Teaching vs Research: What’s our business?
Higher education institutions seems to reward research success more than teaching success. Tenure is granted based on publication. We admire prolific publishers and research grant winners more than recipients of our undergraduate teaching awards or those whose students go on to achieve greatness (do we even correlate post-graduate success with specific teachers?). Yet most universities, even top 10 R1 institutions, even state universities getting state funds, depend more on tuition revenue than indirect cost recovery from research grants or state grants. So are higher ed schools just bad managers: rewarding behavior that does not clearly contribute to our core business? Or do prospective students view research success as an indicator of prestige and value rather than teaching success? At some point, will the tenure system need to ch-ch-change?
rufusb said:
Jul 16, 08 at 11:38 amWe hear this all the time at my school. It’s like the election process: speak like a centrist to keep the workers happy, but placate the special interests that pay the bills. Research success brings in the students which brings in the revenue. Grant funding is nice, but mercurial (unless you know how to get it). The message I hear is: “teaching is important”, but the school really rewards the researchers. IS teaching our core business? Not here.
Sukey said:
Jul 23, 08 at 4:05 amAhh, the joys of summer. I’ve been meaning to leave this comment for awhile, but I’m on vacation!
Anyway – Larry Cuban, Prof. Emeritus, Stanford U, Ed Dept. Love his work. Please see How Scholars Trumped Teachers: Constancy and Change in University Curriculum, Teaching, and Research, 1890-1990 –
http://tinyurl.com/66l4ra (Google books)
http://tinyurl.com/66mwx8 (Amazon)