Being chimaera: a monstrous identity for SoTL academics

Abstract

Lurking on the fringes of university culture are academic identities that do not fit into the usual disciplinary communities. Aiming to explore the experience of 'being academic' when not linked directly to a discipline, this paper examines the stories of a diverse group of SoTL scholars who work in a centralised multi-campus academic skills support centre in an Australian university. Framed as group auto-ethnography, the paper inquires into the everyday experience of these academics through narrative analysis of multiple first-person accounts and makes apparent the monstrousness of deaffiliated academic identities. Despite diverse disciplinary backgrounds, the author-participants found that they now shared a tripartite academic identity formed through the negotiation of three roles: the teacher, the disciplinarian, and the educational researcher. Using the chimaera, a mythical threeheaded monster as an organising metaphor, this paper aims to provide agency and visibility for often under-represented and unacknowledged academic identities.

Challenges to Disciplinary Knowing and Identity: Experiences of Scholars in a SoTL Development Program

“…The troublesomeness of our participants' identity reconstruction was evident through their disrupted sense of competence and ability as a teacher, researcher, and disciplinary colleague. These findings align with those of Bennett et al (2016); however, their participants were scholars who worked in a centralised academic skills support centre. For our participants, who came from diverse faculties across our institution, their discomfort sometimes had serious consequences; while some seemed to see it as productive and exciting, others described how it caused them to retreat from SoTL.…”

Tracking the scholarship of teaching and learning

“…In an Australian context, Bennett et al (2016) also argue for the pivotal role of academic development staff in maintaining and developing the scholarship of teaching and learning. They use the metaphor of the chimaera, a three-headed monster, to explore their developing academic identities:…”

Autoethnography and the Study of Academic Literacies: Exploring Space, Team Research and Mentoring

“…In such work, the reflection on the experiences of the self that is characteristic of autoethnography serves as a basis for the development of a model of pedagogy which recognises the significance of the person and their practices and histories in the learning and teaching interaction. Bennett et al (2015) use a group autoethnography to explore their complex professional and academic identities as 'Scholarship of Teaching and Learning' academics working in academic support centres, combining identities as disciplinary researchers and teachers, generalist academic literacies teachers, and scholars of educational research. They build an account based on collecting many first-person narratives and identifying patterns across them to produce a multi-vocal narrative of feeling misunderstood and invisible within the broader university, stagnating within a hidden disciplinary identity, and not truly embodying the identity of an educational researcher.…”