Summary Notes on "Adjusting the Balance," by L. A. Gerhardt, ASEE PRISM, October 1997, p. 12.

Summarized by J. T. P. Yao, 1/22/01

"Most higher education institutions regularly evaluate faculty members for salary adjustments as well as promotion and tenure decisions. … Along with publications, national prominence, and professional service, teaching quality and research activity are the most popular categories, research activity arguably carries the greatest weight in an evaluation… Universities typically measure research productivity by counting the dollar amount of externally sponsored research, and then examining the effects of research expenditure on salary charge-out, equipment purchases, and the like. …"

"… I have found that the best teachers often are also the most active researchers, and the correlation, between one's research activity and the amount one publishes is well known throughout academe. … Whether research should remain such an influential category is the subject of much debate now… Instead, universities should consider balancing research and teaching in faculty evaluations by increasing their emphasis on teaching. … One way … might be to conduct peer evaluations of courses in addition to student surveys. Also, evaluations of faculty members should consider innovative curriculum development efforts, including initiatives in distance learning and interactive educational software. Finally, academe should stress pedagogically based research more, and give faculty members' instructional scholarship as much weight as research and publications in their disciplines."

"… academe should nevertheless rethink its current procedures for evaluating research activity. … Universities must … broaden their view of what it means to 'do research.' Thus, evaluations of research activity should include reviews of a faculty member's technology transfer and commercialization activities - such as filing for patents and creating start-up companies - while continuing to recognize breakthroughs in basic research. … For this, both institutions and faculty members should recognize that the quality of their students and what they accomplish in the future is the best evidence of productivity."

[Readers who are interested in this article are encouraged to read the original paper in its entirety. Other summary notes on faculty reward systems are available on the Internet at http://lohman.tamu.edu under the heading "Summaries of Papers ..."]