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SUMMARY NOTES ON "THE MYTH OF THE SUPERHUMAN PROFESSOR,"
BY RICHARD M. FELDER, J. ENGR. EDUCATION, 82(2), 105-110
(1994)
Summarized by J. T. P. Yao (5/18/99)
"The usual justification for trying to make all professors
researchers is the argument that teaching and research are inextricably
linked, to an extent that the first cannot be done well in the absence
of the second. This argument is a strange one. … They (those
who offer it) argue that only researchers are aware of recent developments
in their field, so that courses taught by nonresearchers must be
irrelevant and obsolete, even if the courses are unrelated to the
recent developments. …"
"There is no logical basis, however, for requiring active
research involvement to teach an introductory course on engineering
mechanics or mass and energy balance. …"
"When challenged to produce some evidence for the linkage
between research and teaching, they name professors they know who
have both admirable research records and teaching awards, which
is like claiming that you can only be a world-class organist if
you practice medicine in Africa and pointing to Albert Schweitzer
to prove it."
"In this essay I want to take a closer look at the purported
linkage between teaching and academic research, to see how it stands
up to the tests of common sense and educational research. I will
argue that it stands up to neither. …
"THE TEACHING/RESEARCH LINKAGE IS MOSTLY FICTION
Teaching and research have different goals and require different
skills …
Good research and good teaching each take a lot of time. …
Educational research does not confirm the purported linkage between
teaching and academic research (A number of references are cited).
…"
"FORCING ALL PROFESSORS TO BE RESEARCHERS HURTS TEACHING QUALITY
… Professors at research universities who choose to emphasize
teaching are likely to experience second-class citizenship and denial
of tenure and promotion. To more up the academic ladder they must
dedicate themselves primarily to research, doing what it takes to
meet minimal local teaching standards and no more. …
The low position of teaching on the academic scale of values manifests
in several ways:
Few of us routinely take the time and put in the effort required
to teach as well as we could. …
Our instructional environment is less and less conducive to
learning. …
We have largely abandoned our responsibility to be mentors and
role models to our students. …
We are not functioning as professional teachers in the way that
we function as professional researchers. …
We do not practice what we teach. …"
"… AND ALSO HURTS RESEARCH QUALITY
… A glance through any research-oriented engineering journal
– at the complex mathematical models that will never apply
to real systems, and the experimental data that will never be needed
or could easily be obtained if the need ever arose – suggests
that this situation has already come to dominate academic research
- the quality of much research now being carried out and published
leaves much to be desired. …"
"SUMMARY OF THE PROBLEM AND A POSSIBLE SOLUTION
Most university administrators claim that their faculty must be
outstanding at both research and teaching to qualify for tenure
and promotion. However, very few professors have the ability and
the time to do everything required to excel at both activities;
most must therefore give priority to one activity and content themselves
with doing an adequate job of the other. Under the existing academic
incentive and reward system, the only viable priority for most professors
is research. The result is that much undergraduate teaching is done
by professors who either have little interest in it or cannot afford
to take the time to do it well, and much research is done by professors
who would rather dedicate themselves to education if they had the
choice. The quality of both teaching and research consequently suffers."
"The key to a solution is provided by Ernest Boyer in his
splendid monograph, Scholarship Reconsidered (one reference).
… One possibility for such a system is to establish two broad
pathways for faculty advancement: a research pathway and an education
pathway. … No distinction should exist between the two pathways
in status, perquisites, or expectation of department and university
service. … Consider the potential benefits of this policy:
The quality of undergraduate education would inevitably improve.
…
The education-pathway professors could serve as mentors to other
faculty members who wish to improve their teaching. …
Vital departmental functions for which research credentials are
irrelevant, …, would be done expertly by people who want to
do them.
Research-oriented faculty members, …, should be able to
increase their research productivity. …
Faculty members on the education pathway could devote themselves
to undergraduate education, …
The courses most closely related to engineering practice -…-
would be taught by people with both the background and the enthusiasm
to teach them expertly …"
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