<p>And the budgets allotted for science research are now so small that scientists spend huge quantities of times chasing grants instead of doing the actual research.</p>
<p>Science research has some chance of paying off in terms of patents or at least opening up new avenues for research with a societal benefit.</p>
<p>But what about humanities fields, where published research involves deconstructing the language of obscure poets and the like? The publish-or-perish prinicple is just as strong there.</p>
<p>And, even in scientific fields, not all academics do great work. Too much research gets published in third-tier journals that even academics don’t read.</p>
<p>What Roger said. Yes, science research can be great, but why does nearly every university have nearly every professor doing full-time research? Why not some professors, some fields, of some universities?</p>
<p>I find it telling that people immediately defend this based on examples from quantum physics, not of a French professor studying medieval literature. And the examples are often from superstars of the field, not Joe Schmoe Professor from East Podunk.</p>
<p>One reason for the emphasis on research is the tenure system. A college or university will decide whether or not to grant tenure when an assistant professor is perhaps 31 or 32 years old. If granted tenure, that professor might be teaching for another 35 or 40 years. What might be state of the art to teach today will probably be passe, outmoded or even contradicted 35 years from now. The expectation is that a professor who is continually doing research will keep up with his/her field, so that when she/he is teaching freshman English/History/Philosophy/Math/Chemistry or whatever 35 years from now it will be up-to-date. Granted that it is harder to measure research progress in Philosophy or English Lit than it might be in Chemistry.</p>
<p>Plus, the whole PhD system is set up to produce researchers. Often there is short shrift given to teaching in grad programs. I remember in my PhD program the minimum requirement was that you TA for 1 quarter, hardly in itself likely to make you a fabulous teacher. The PhD is designed to show that you can do and have done original research in your field. It seems unlikely that you will be able to take people who have been focusing on doing original research for the last 3,4 or 5 years and say once they become university professors that research doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>Not that I would necessarily agree that the current system is optimal or even sustainable, but it has its own internal logic.</p>
<p>I would note that this particular study did not come from a university. It’s from one of the many “think tanks” and nonprofits that exist. These raise private funds for research and advocacy on whatever their mission is.</p>
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<p>What is truly outdated is that model in the first place. There is evidence that granting tenure actually reduces the output of research, and obviously … reduces the teaching expectations of the tenured. </p>
<p>Assuming that teaching is important and assuming that research is necessary to maintain competence, why not adopting a system that relies on superior performance in BOTH areas. What is so wrong in expecting the best and brightest to also be dedicated to the teaching part of their vocation, and expecting to continue to produce the research without the blanket protection that encourages a diva-like life in an ivory tower. </p>
<p>Tenure is a remnant of a past when spending without accountability thrived with abandon, when the spending had little to do with performance but everything with manoeuvring adeptly in a small circle of insiders and rewarding the beneficiaries with an easier life.</p>
<p>Simply stated we cannot afford such luxuries any longer (not that they were ever justified) and that the “publish or perish” model should be replaced by a novel “teach and work or perish.” Not that it will happen with a bitter fight as education remains hopelessly defined by greedy insiders.</p>
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<p>In effect, what you’re advocating is already in place at the Top 30 or so LACs…with the system tilted in favor of good teaching. In such places, if your teaching evaluations are mediocre, you won’t get tenure even with good/great research output. </p>
<p>Then again, most professors with such inclinations will never apply for LAC positions for this very reason along with a much heavier teaching load of teaching only undergrads. </p>
<p>On the other hand, if your research output isn’t deemed adequate in quantity and quality, you also won’t get tenure…especially when research requirements at LACs are lower than those of their research university counterparts.</p>
<p>Sadly in too many state schools there remain government officials who do not understand or buy into academic freedom and want to fire profs for anything that annoys them.</p>
<p>^^ which beats having no workable way to get rid of the ones that are or have become annoying nuisances. </p>
<p>If it less visible in the tertiary sector, take a look at what we have gotten ourselves with the K-12 system and its de facto “leaders” who brought us those horrendous CBAs. And that is not even full tenure. But changes are coming, and I have to give it to your favorite state of Wisconsin to have find a spine and the courage to fight the groups that are precluding the advent of a better and more competitive system of education.</p>
<p>Employment in academia should be at-will employment, and subject to the same employment laws that rule everyone in the private sector. Same rights and same … obligations. The freedom of academic speech is just a canard. And the stories of whimsical firings mostly mythical tales.</p>
<p>I don’t agree.</p>
<p>Ignoring the obvious, which is that professorial salaries would have to skyrocket if tenure went away–at least if you wanted to keep quality high–there’s another thing at issue here. One of the reasons why overall production across the professoriate declines slightly after tenure is because of the huge jump in the service load that gets dropped on you the second you get tenure. (Service always seems to be left out of these discussions of faculty workload.) You also lose a lot of other protections on your time that specifically exist to allow pre-tenure faculty to publish. No one can keep up publishing at their previous rate when they are asked to take on quasi-administrative roles that involve endless meetings, budget discussions, etc. R1 research superstars avoid this sort of thing, but for your average LAC professor w/tenure, the service load is really daunting. It is not appropriate or wise to have the heaviest service obligations placed on the pre-tenure faculty, who lack institutional knowledge, among other things, so those faculty with tenure sacrifice their own research time in the name of institutional function/faculty governance.</p>
<p>(Faculty continuity–which would not exist if academia was at-will–is a really valuable thing that benefits students, btw.)</p>
<p>re post # 37 questioning the value of research outside of medical research type. </p>
<p>Physician here. Today not only are medical journals filled with genetics but genetics has actual benefits to many patients. Back in the early 1970’s I was a Chemistry major taking a Physical Chemistry Lab for Honors and therefore spent some time in a PChem grad lab. My assignment was with a research group centrifuging DNA! Those were the days when the characteristics of DNA needed elucidating, long before the genetic code could be unraveled. Without basic physical chemistry, ie basic science research, we never could reach the point where medical research on so many compounds could be done. </p>
<p>There can be many dead end projects until the clear path is found. Consider how many filaments Edison tried before his success (saw a TCM movie about him recently). My undergrad Honors thesis work in a Pharmacology lab was on “putative” neurotransmitters"- how far the Neurosciences have come since then! The research techniques we used were the result of many more basic science results.</p>
<p>We need research universities as well as teaching only colleges. I personally benefited from being at a school where research permeated the undergraduate courses.</p>
<p>Not every school is filled with the tweed-and-elbow-patch wearing tenure demons that some of you are envisioning. Departments often specialize more to the teaching or research end, and they don’t hide that fact. My current grad department doesn’t even have an undergrad program. It runs on research dollars (and grad student tuition, which is mostly paid by grant money as well). There aren’t enough classes for each professor to teach even one apiece.</p>
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<p>I don’t string theorists (who work in a branch of theoretical particle physics) contribute more than Shakespeare scholars. Furthermore, the knowledge gained by Shakespeare scholars during their research is more likely to make them better teachers of Shakespeare to undergrads than the string theorists’ research is to make them better teaches of classical mechanics.</p>