Pedagogy of scholarship in higher education administration

The purpose of this phenomenological hermeneutic study was to explore the meaning found in the lived-experience of producing scholarship for five higher education administrators from within the major areas of administration in higher education--academic affairs, business affairs, and student affairs--from a single research university in the western United States. In the historical and recent scholarship in and about the three fields of higher education administration, academic affairs, business affairs, and student affairs, one issue that has not been addressed is what it is like to produce scholarship as an administrator. Current scholarship in the field helps administrative practice by focusing on the practice of administration; however, current literature did not provide an understanding of what it means to do scholarship as an administrator. Thus, the challenges and rewards of producing scholarship as a practicing administrator, creating the first step toward a possible new era in the practice of scholarship on college campuses, were explored in the this study. Individual semi-structured interviews were the primary source of data. The structured questions were used to set up the un-structured questions used to explore specific examples and instances pertaining to producing scholarship as an administrator. A three-step data analysis process was used to develop both an understanding of what scholarship means for each participant and an interpretation of the meaning of producing scholarship as a higher education administrator. Across all of the lived-experiences and the participants' varied scholarly endeavors, each administrator was more connected to education and contributed more to the educational environment by participating in scholarly activities. The administrators were found to be more connected to the people within the university, their own field of practice, and with the university itself.