My favorite bits of what Ulmer says are the bits about "invention." I have since attempted to work the process of invention into all my assignments, regardless of whether I feel they do the work of new media or not. Of course, invention is a fun term in its own right, what with Barthomome's students inventing the university, among others.

I take glee in Jeff's comments on WPA, as well as his blog posts, because they say, very eloquently and much more brazenly, things that resonate with me.

It seems that the New York Times is catching up with the Florida school. Erich Kunhardt's Op-Ed piece from 14 December, "Necessity as the Mother of Tenure?" suggests that universities need to embrace invention as one of their main goals. He writes:

However, "academic entrepreneurship" - the patenting and licensing by universities and their faculty - has not become part of the academic mainstream, and is generally viewed within the Ivory Tower as conflicting with the mission of the university. That mission is now often captured by the phrase: "to teach, and to research." I think a third element should be added: "to invent." There are two compelling reasons for broadening the academic mission. First, the university shapes the thinking and outlook of our future workers, and also offers one of the most stable environments for bright Americans to work on new things and sustain our creative leadership. Second, putting an emphasis on invention would enrich the academic community by adding a new dimension of creative expression. Independent of whether inventing can be taught or not, affirming the creative process as a long-term value in the university will serve to stimulate faculty and students alike. (par 3)

Of course, Kunhardt writes here about patents as the result of invention, which isn't what I'm suggesting we do. Rather, I'm walking in the same direction Ulmer walks when he suggests that "The best way to learn about the potential of websites and the internet for supporting learning in the Arts and Letters disciplines, is to invent a new practice of writing native to hypermedia"(Internet Invention, xiii). Rice makes a similar move in Writing About Cool, inventing a method for writing hypertext through concepts of "cool."

So, if we ignore the passage about "patents," Kunhardt's piece becomes a campaign for web-writing using the logic of invention (heuretics instead of hermeneutics).

Some relevant passages:

...inventing is viewed mainly as technology transfer, not as something with academic value of its own. It is no surprise, then, that few faculty members get involved in inventing, and students are not challenged to attempt it. And any arguments that inventing should be nurtured for its potential contribution to American economic development are quickly dismissed (par 7).

This reminds me of Jeff's recent post about the stubbornness of the composition community in refusing to engage with more inventive pedagogies and thinking. Plus, invention's harder grade.

The quickest way to change this mind-set will be to get administrations and faculties to accept successful inventing as a step toward tenure. After all, in a few decades research went from being a foreign concept in academia to being the most important factor in tenure decisions. However, unlike research, there is no established peer-review process for evaluating inventions, no way to evaluate the academic significance of a new idea beyond its potential economic value (par 8).

Kunhardt's argument moves toward the idea that invention should figure in one's tenure and promotion evaluation, but I'm interested in the idea of peer-reviewed invention. Perhaps the blogosphere could be seen as a peer-review system that works really fast. The rapid spread of ideas becomes the peer-review process. Hmmm.