Ecce Homo Academicus: The Revaluation of Higher Education Values

• In Event: E/valuative Actions: Exploring the Doings of E/valuation in Evaluative Systems 1

Abstract

Evaluation can be seen as an opportunity for transvaluation, or what Nietzsche called the revaluation of values. However, evaluation is often treated instead as the enforcement of standards – standardization rather than transformation. When evaluation as transvaluation and evaluation as standardization are both used to evaluate the same subjects, things are working at cross purposes. How can individuals subject to such competing evaluation regimes respond in ways that go beyond mere survival (publish or perish) and instead promote excellence as academic flourishing? This paper recounts – in an autobiographical fashion that brings the issues into sharper relief – various ways (both conceptual and actual) of responding to the challenge. In doing so it outlines a notion of academic flourishing and argues that this ideal, rather than meeting minimum standards, should be used in evaluations for academic advancement (including promotion and tenure). There is, of course, an American flavor to this presentation, and it would be great to see how things are different in other countries!

Author

• J Britt Holbrook, New Jersey Institute of Technology