Many people talk about academic excellence — but who or what really defines this elusive quality?
Michèle Lamont, Robert I. Goldman Professor of European Studies and professor of sociology and of African and African American studies, analyzes the system of peer review in her new book “How Professors Think: Inside the Curious World of Academic Judgment” (Harvard University Press, 2009). By examining the process of scholarly evaluation, she also addresses larger questions about academia.
“In some ways studying peer evaluation and review is a point of entry into a much broader issue, which is the issue of meritocracy in American higher education,” says Lamont.
To research the book, Lamont interviewed panelists from research councils and societies of fellows who were evaluating proposals for research funding in the social sciences and the humanities.
Lamont explains that academics must constantly make evaluations, whether of scientific findings or of graduate students. Expertise, personal taste, and the perspective of the evaluator play into the decision-making process, she writes.
“A lot of what the book does is to look at what criteria people use to judge and what meaning they give to these criteria,” says Lamont. “So for instance, what do they mean by ‘significance’ and what do they mean by ‘originality’? How does the definition of ‘originality’ and ‘significance’ vary between philosophy and economics? How strong is the consensus between fields?