Agent of Democracy - Society for College and University Planning

Reconstructing a Democratic
Tradition of Public Scholarship
in the Land-Grant System
Scott Peters
In her chapter in this book, Noëlle McAfee asks what kind of
civic relationship there might be between the academy and the
public. In this chapter, I explore the nature and promise of a civic
relationship in which academic professionals take up and interweave
both responsive expert and proactive social critic and change agent
roles, including the little recognized role of acting, in McAfee’s words,
as “an ally in creating opportunities and ideas that support public
making.” For more than a century, many scholars in land-grant colleges
of agriculture and human ecology (hereinafter “land-grant
colleges”) have taken up such roles by becoming engaged in public
work that addresses not only the technical, but also the social, political,
and cultural aspects of agricultural and environmental problems.
In doing so, they have established one of the most important democratic
traditions of public scholarship in American higher education.
The history and contemporary nature of this tradition are not
widely known. Further, there is reason to believe that its future is
seriously endangered. In relation to these problems, my own work
as a scholar is centered on the threefold task of reconstructing it: first,
by examining how and for what purposes scholars in land-grant colleges
developed a democratic tradition of public scholarship; second,
by identifying and interpreting the nature, meaning, and significance
of the tradition in its historical and contemporary contexts; and third,
by developing collaborative approaches to strengthening and defending
it as one (among many) means of pursuing the “land-grant
mission,” a phrase that is often used to name the land-grant system’s
public purposes and work.
Drawing from what I am learning in my research, which is still
in its exploratory stage, the story I tell in this chapter is both inspiring
and troubling. While there was and still is a democratic tradition of
public scholarship in land-grant colleges, it has been and continues
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