Gary Rolfe

Second generation professional doctorates in nursing

This paper traces the increase in number and diversity of professional doctorates over the last two decades and discusses the evolution from first to second generation doctorates as a response to the rise of the knowledge economy and new understandings of knowledge-production. Distinctions between first and second generation doctorates are interpreted in the light of Gibbons et al. [Gibbons, M., Limoges, C., Nowotny, H., Schwartzman, S., Scott, P., Trow, M., 1994. The New Production of Knowledge: The Dynamics of Science and Research in Contemporary Societies. Sage, London] taxonomy of knowledge-production, and it is argued that second generation doctorates, based on Mode 2 knowledge-production, are not only relevant to the economy but also have the potential to transform practice. However, as this paper highlights, this reconceptualisation of the professional doctorate presents particular challenges to academia and the discipline of nursing, which centre upon the threats posed to the power and authority of the University by the radical nature of Mode 2 knowledge generation and application in the workplace. Implications of these threats are discussed in relation to the current debate about the rigour of professional doctorates and the call by some for a return to the traditional doctorate or PhD. We conclude that the discipline of nursing has much to gain from embracing, rather than retreating from, the challenges posed by second generation professional doctorates, and that these offer an alternative but no less academically sound education in preparing nurses to pay a full and active role at the theory-practice interface.

Writing-up and writing-as: Rediscovering nursing scholarship

Nursing is a relatively young academic discipline which only moved en masse into the higher education sector in many countries during the 1990s. Perhaps in a bid to enhance and accelerate its credibility, the nursing academy has embraced the values and practices of evidence-based medicine and the associated gold-standard experimental research paradigm as its dominant discourse. Empirical scientific research has become the most valued and highly rewarded activity for nurse academics to pursue, and the tenets and standards of research have come to define the entire academic project of nursing. As a result, there has been a gradual shift from nursing as an academic discipline founded on scholarship to one based on research. Research is no longer seen as merely one aspect of the scholarly work expected of an academic, and is now often regarded as the main (and sometimes the only) activity necessary to gain promotion. I argue in this paper for a more positive view of scholarship; indeed, that scholarly activity is both the foundation and the creative driver of the academy. I suggest that the gold-standard academic output of the research report is restricted in the contribution it is able to make to the development of the discipline of nursing, and that a far broader and more critical academic base is required. Whilst empirical research supplies the basic building blocks of the discipline, it is critical and creative scholarship that provides the plans and designs that turn these piles of bricks into useful structures.

Fast food for thought: How to survive and thrive in the corporate university

Michael Oakeshott warned in 1950 that the very existence of the university as a place of learning and scholarship was under threat from corporate interests, and that the provision of education was being replaced by the sale of qualifications. By the end of the century, Bill Readings had pronounced that the university was in ruins, just as nurse education in the UK was making the move into higher education. It is against this backdrop of a corporate university sector that is increasingly coming to resemble a fast-food business that nurse academics are struggling to assert their values and make a difference to nursing practice through education, research and scholarship. As it becomes ever more difficult to make our way in the university with any degree of integrity, this paper offers some thoughts and suggests some strategies for not only surviving in the corporate university, but for thriving both personally and professionally in ways that do not compromise our commitments and values as healthcare professionals and human beings. It is offered as a personal reflection, based on nearly 40 years of experiences in UK universities, firstly as a student and latterly as a lecturer and a professor of nursing. As such, it is delivered from a particular geographical and disciplinary perspective, the only perspective I can talk from with any real authority and authenticity. However, I believe that these ideas, thoughts and suggestions can be applied with a degree of success to other healthcare disciplines in other parts of the world.

Some further questions on the nature of caring

I have followed the ongoing debate on ‘the lost art of caring’ with a great deal of interest and not a little confusion. The initial impetus for the discussion was the paper by Corbin (2008), which set the scene and, to some extent, defined the parameters for the three responses which followed in the subsequent issue of this journal (Flatley and Bridges, 2008; Griffiths, 2008; Maben, 2008). There is a fundamental but largely unspoken assumption running through Corbin’s paper and the three responses to it that, as nurses, we all have a shared understanding (if not a shared definition) of what is meant by the term ‘caring’. Whilst acknowledging that ‘caring is an elusive term, one that has different meanings in different context’ and is therefore hard to pin down, Corbin nevertheless sums it up simply as ‘a certain ‘‘something’’ that touches the humanness and vulnerability of persons who are ill’. She also distinguishes between ‘caring for’ and ‘caring about’, arguing that what nurses should be concerned with is the ‘whole package’ of ‘competence along with demonstrated interest’. However, despite the acknowledgement that caring is an elusive term that has a number of different meanings and that a definition is yet to be agreed on, she urges that we need to get ‘beyond defining what is meant by caring’ in order to discuss whether caring should continue to be a component of nursing. This, as any philosopher will tell you, is a dangerous and reckless move, and one which will inevitably lead to confusion and misunderstanding further down the line.

Cardinal John Henry Newman and ‘the ideal state and purpose of a university’: nurse education, research and practice development for the twenty‐first century

Cardinal John Henry Newmans book, The Idea of a University, first published in the mid nineteenth century, is often invoked as the epitome of the liberal Enlightenment University in discussions and debates about the role and purpose of nurse education. In this article I will examine Newmans book in greater detail and with a more critical eye than is generally the case in the writing of nurse academics. In particular, I will focus on the claims that Newman was a champion of the Enlightenment University of the nineteenth century, that he promoted the idea of disinterested universal knowledge for its own sake, that he was an early advocate of the pursuit of knowledge through scientific research, and the supposition that he would have welcomed the discipline of nursing into the University. In each case, I will suggest that these claims are based on an extremely selective reading of Newmans work. I will conclude by employing the example of practice development to propose an alternative way for nursing to find its place in the modern University that does not involve a retreat into what I will argue is an outdated and nostalgic view of the aims and purpose of higher education.