Last night a Master’s student (whom I have never taught) phoned me to vent her justified frustration with one of her lecturers’ chronic incompetence. This keen and bright individual had done everything she could and should about the situation and complained through the correct channels. As usual in these situations she wasn’t the only member of her cohort suffering from one individual’s inability to do the job she is paid to do, and the failing teacher’s shortcomings were well known to those responsible for running the course. Also, as usual, bugger all is being done about it.
Norm cites a piece in the US Chronicle of Higher Education about candidates for posts at an American community college being tested for their teaching ability. I wonder how many candidates for a university lectureship in the UK are required to give a practical demonstration like this.
Also as usual, it’s all about incentives. As a UK higher education institution you are funded on the basis of your publication output, not according to the quality of your student supervision. As an academic you have nothing to gain from devoting valuable research time and effort to teaching. (It’s worse than that: once you acquire a reputation for being conscientious you will end up sorting out your colleagues’ students’ problems too.) As a graduate you will be better off in the jobs market with a degree from a university with a good reputation for research than you will with a degree from one with a good reputation for teaching. Most importantly, as a home student you are rarely handing over your own money in return for the service you are supposed to be getting, but money from other people who work for a living and pay tax. You can bet that once that changes in this country—and it will—there’ll be a lot more teaching tests at British academic job interviews.
Yesterday I was in Tesco, stocking up with food, and I wanted a microwave oven. So I bought one. They had a choice! Unprompted, the (Eastern European-sounding) woman on the till asked an (Asian-looking) woman to help me take my other items in a separate trolley into the car park where it was cold and raining. Despite being completely unsuitably dressed for the conditions, she wouldn’t leave me until I told her that I’d be fine loading up my car.
When I had my own MPhil viva a couple of years ago, the academic registry responsible asked me in advance to tell them what equipment I required to make my presentation. They failed to provide a single one of the specified items. They failed to remind the external examiner of the time and place of the exam. Despite being a full professor and having a secretary, the examiner himself failed to check with her when he was supposed to be there. He failed to turn up. He did at least do me the courtesy of critically reading my dissertation.
Sitting at a desk with the other examiners and pointing to the screen of my notebook PC with my own laser pointer (which I had brought because I didn’t trust the registry) and writing on a hastily located flipchart with pens I had brought myself (because I didn’t trust the registry), I passed.
For this level of uselessness—plus sending me an ethnic monitoring form every year, presumably to check that I hadn’t done a Michael Jackson—I think the registry charged the Medical Research Council something like £400 a year. This didn’t come out of my pocket of course.
My Tesco microwave oven cost me about fifty quid. It has a 900W output and a built-in grill.
It’s not THAT different in the US, where a fair amount of private money is forked over during a degree. The exceptions are the liberal arts colleges. At least one (research-loving) assistant prof I know is thinking of moving to the liberal arts sector, if only because there she would not be spending most of her time doing stuff that is not valued by her employer.
I study at a big (50,000 students) public research university in the States. To get a job, candiates have to show that they are good teachers and good researchers. They have to include research proposals, sample syllabi, and a teaching philosophy. Perhaps it’s different at the smaller liberal arts colleges, where the emphasis is more on teaching. Otherwise, though, you have to be very good at both to get a job in the US.
As well, students fill out forms evaluating their teachers at the end of every semester. I have my doubts about this, but it makes professors very responsive to the needs of the students.
When I had to fill out an ethnic monitoring form recently, I actually asked the person processing it whether it would be more helpful from a statistical/quota-related point of view to tick “white” or “Irish”, since both would have been equally appropriate (I don’t have a green passport myself, but my ancestry is overwhelmingly Irish on both my parents’ sides).
She looked baffled, so I just ticked “white” and pretended I hadn’t said it.
Isn’t it strange that we live in a world that values a teaching university or college below a research institution? I gave up on an academic career mainly because I hated the idea of the yearly grind to produce enough publications to justify my existence. My own academic writing style is relatively lucid and accessible, I think, but most academic work is impenetrable guff. University libraries are filled with research papers that nobody bothers to read because they’re hard to understand (which wouldn’t stop you citing one of course), whereas I can count the number of inspiring teachers I had in my life on one hand.
I empathise completely with your student friend!
Microwave still working ok?
As someone currently in HE in the UK, I totally sympathise about the situation on teaching vs. research. I have even heard of eminent professors – one of them a supervisor I had – say that “anyone can teach”.
Well, THAT’s patently untrue as this discussion demonstrates. Teaching – and teaching well – is a skill. It involves having knowledge, but also conveying knowledge; additionally, it requires that for successful teaching that information is taken in by the students and is able to be used by them. Students should be enthused and informed by their teachers.
By contrast, much writing for research has little awareness of its audience and frequently an over-inflated sense of its own worth. I’m really not saying that only useful stuff should get researched and written about (I’m not a Gradgrindian), but the esoteric self-perpetuating crap that is churned out – tree after tree died for this?! – is just sickening.
Teaching should be appreciated: it is a cornerstone of good learning and of generating a positive experience for students. They deserve better and it shouldn’t matter who foots the bill. Sadly, until their is more ‘customer demand’ for improved provision this is unlikely to change. Additionally, I am not very reassured by the experience of international students who invariably ARE paying for themselves (and heftily too). There is far too much acceptance of just getting people in the door and effectively abandoning them to their fate. If they learn: great; if not, it’s their fault and clearly not down to poor teaching and support systems.
The emphasis on research writing for its own sake is parlty why I am currently not working as an academic subject lecturer, even though I adore my subject with a passion. I just cannot face churning out articles for the sake of it and my what little talent I have as a lecturer being devalued. The real evidence that HE doesn’t care much for teaching: the fact that so much is done by grad students for below rate pay and simply as experience.
100% agreement with everything Damian, Rob and Lisa say above. I left academe for the same reasons. Plus the money, of course.
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I thought I wanted to comment on academic life as a part time lecturer, but I’m too tired and despondent. bugger it.