.
NOTES
(See the linked online article
for author credits, full text and references)
Research indicates that students do not necessarily oppose
to their faculties research activities as essential to the profession,
rather they incline for being informed about such process. Academicians
duties are public and are well known by the community and other sectors,
however, the activities carried out beyond teaching, named research, are
kept away from the students’ knowledge. A reconciliatory perspective seems
to lay on keeping both activities equally public and accessible to the
academic community by incorporating students as a participatory element.
Historical Perspective
In Canada the "Teacher of the Year" is denied tenure,
however the institution prides itself for its commitment to undergraduate
teaching. In Florida, amid faculty complaints, tenure is granted to a faculty
member with very low number of publications, but excellent teaching and
community service record (Cage, 1995). These and similar news seemed to
be the focus of the academic world during the past decade. Clearly some
institutions value research over teaching while others favour teaching.
Teaching and Research
Scientists that are successfully
measured by the accountability system are rewarded with prestige. On the
other hand, teaching has not evolved in the same direction and is relegated
to the level of another university function. Apparently, prestige becomes
the most important element in the gap between Teaching and Research.
Increased operating budgets demand a major recruitment
effort to maintain the level of tuition generated income. It seems that
the success of this activity is influenced by the prestige of the college,
which in turn feeds into its ability to compete for students. Colleges
are forced to show significant achievements to entice new donors. In real
terms, this translates into a quest to maintain or increase the prestige
of the college focusing on research. . . . Teaching functions are now being
concentrated in new academic divisions and, for the most part, are carried
out by adjunct professors, part-time instructors and/or lecturers. As a
result, teaching becomes an enhanced activity, but seldom accordingly rewarded.
Universities are urged to provide customer satisfaction.
Customer satisfaction translates into higher demand for "scholarship of
communication, integration and application of knowledge", all of which
can be summed-up under the heading of "teaching." Therefore, demonstrating
again the need to redefine the faculty teaching-research loads, the balance,
in this case, being inclined towards teaching, advising, counseling and,
if possible to lower student/faculty ratios. Institutions are looking for
prestige, but in the current structure prestige is associated to research,
while customer satisfaction is strongly related to quality teaching. This
dilemma is part of the reality of those institutions in need of both: prestige
and customer satisfaction.
If there is recognition that teaching is as important
as research, then it seems appropriate that institutions and individuals
engaged in teaching should be able to accumulate the same level of prestige
as it is gained with research activities. The objective here is to be able
to develop an evaluation system accepted by the culture of the academic
community that were capable of conferring to the teaching function, equivalent
levels of prestige. It seems that one such system could be based on the
peer review process that has proven to be the cornerstone of research evaluation.
This should be followed by the development of an appropriate reward system,
tending to correct the trend that professors’ pay is inversely related
to time spent on teaching.
Faculty will be more reluctant to be evaluated in an area
where they, for the most part, lack training. Professors have not received
formal training in teaching; normally they enter the faculty after three
or four years of research oriented work toward their Ph.D., with little
or no exposure to develop teaching techniques. Doctoral students
are, for the most part, required to teach as teaching assistants, however,
they are not trained to teach as they are to do research, perpetuating
the intuitive teaching approach, the apprentice model. Doctoral curricula
assume that every human being has an innate ability to teach and moreover,
this ability is such that it will be successful even in the absence of
training. This situation translates ultimately into unsatisfied student-customers.
Idealistically, it may be postulated that pedagogy, as
the systematic procedure of transferring accumulated knowledge, should
be offered as an alternative to do research either at the graduate level,
or as professional development for those who have chosen such venue. Unfortunately,
only in exceptional occasions this is present in academia. This practice
may be interpreted as limiting the principle of democracy and autonomy
claimed by academicians that ultimately may translate into dissatisfied/frustrated
professionals and
customers alike.
Attention has concentrated on modifying the research component
during the last decade. Making research more accessible to the general
population has been reflected on Action Research, which has demonstrated
a common effort among constituents of higher education communities. In
contrast, the methodology of transferring knowledge (pedagogy) has been
greatly neglected by these circles. In higher education the methodology
to teach diverse disciplines rarely exists in curricular programs. Clearly,
teaching is at a disadvantage in the models currently used in higher education
in the country provoking inequalities in academic performance and its assessment.
. It is here proposed that to successfully implement a reward system equivalent
to the one offered for research requires teaching training as an essential
pre-component.
Conclusions
and Recommendations
Evidently moving to the middle ground where teaching
and research receive equal recognition will encounter resistance from different
groups of the same constituency -- reinforcing the perception that
teaching and research are activities in conflict, instead of being complementary
to each other.
Moving to the middle ground implies reallocation of resources;
institutions that have heavily invested in research are investing in programs
to reward teaching and conversely those heavily invested in teaching are
developing an infrastructure for research. These actions have demonstrated
a need on emphasizing pedagogy in higher education. University administrators
should foster the appropriate environment to bring together the different
constituencies of the university to interact and discuss the forces that
are creating pressure for change.
University communities, on the other hand, should be willing
participants in reshaping the university model with a long term vision
focused on survivability of the university as an institution and not on
their particular needs. This vision should ultimately define the contributions
of the university to the society at large. The multiple roles played in
academia (administrator-instructor-researcher) not necessarily should be
in conflict, to the contrary, it demonstrates the flexibility traditionally
offered to the professoriate but not necessarily exercised. Nevertheless,
motivation and preparation are two preponderant elements required to improve
academic practices.
