Editor's Corner: Work of Consequence

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-1722.2011.01088.x
• Author: Tonia Hap Murphy
• Date: 01 July 2011
• Published date: 01 July 2011

Editor’s Corner: Work of

Consequence

The work of college professorsFteaching and researchFis sometimes

disparaged. W.H. Auden famously quipped: ‘‘A professor is one who talks

in someone else’s sleep.’’

1

Noam Chomsky wrote,

Everyone engaged in research must have had the experience of working with

feverish and prolonged intensity to write a paper which no one else will read or

to solve a problem which no one else thinks important and which will bring no

conceivable rewardFwhich may only confirm a general opinion that the

researcher is wasting his time on irrelevancies.

2

Readers of the Journal of Legal Studies Education (JLSE) who adopt

ideas for teaching proposed in this issue will not have napping students.

And those researchers whose work is reported here can rest assured that

their work will be read and appreciated as highly relevant. Pedagogical

research has been called ‘‘one of the most energizing areas of research in

the field of higher education today.’’

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In this age of accreditation and

r2011 The Author

Journal of Legal Studies Education r2011 Academy of Legal Studies in Business

v

1

CHARLES OSBORNE, W.H. AUDEN:THE LIFE OF A POET 332 (1979). Auden taught at several col-

leges, including as a lecturer in English at Swarthmore College from 1942–45. There, he was

noted for his eccentricities (‘‘He is reported to have worn no socks, except occasionally on his

head in bad weather.’’), but ‘‘he was immensely popular with students, for he treated them as

adults and took their problems seriously,and in class he encouraged them to think for them-

selves.’’ Id. at 212–13.

2

Noam Chomsky,B.F.Skinner’s Verbal Behavior,35LANGUAGE 26, 41 (1959) (book review). More

than half a century after Chomsky’s observation, debate on the relevance and value of aca-

demic research continues. See, e.g., Stanley W.Trimble et al., The Glut of Academic Publishing: A

Call for a New Culture,23A

CAD.QUESTIONS 276 (2010); Andrew J. Hoffman, Deconstructing the

Ivory Tower: Business Schools’ Reliance on Theory-Driven Research Ignores the PressingNeeds of Real-

World Managers,C

ORP.RESPONSIBILITY OFFICER, Jan./Feb. 2009, at 43; Katherine S. Mangan,

Business Schools Irrelevant, Article Says,CHRON.HIGHER EDUC., May 13, 2005, at A10; Practically

Irrelevant? What Is the Point of Research Carried Out in Business Schools?,THE ECONOMIST, Aug. 28,

2007, available at http://www.economist.com/node/9707498?story_id=9707498.

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REGAN A.R. GURUNG &BETH M. SCHWARTZ,OPTIMIZING TEACHING AND LEARNING:PRACTICING

PEDAGOGICAL RESEARCH vii (2009). This book is a valuable resource for anyone who seeks to be a

‘‘scholarly teacher,’’one who is ‘‘methodically working to improve teaching and learning,’’ id.

at 14, or who seeks to publish pedagogical research in a peer-reviewed journal such as the