Guiding Principles

Upholding the concept of overlapping spheres in which research, teaching, and service share a common creative territory at Clemson University, the Clemson University Digital Press is guided by the institution's own Strategic Plan. This plan conceives of five types of scholarship by which this intersection is understood and encouraged. These five types have been defined as Discovery, Teaching, Integration, Application, and Administration. While the first three of these are obviously served by CUDP in ways suggested by the Mission Statement above, the central one for the definition of the press imprint itself is paramount. Scholarship of Integration involves, according to Ernest Boyer, "work that makes connections across the disciplines, placing the specialties in a larger context and illuminating data in a revealing way" (qtd. in James F. Barker, "Letter from the President," 28 Mar. 2000). As part of the mission of the university, collaboration and interdisciplinary programs and projects are two of the chief themes of its press. Having been developed in AAH in the form of platforms for collaboration and used for assessment and promotion in teaching, research, and public service, integrative scholarship is now fundamental to the CUDP imprint, or focus, and crucial to three objectives listed in President Barker's "Critical Paths to Success": first, to "seek out areas where teaching, research, and service overlap"; second, to "recognize and appreciate Clemson's distinctiveness"; and, third, to "renew our focus on collaboration." As a publishing house for the twenty-first century, Clemson University Digital Press will explore various media, with emphasis on new technology, especially electronic and digital. Realistically, CUDP will have to develop a publishing niche in the marketplace--a niche that might be expanded as resources (human and capital) become more and more available.