Going Public Reconsidered : Engaging With the World Beyond Academe Through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Through its impact on students in their lives in and beyond college, and recognizing the porous boundary between the classroom and the “real world,” SoTL can offer insights into broader societal issues, offer evidence of activities that facilitate everyday learning, promote intrinsic motivation, better support people from underrepresented communities, or uncover the ripple effects of changing educational environments. It has the potential to deliver messages of broad public interest. 

This book extends the field-building work of Boyer’s Scholarship Reconsidered and Hutchings, Huber, and Ciccone’s The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Reconsidered by taking a new look at SoTL’s ubiquitous call to “go public.” Going Public Reconsidered explores the potential impacts of knowledge generated by SoTL, considers its varied public audiences, and offers guidance for the appropriate media and modes of communication to reach them, including the use of social media. It urges the SoTL community to step up and contribute its expertise to conversations about the crises that face our communities, nations, and the world, and disseminate the relevance of its research for the world outside of the classroom.

Recognizing that many practitioners find it difficult to conceptualize the public in public SoTL beyond the higher education audiences they routinely address, this book focusses on conceptualizing, planning, and shaping the message, and clarifyingappropriate audiences. It offers guidance on the “who” and the “how” of public SoTL.

Going Public Reconsidered addresses such questions as:

●  What is happening in the world that would benefit from a SoTL-informed perspective?

●  What information, insight, or knowledge does SoTL generate?

●  Who beyond higher education might care about this information, insight, or knowledge, and why?

●  How can we adapt to the venues and platforms where they currently get their information and knowledge?

The fifteen editors and contributors explore the potential and the implications of extending SoTL beyond its current horizons by reflecting on the ultimate responsibility of those who profess SoTL; examining SoTL’s audiences and the notion of “the public”; considering what topics and Grand Challenges public SoTL might address; offering case studies of outreach in the US and abroad; and providing guidance on the use of social media for public SoTL – from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube to blogs – as well as on developing relationships with mainstream media.

The book’s message is that public SoTL isn’t a radical departure from SoTL-as-we-know-it, but a natural expansion of its methods and goals, offering the potential of broadening its impact domestically and internationally. It offers inspiration and challenges to practitioners across the globe.

Nancy Chick is a SoTL scholar, scholarly teacher, and faculty developer. After earning her PhD in American literature from the University of Georgia and eventually Full Professor from the University of Wisconsin Colleges, she left full-time faculty work to focus on the scholarship of teaching and learning and faculty development first at Vanderbilt University, then the University of Calgary, and now at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida (USA).

She has authored and co-authored numerous articles and book chapters on the results of SoTL projects and on the field of SoTL. She is also editor of SoTL in Action: Illuminating Critical Moments of Practice (Stylus, 2018), co-editor (with Jennifer C. Friberg) of Going Public Reconsidered: Engaging With the World Beyond Academe Through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (Stylus, 2022) and (with Regan A.R. Gurung & Aeron Haynie) of Exploring Signature Pedagogies: Approaches to Teaching Disciplinary Habits of Mind (Stylus, 2009) and Exploring More Signature Pedagogies: Approaches to Teaching Disciplinary Habits of Mind (Stylus, 2012), and founding co-editor (with Gary Poole) of Teaching & Learning Inquiry, the journal of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning/ISSOTL (2011-2020).

From 2019-22, she served on the ISSOTL Presidential team and (with Chng Huang Hoon) as ISSOTL Co-President during 2020-21 ― at the height of the pandemic.


Jennifer C. Friberg is the Interim Director for the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Technology; Cross Endowed Chair in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning; and Professor of Communication Sciences & Disorders at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois, USA. She is the co-editor for Evidence-Based Education in the Classroom: Examples from Clinical Disciplines and Applying the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning beyond the Individual Classroom and serves as the founding Associate Editor for Teaching and Learning in Communication Sciences & Disorders. Friberg’s current scholarly efforts focus on SoTL educational development, mentorship in SoTL, and SoTL advocacy.