The Editor's Page, by Edward Ernst, Journal of Engineering Education, ASEE, October 1993.

Summarized by J. T. P. Yao, 9/9/98

"The traditional role for college and university faculty includes a balance of teaching, research and public service among their activities. … The decreasing quality of the undergraduate education enterprise has been the subject of many reports, presentations and several books (…). …"

"Perhaps the change in relative weight between teaching and research has gone too far and, rather than strengthening education, the significantly greater attention now accorded faculty research activities has eroded the quality of the undergraduate program. There seems to be much agreement that the culprit is the reward system that recognizes research and publications as the primary — often only — criteria for promotion, tenure and salary increase."

"Clearly, all faculty should teach; and nearly all should teach undergraduate students. Further, all faculty should do something beyond teaching, but what the "something" should be is a bit fuzzy. Whatever it may be, it must: 1) be intellectually stimulating, 2) keep the faculty member as an active learner, as a student, 3) engage the faculty member in intellectual exchange with active professionals in the discipline, 4) expose the work of the faculty member to peer review."

"The key is careful evaluation of the quality of the efforts. Critical peer evaluation of research, publications, texts, synoptic material, and professional practice is necessary for determining whether the person has set acceptable standards of quality for the work she or he does. Similarly, careful evaluation is a must for the teaching efforts. … These evaluations should include not only peer evaluation, but also student evaluation."

"Engineering faculty serve as role models for undergraduate students and their endeavors, beyond teaching, greatly influence the picture students see of engineering as a career. … Perhaps appropriate questions for engineering faculty are: ‘What is the faculty endeavor beyond teaching?’ and ‘What do the evaluation of both activities (teaching and the other endeavor) tell us about the quality of each of the efforts?’ Faculty must engage in both teaching and something else, and the quality of both efforts must be judged to meet acceptable standards."

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