Kenneth W. Mentor, J.D., Ph.D.

Scholarship

Online Content

Shared learning objects:

• Death Penalty (2006)

• Civil Liberties (2006)

Presentations:

• University of North Carolina Teaching and Learning Conference (2006)

• The Death Penalty in Popular Culture (2006)

• University of North Carolina Teaching and Learning Conference (2005)

• Madison Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning (2004)

• ACJS - Distance Education Workshop (2004)

• ACJS - Open Access Learning Environments (2004)

• Sun Conference on Teaching and Learning (2004)

• Educause Southwest Regional Conference (2004)

• Open Access and Distance Education (2003)

• Madison Conference on Distance Learning (2003)

Papers:

Pedagogy

• Creating Online Learning Environments (2003)

• Criminal Justice Distance Education: Problems and Prospects (2002)

• Preparing to Teach Online (2002)

• Humanizing Criminal Justice Education: Alternatives to "Us" Versus "Them" (2000)

• Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer (1998)

• Why Don't We Just Ask?: Qualitative Interviews in Criminology Research (1997)

• Kurt Vonnegut, Harrison Bergeron, and an Introduction to Deviance and Social Control (1996)

Internet

• critcrim.org: The Potential for Internet Scholarship (2003)

• Survey Research and the Internet (2002)

Media

• Crime or Act of War? - The Media, 9-11, and Iraq (2002)

• Talking Heads: The Contribution of Media Presented Experts (1999)

• The Role of Media Presented "Experts" in Television Coverage of School Shootings (1999)

Corrections Education

• Corrections Education (2005)

• College Courses in Prison (2005)

• GED in Corrections (2005)

• ESL in Corrections (2005)

• Literacy in Corrections (2005)

Legal Services Corporation

• A Tale of Two Offices: Adaptation Strategies of Selected LSC Agencies (2000)

• Rhetoric, Roadblocks, and Rebuilding: The Perils of Providing Legal Services to the Poor (1999)

• "Things Didn't Work out as Planned": Career Examination Among Attorneys Working in LSC Funded Law Offices (1998)

• Legal Representation of the Poor: Is the Safety Net About to Fail? (1996)

Other

• Mediation and Dispute Resolution (2005)

• The November Coalition (2005)

• The Death Penalty Returns to New Mexico (2002)

• Habitual Offender Laws: Three Strikes and You're Out (2002)

• The Association Between Right Wing Authoritarianism and the Perceived Seriousness of Deviant Acts (1998)

• Victim Offender Mediation: Attitudes and Opinions of a Group of Experienced Mediators (1997)

• Organizational Commitment and the Perception of Organizational Support (1996)

• Right Wing Authoritarianism and the Perceived Seriousness of Drug Related Activity (1996)

Web Sites:

• cjstudents.com

• critcrim.org

• justicepolicy.com

Course Materials:

• Alternative Dispute Resolution (2004)

• Justice Policy Analysis (2004)

• Nature of Crime - Distance (2004)

• Nature of Crime - Campus (2004)

• Law and Social Control (2004)

• Civil Liberties (2003)

• Justice in the Media - Campus (2003)

• Justice in the Media - Distance (2003)

• Research Methods (2003)

• Senior Seminar (2000)

• Introduction to Criminal Justice (1999)

What is Scholarship?

Soderberg (1985) described the prevalent myth among faculty that research is more important work than teaching, writing that:

"We get released from the dulling binds of merely teaching in order that we may marshal our higher resources for the hallowed halls of research.... Carried to its logical extreme, this system of rewards in the university conditions professors to behave as if they believe that the discovery of new knowledge, no matter how trivial, is preferable to the effective disseminating of knowledge, no matter how important." (p. 170)

Some would argue that Soderberg's quote is an accurate representation of the potential for an unproductive focus on "research." It may also be argued that this extreme is not appropriate for any institution of higher learning, regardless of the population served. However, criminal justice is a unique discipline, serving a unique population, with many opportunities to change lives through effective efforts to focus on teaching and service.

An examination of faculty roles and rewards often focus on the trinity of research, teaching, and service. As we know, tenure processes often reward faculty based on a very different model - research, research, and research. Lip service is given to the suggestion that research, teaching, and service are overlapping activities and that it is important to "integrate" these activities. While integration of these activities seems possible, the end result often demonstrates that research and teaching are mutually exclusive (Fairweather, 1993). In effect, teaching and service are only valid if a peer reviewed publication is the end result. Note the language used - the "end" result. Once published, must the activity be abandoned or altered in ways that lead to more publication?

"Scholarship Revisited," by Ernest Boyer (1990), has served as a guide in the effort to examine, and demonstrate, the potential of web-based scholarship. This examination has taken place on campuses throughout the United States. This examination has also been very personal to me as I strive to fulfill a faculty role that is rewarding, innovative, and of value to the community (however defined). Boyer encouraged academics to consider a range of activities in their definitions of scholarship. Boyer’s classification of scholarship includes four overlapping activities:

• discovery - creating and sharing knowledge;
• integration - providing meaning by placing knowledge in context;
• application - actively engaging with society, and;
• teaching and learning - helping others gain understanding.

These categories have been adopted as a framework for this research. The following represents a general idea of how these categories are used to organize a range of overlapping activities - each of which is an example of scholarship.

Discovery

Integration

Application

Teaching and Learning

• Course outlines
• Collections of essays that serve as replacements for supplementary (and expensive) course materials
• Online activities that may be freely adopted by others
• Collaborative teaching