From the Editor's Desk Ernest A. Lynton Shortly before this issue of Metropolitan Universities went to press, the American Association of Higher Education (AAHE) sponsored the first of what are intended to be annual meetings of its new Forum on Faculty Roles and Rewards. The overwhelming success of the conference (with a capacity of 500 participants, it was overbooked and even so had to turn away more than one hundred individuals) is good news for metropolitan universities. It indicates that questions about institutional missions and about the nature of faculty scholarship are moving from the periphery to the center of attention in higher education. The level of discourse and the intensity of activity are rising. An introductory paper by Russ Edgerton, President of AAHE, entitled "The Reexamination of Faculty Priorities," was distributed to all participants in the AAHE conference. In it, Edgerton states that "[b]eginning in 1990 and accelerating in 1991and1992, presidents and provosts across the country have been charging task forces and committees to reexamine various aspects of the faculty reward system, from the tasks faculty are expected to perform, to ways teaching and service are evaluated, to the bases for promotion and advancement." Action, as always, lags rhetoric, and to date there has been, at best, only a modest beginning toward bringing about the changes that are needed. What is most encouraging is that, at the institutional level, self- perceptions are starting to change. A number of prestigious research- oriented universities have initiated serious steps toward a greater emphasis on faculty scholarship in areas other than research. This move finds its strongest support among the younger faculty, who are likely to set the tone in the future. And among metropolitan universities and other comprehensive universities, one finds a growing recognition-and some sense of relief-that there is less need to be apologetic about multiple missions. Indeed, multidimensional excellence encompassing all aspects of individual as well as institutional activities is emerging as a key slogan for all universities. Increasingly, metropolitan universities find themselves leading the trend and setting the example for more traditional institutions. They are indeed emerging, as Charles Hathaway, Paige Mulhollan, and Karen White stated in the first article to be published in this journal, as models for the twenty-first century. With the good news there comes, as always, some that is less encouraging: professional service continues to be largely neglected. Both semantically and conceptually, most of the current conversation regarding a broader conception of faculty scholarship still focuses on teaching, with an occasional proforma nod to service. That usually comes in the first and the final paragraphs of a paper or presentation, with an elaboration on the enhancement, evaluation, and reward of faculty involvement in teaching in the middle. Still lacking is a gut-level understanding of the role and importance of professional outreach. There exists, as yet, very little From the Editor's Desk 3 systematic exploration of the scholarship in professional service, its relationship to other forms of scholarship, and its significance as an integral part of faculty roles and rewards. Professional service is still not getting full attention. That is bad news for metropolitan universities. What distinguishes our institutions most clearly from two- and four-year colleges is their ability to be a substantial source of expertise and knowledge transfer to their regional constituencies in the private and public sectors. This close and reciprocal relationship to practice and application also gives metropolitan universities a special edge as compared to traditional research institutions in providing preparatory as well as continuing education for practitioners. Most metropolitan universities are fully aware of their interactive mission. They are deeply engaged ina wide variety of professional service activities through school-college collaboration, technical assistance to small-and medium-sized enterprises, consultancies and policy analyses to public agencies, and many other ways of ensuring the effective dissemination of new ideas and information. But they have, by and large, not as yet engaged in a systematic and thorough conceptualization of the role of the faculty in these activities. The tendency to lump professional outreach with on-campus committee assignments and community volunteer work persists. It is extremely important to disaggregate the catch-all term of" service" and to reach an understanding of the distinction between institutional or general citizenship, on the one hand, and professional service, on the other. We need to recognize and articulate the scholarly dimensions of the latter, its criteria of excellence, and how it should be evaluated and documented. Metropolitan universities must take the lead in this undertaking; they must, as it were, catch up with the extensive and highly important work being done with regard to the scholarship in teaching. They must make sure that the ongoing work of the AAHE Forum on Faculty Roles and Rewards focuses as strongly on professional service as it does on the teaching and learning function. Indeed, metropolitan universities should work toward the day when the boundaries between the traditional triad of teaching, service, and research are recognized to be artificial and dysfunctional. The relationship among the three is becoming ever closer, with professional service enriching teaching, more and more applied research being carried out in a practice context, and most outreach activities containing a substantial developmental element. We are close to being able to say that there can be no professional service without a component of teaching, no applied research without a connection to practice, and no practice-oriented teaching without external experience. The fusion of the triad into a single, multidimensional activity is at the heart of what metropolitan universities are about. And it behooves these institutions to take the lead in focusing national attention on such an inclusive approach to faculty roles and rewards, with all aspects equally in the spotlight. Metropolitan universities cannot afford to let the discourse slip into a dipolar discussion of teaching and research, with service as an afterthought. 4 Metropolitan Universities/Summer 1993 In the near future we expect to publish a number of presentations from the national meeting of the AAHE Forum on Faculty Roles and Responsibilities. The current issue addresses two themes. A number of articles continue to focus on the theme of Assessment begun in the preceding issue, which also contained the overview by guest editor Barbara Wright. I would like once again to thank Professor Wright for her outstanding work, which she accomplished during the difficult time of reentry from her position at AAHE to being a faculty member at the University of Connecticut. The second half of the current issue is devoted to the theme: The International Dimension. My deep gratitude goes out as well to President John Shumaker of Central Connecticut State University, who found the time,inspiteofhisall-consumingtaskasheadofasubstantialmetropolitan university, to conceive, organize, and edit these articles. MU1993-Summer-003_page2 MU1993-Summer-004_page3 MU1993-Summer-005_page4