dagblog - Comments for "Why Should Professors Do Research?"

Well, the mid-tier covers a

Doctor Cleveland — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 04:20:00 +0000

Well, the mid-tier covers a lot of ground, and mid-tier universities often operate differently than mid-tier liberal-arts colleges. So my instinct is to give you an answer short of variables and short on bottom-line answers.

The short answer is that almost no place will tenure anybody who is not a good enough teacher. Every institution sets the bar for "good enough" at a different place. (Actually, different colleges and departments within a school might have different practical standards.)

And most places have relatively light research expectations for tenure; not nearly as light as fifty years ago, but achievable. There are places where you can get tenure in the humanities or social sciences with two articles. (And since the employment market is so tight that most grad students need to publish an article before getting a job, there are people who enter a job halfway to clearing the bar for the research side.) And if you do just enough research to get tenure and then teach your three or four classes a semester without publishing again, there are plenty of schools that will be okay with that.

The problem is that there is no serious avenue for career advancement through teaching alone. If you're really stinking up the joint as a teacher, your research probably won't be enough to save you. Teaching well (or well enough) is a minimal career requirement. But even teaching brilliantly won't get you past associate professor. If you want to get promoted, or get a real raise, or change jobs, then it's either your research or your administrative skills that will make that happen.

My experience is pretty

Michael Wolraich — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 20:32:58 +0000

In reply to It's true that major research

My experience is pretty limited--I wasn't sufficient engaged in my field to stick it out--so I defer to your knowledge. Among the mid-tier universities and liberal arts colleges, which would you say is more important for tenure, research or teaching?

Yes, I think there's a

Doctor Cleveland — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 16:05:00 +0000

In reply to This makes me wonder about

Yes, I think there's a nearly-universal set of trade-offs between workplace "efficiency" and worker development. Of course, setting aside some of your week for work that doesn't directly affect the bottom line, but does improve your bottom-line work, comes at a cost. And different workplaces, different career paths, balance those needs differently.

Some jobs build in a fair amount of what I'd call "sabbatical time." I understand that Google has, in the past, allowed some of its engineers to work on whatever project they want on Fridays, while working on their assigned projects the other days. And of course, there are jobs where it's nothing but a daily grind. For college faculty, the hierarchy of desirable jobs is heavily correlated to how much development time one gets.

This makes me wonder about

Michael Maiello — Sun, 13 Jan 2013 00:54:47 +0000

In reply to Why Should Professors Do Research?

This makes me wonder about the value of research (and research takes time and independence) in other fields. For example, mine. I'm a former journalist, working in marketing. I was hired because I had built up knowledge of the industry, but as I approach 3 years I realize that I don't really know anything about marketing. Given 3 months to do the proper research, I could do a much better job going forward. Granted, it isn't rocket science. But there is information out there that I don't have time to absorb, much less analyze and organize, during the course of my workday.

I'm finding this sub-thread

Doctor Cleveland — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 17:47:30 +0000

In reply to You make a good point, but

I'm finding this sub-thread illuminating and helpful.

It's true that major research

Doctor Cleveland — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 17:46:36 +0000

In reply to My concern with universities

It's true that major research universities, such as the one where you were a TA, do often neglect teaching. I am not arguing in favor of that. Research is necessary, but not sufficient, for good teaching.

High-profile universities favor research to excess because it creates prestige, which is a university's primary currency, and because research is much easier to evaluate than teaching. And, to be fair, there are people who are fabulous graduate teachers and not much as gen-ed-auditorium lecturers, just as there are people for whom it's the other way around.

That said, it's harder to get away with crappy teaching outside the big leagues. You can be turned down for tenure for teaching poorly. I know, but cannot comment on, more than one specific case, from a number of different schools across the spectrum. (Let's say, across the whole range of schools except the very top.)

I'd also say that my undergraduate experience at a big, fancy research university did feature some high-powered research faculty who were wonderful teachers, such as the person I've blogged about as "Professor V.", and some TAs who were mediocre or worse, including at least one arrogant bluffer. Luck of the draw. But then, my TAs were also selected by their grad programs for their future research potential, just like you were. And the talented TAs I met, like you, were still deeply engaged in learning their fields.

You make a good point, but

Verified Atheist — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 16:58:35 +0000

In reply to I'm not sure I agree with

You make a good point, but what I'm really advocating is to combine both modes of teaching, both from the expert who knows the theory inside-and-out, and from the student who has just recently grasped the concept herself. Just as students benefit from different modes of teaching, I think that students benefit from being taught by different levels of teacher.

My concern with universities

Michael Wolraich — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 16:46:17 +0000

In reply to Why Should Professors Do Research?

My concern with universities is not that they require professors to research. It's that they hire professors almost exclusively for research.

I went to a liberal arts college that valued teaching. Student evaluations were seriously considered during the tenure process. Professors who were a little light on research could make up for it with great teaching. Professors who absolutely could not teach were not tolerated. That seemed like a reasonable balance to me.

In grad school, it was very different. I was a teaching assistant for a large lecture course. I knew little about the subject, and my entire teaching preparation consisted of a single four-hour instruction course. Nonetheless, I was a better teacher than the professor, who droned on in dull, academic jargon for an hour while the students sat glassy-eyed and uncomprehending. By the end of the course, lecture attendance had plummeted. Students were learning the material exclusively from the T/As.

And the problem was that it did not matter. This professor was not yet tenured, but her teaching ability was not a serious factor in her evaluation. All that mattered were how many articles she'd published in which prestigious journals.

So I completely support your commonsense approach to valuing research as an essential component of teaching. But I wonder how many in academia, or at least in the university system, share it.

I'm not sure I agree with

Anonymous — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 16:45:08 +0000

In reply to I don't dispute the value of

I'm not sure I agree with Verified Atheist about the value of students teaching basics instead of more advanced scholars. If one looks at a very intriguing study done at the Air Force Academy (which has the advantage of a standardized curriculum and series of exams) the most experienced teachers of basics produced more long-term benefit for students: http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/scarrell/profqual2.pdf. The basics are important to get absolutely right, so in some ways the best instruction is required there, and the deepest understanding.

When I was teaching math, I remember the easy part was teaching students how to do things right -- any book or lecture (we were pre - Youtube) could do that. The hard part was teaching them how not to do it wrong: to see where they were having trouble, figuring out what they were thinking, and trying to get them to recognize how it was wrong so they would know how to shift away to correct approaches -- and while there were only a few ways of being right, there were myriad ways of being wrong. That's where face-to-face teaching comes in, with a teacher who thinks like a researcher -- in terms of a process of dealing with mistakes until something becomes right -- rather than a teacher who thinks in terms of passing on information, and thinks the job is done when the lecture is finished.

I don't dispute the value of

Verified Atheist — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 16:13:00 +0000

In reply to Why Should Professors Do Research?

I don't dispute the value of research in teaching, but I think sometimes for the very basic classes it's easy for many teachers (but not all) to find the basics so intuitive as to have a hard time teaching. This is one reason why TAs (graduate and undergraduate) can be very helpful. I found myself helping CS 201 students who were having a hard time grasping the basics of a for loop. As I had taught myself how to use for loops in elementary school from my dad's basic user group (BUG) magazines, trying to teach this to young adults was very difficult to me because I genuinely couldn't understand how they found it confusing. I tried very hard not to sound condescending, but I cannot be certain that I was successful. (I also found myself wondering what they had been taught in CS 101!) The point is that sometimes you want students helping other students (which I know you're not really disputing) exactly because they're struggling with the same problems, and sometimes you want the professor who can answer the deep questions of understanding who can help put theory and practice together.