I too would love to see teaching, scholarship, research, etc. all together as one big happy family in the tenure process - but they aren't. Building technological infrastructures to facilitate teaching and learning won't help. A MAJOR culture shift is needed here that has to come from bottom up, top down, and sideways (influences from outside at all levels). Until that happens, we can't just blithely assume that placing technology in front of faculty is enough. We can't assume that offering training on the use of these tools is enough. Making adoption easier is not enough.
I can't tell you how many tenured faculty I've talked to that steer new faculty away from from “experimenting with technology” because it will harm or kill their tenure process at PSU. Cole mentions time as the deciding factor here. That is part of the issue, but here's another - We end up with only a few faculty that make it through P&T without becoming so vulcanized by the process they are willing to try new things, or with instructors not on the P&T path willing to try new things. We lose many brilliant minds to P&T, IMO.
While I can see a bottom up and sideways movement happening at PSU, I don't see a top down approach to change in P&T ever happening unless tremendous pressure is exerted on administration. They too are vulcanized in the way things are. Some give lip service to the need for change, but that's all it is.
So what to do? Maybe we need a black ops to bring in new administration that believes in this change in P&T. Maybe we need to slowing suffuse the existing administration(s) with those that “get it.” Sounds radical, I know. Maybe (and more likely) another major university will move in this direction and PSU will follow.
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