What is The Public Scholar?
The Public Scholar is a free Substack that documents projects of the Program at Public Scholarship at Washington University in St. Louis and provides examples of public scholarship in practice, with guest posts from a range of public scholars at WashU and beyond.
What is the Program in Public Scholarship?
The Program in Public Scholarship was launched in 2023 as a Signature Initiative of Arts & Sciences at WashU, with the aim to support scholars across all departments and programs in developing skills and knowledge for reaching broad public audiences with their research and creative work. The Program has evolved into an office serving all schools across campus. We hold one-on-one and small group meetings with faculty and graduate students to brainstorm projects and determine suitable targets for wide dissemination. We also host biweekly workshops on a range of public scholarly topics and tools, from writing for The Conversation, to creating engaging research-based podcasts, to crafting persuasive book proposals, and more.
A theory of public scholarly impact
What scholars do in their research and teaching can benefit audiences beyond the academy. Whether we think about books that get widely read, essays that go viral, radio interviews shared between friends, or illuminating video appearances, scholarly work has many ways to make an impact with ripple effects that spread out farther than the campus or one’s discipline. This type of work can happen accidentally or spontaneously; but it can also become part of a scholar’s practice. And public scholarly work is increasingly recognized by institutions, professional associations, and funding agencies: For example, the National Science Foundation rewards projects that show broader impacts on society; the National Endowment for the Humanities dedicates extensive grant opportunities to public humanities projects; the American Sociological Association includes public engagement and communication in their organizational mission. Across disciplines, scholars can become versed and skilled in the arts of public impact, by learning how to focus and frame their expertise in ways that that can reach—and help—broad audiences.
Why follow The Public Scholar?
If you’re curious about public scholarship — either learning more about what it is and how to do it, or reading examples of it — The Public Scholar is for you. You don’t have to be a scholar to benefit from this publication, but scholars will find information (and hopefully inspiration) here about how to make their expertise useful and interesting to those outsides their fields.
