hope and dream that we create spaces for
listening to the voices of the largely disenfranchised sectors of the globe who have
been rendered voiceless by the power structures that you refer to. In doing so, if we
truly care and are committed to crafting out spaces of solidarity with the poor and
the underserved, I hope that we can create vital spaces of solidarity for resisting the
power structures and their interests. Those power structures that stand to gain from
the inequities of neoliberal policies (the MBA types) are not going to like the things
we have to say, but that probably is the precise entry point for change. I feel that more
and more of our scholarship needs to speak precisely to this power structure in a very
direct way, draw attention to the hypocrisies in the policies that seek to enrich the
lives of the rich, and disrupt the narratives of patriotism and nationalism that such
structures essentially thrive on. My sense is that we dont do enough of taking on the
power structures in direct ways both in our scholarly writing as well as in our
engagement with policy.
BUD: David Brooks pop sociology is always amusing and sometimes insightful,
but he always employs binaries to point out rude divisions that are largely fictional.
[This article claims that] our political culture is divided by MBA and PhD
mentalities. While I believe and can pretty easily demonstrate that many, if not
most of our economic woes are directly related to folks with MBAs (think of decision
makers on Wall Street, mortgage brokers, and financial analysts), I dont necessarily
believe that the education they received in an MBA program is responsible for their
lack of ethics or uncaring souls . . . Similarly, not all PhDs are liberals who hate
money or have social justice labels on their workshirts.
[I believe] we have far less to fear from Wall Street MBAs than from talk show hosts
and the millions of fear-cultivated citizens who watch them and revere them. Its really a
communication problem, and we should be far more active in the public sphere if we
are going to address it. I hate to be a fear monger myself, but the fact is that the crisis in
higher education will only grow worse because state legislatures have bought into the
idea that taxes are bad, government is bad, and education only produces young adults
who disagree with Republicans and ministers . . . While we have been emptying trash
cans and organizing hotel workers, our right wing talk show hosts and corporatebought legislators have been convincing the poor and working classes*as well as
whats left of the middle class*to vote against their own best interests and to think of us
as their enemy. We are easy targets. We dont fight back.
SARAH: Bud and Mohans comments here underscore the importance of
articulating and then defending a vision of the university as a vital social good.
I see Brooks article as yet another example of the attempt to define and then police a
very narrowly defined conception of the economy, one which minimizes the value of
socially held goods like education. A potentially powerful leverage point for
reclaiming the tradition of public scholarship includes the growing popularity of
Ernest Boyers conception of engaged scholarship (Boyer, 1996), and the increasing
turn by universities to embrace campus-community engagement initiatives. This
return is occurring at the very same time that state-funded universities budgets are

270 S. Dempsey et al.

being slashed, and as Brooks and, of course, Beck are busy devaluing public goods. It
brings with it not so implicit demands to demonstrate the relevancy of the university,
and to justify state spending on education. There is a danger, however, of community
engagement/engaged scholarship being institutionalized in such a way that minimizes
or ignores the rich tradition and ideals of public scholarship. Of course, universities
are already engaging in all sorts of communities, but much of this engagement very
often is motivated by a set of narrow economic interests. The current calls bring with
them new opportunities (and a new urgency) to argue for a model of community
engagement tied to ideas of public scholarship, and rooted in values of social justice,
democracy, and the public good. Yes, these terms have been systematically distorted
and coopted, but that doesnt mean that the values they represent should be
abandoned.
Out of the Cafe and Into the World
The conversation in the CM Cafe ended after about two weeks, though the
participants may well have continued their discussion in other venues. Not
surprisingly, the Cafe discussion concluded with no firm conclusions. No definitive
answers were reached on initial questions posed*indeed, these initial posts more
often than not just stimulated more questions for discussion. So, in summing up,
here are a few of the sentiments of Cafe participants that were often echoed during
our discussion.
First, being a social justice scholar requires a great deal of desire and commitment.
As Larry says, [b]eing vested in and passionate about the cause of promoting social
justice, and then knowing how to intervene and do something about it, and then
intervening and doing something about, seem to be some important requirements for
accomplishing communication activism for social justice research. In other words,
this kind of work requires passion, knowledge, and action.
Second, once motivated, there are many ways for communication scholars to
become involved in social justice work. Soyini points to the possibility of
performance because it is such a powerful way to change hearts and minds.
I believe it can stretch, even overwhelm, in its beauty and rhetorical force to change
not only an individuals attitude, but also a nations laws*because really powerful
performances build and spread over time. Sarah suggests the power of listening to
community members, arguing that social movements are important producers of
knowledge in their own right, so part of the work of translational research involves
communicating the knowledge and analyses produced by those not associated with
academia. Tom points out that sometimes the advanced degrees many of us have
earned dont matter a lot in social justice and community engagement: I have found
myself doing many things as part of a larger commitment to community politics,
including cleaning graffiti, loading and unloading materials, hauling garbage, and
many other things that are not related to the role of communication scholar.
Third, once engaged in the work, there are still tensions that must be faced. Jen
points to difficulties she encounters in her class on communication activism: The

CM Cafe 271

difference is whether one chooses to work within the system. My personal preference
would be to change the system, but as a teacher I teach my students how to work
within the system. This is the main tension between my personal beliefs and my
professional role and it is one that I struggle with daily. In addition to these internal
conflicts, social justice scholarship also brings with it tensions between the individual
scholar and the university system. That is, social justice scholars may be engaging in
powerful practices in a wide range of settings, but will they be professionally rewarded
for such activity? Bud argues that this struggle is ongoing: Those of us who are
advocating for public scholarship, and/or activism, have yet to make our case in a
persuasive manner to those whose opinions about what we do will ultimately
determine if we are able to continue doing it.
So when we left the CM Cafe, it was clear that there is challenging work ahead. As
we end this installment of a hopefully ongoing discussion, then, I will close with some
words that Mohan inserted into the midst of our conversation, that he describes as a
recessional hymn from school days that continues to speak to me in inspiring ways:
It takes courage to answer a call,
It takes courage to lose your all,
It takes courage to risk your name,
It takes courage to be true.
It takes courage to dare,
One that no one will share;
To be standing alone,
One whom no one will own;
To be ready to stake for another ones sake,
It takes courage to be true.

References
Boyer, E. L. (1996). The scholarship of engagement. Journal of Public Service and Outreach, 1,
1120.
Brooks, D. (2010, January 25). The populist addiction. New York Times. Retrieved from http://
nytimes.com
Broome, B. J., Carey, C., de la Garza, S. A., Martin, J., & Morris, R. (2005). In the thick of things: A
dialogue about the activist turn in intercultural communication. In W. J. Starosta & G.-M.
Chen (Eds.), Taking stock in intercultural communication: Where to now? (pp. 145175).
Washington, DC: National Communication Association.
Goodall, H. L. (2000). Writing the new ethnography. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira.
Goodall, H. L. (2010). Counter-Narrative: How progressive academics can challenge extremists and
promote social justice. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press.
Halverson, J. R., Corman, S. R., & Goodall, H. L. (in press). Master narratives of Islamist extremism.
Palgrave Macmillan.
Le vi-Strauss, C. (1968). The savage mind. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

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