"Graduate school is where future academics learn their disrespect for teaching"

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>*"You get a first sense of the amount of attention paid to teaching at the College by the fact that Harvard felt the need to launch a “Teaching and Learning Initiative.” You don’t hear about the Red Sox launching a “Winning the World Series Initiative” or Charlie Sheen launching a slightly simpler “Winning Initiative”—winning is a core part of their identities, not something they have to initiate.</p>

<p>You get a second sense by the fact that this initiative was actually launched four years ago and has languished incognito until now. At a poorly attended faculty meeting in March 2007, the few faculty members in attendance received the “Compact on Teaching and Learning” with disdain. An applauded remark by Latin Professor Katherine M. Coleman lay the blame, as always, at the feet of distracted and disinterested students: “Some students don’t come to class, or they come late, or they surf the Web during lectures or even sections, I’ve noticed.” Obviously, if someone fails to appreciate the wisdom and clarity of your remarks, the fault must surely be theirs.</p>

<p>...Graduate school is where future academics learn their disrespect for teaching.</p>

<p>Graduate students are taught that teaching is easy. One half-day course at the Bok Center—all my department required—and you’re ready to teach section as a teaching fellow. Teach section for one class in a six-year Ph.D. program—all my department required—and you’re ready to teach undergraduates as a junior faculty member. As a result, most future academics (including myself) enter their first academic position not knowing how to design a class, write a full set of lectures, or balance our time between research and instruction.</p>

<p>Graduate students are taught that teaching is not important. The reason graduate students aren’t required to teach more is that faculty want them in the lab or the library doing research. Research is what earns you a job, tenure, and worldwide renown; teaching is a distraction. Graduate students with an interest in teaching hear warning after warning that this is not the right thing to do. “You’ve taught enough.” “You need more papers on your resume, not another class.” “Why are you so interested in teaching? Is your research going OK?”</p>

<p>Departments even establish incentives to discourage graduate students from teaching. I was required to teach one semester, and when I chose to keep teaching, I was not paid for my labors. Instead, the money I would have received was routed to my adviser to pay him for my “lost” research productivity. Of course, the research papers still had to get written, and at the end of the day, I was working harder than I would have been doing research alone and being paid the same amount.</p>

<p>Finally, graduate students are taught that teaching is unrewarding. Researched-obsessed faculty members consistently define impact in ways that bring them either extra attention, money, or—ideally—both. Few seem excited by the chance to inspire young minds or driven to direct their considerable creative and analytical powers towards transforming the learning process. My former department has senior faculty who have contributed in many ways to the broader Harvard community, but none of them stepped forward to transform CS50..."*</p>

<p>Teaching</a> Disrespect | Opinion | The Harvard Crimson</p>

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<p>This debate is old as the hills. Teaching IS rewarding, and lots of people devote a lot of attention to it. But if you want to focus on teaching, you have no business being in graduate school at Harvard, or on its faculty, because that’s NOT the institutional priority. And, for the most part, Harvard undergraduates don’t need to be coddled by great teaching. They will benefit more in the long run by being in contact with great scholars, even if they are mostly merely mediocre teachers.</p>

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<p>Is being a TA really teaching? I’ve TA’d and also given lectures, and the latter was far more rewarding and interesting. After you’ve TA’d once, it basically loses its novelty. All you do, at least in science classes, is grade papers, lead problem-solving sessions, and organize and run the lab classes.</p>

<p>So I think being discouraged to continue being a TA is a poor excuse for being a bad lecturer as a professor. As far as teaching responsibilities as a professor, regardless of how good they are, they have to put together their own lectures. Considering they probably will end up giving virtually the same lecture year after year (especially in an intro class), it’s reasonable that the lectures should be well-thought out. </p>

<p>I wouldn’t expect profs at Harvard to spend extra time with undergrads outside of their office hours, although they may do it on occasion if they have time.</p>

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<p>Actually, having to truly devise an entire series of lecture notes on your own seems to happen only rarely. Most professors will simply take over an established course that had previously been taught by somebody else from which they can utilize the existing lecture notes, with perhaps only minor customization being necessary. {Let’s face it: most universities, Harvard included, don’t exactly launch numerous brand-new courses every year.}</p>

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<p>It does indeed seem reasonable, which makes it all the more remarkable when they’re not, particularly regarding courses that have been taught by the same profs for years on end. You would think that they would have smoothed out all of the rough edges by now. </p>

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<p>Such is the perennial excuse invoked by the top research universities whenever students complain about the quality and focus of undergraduate teaching: that the students somehow don’t “need” strong teaching. Yet teaching is, ultimately, what schools are supposed to be providing. Otherwise, heck, why even provide any teaching at all? Just have the students stay in their rooms and read the textbooks and Wikipedia on their own time and submit papers and take exams at allotted deadlines.</p>

<p>One possible solution is that Harvard could hire (relatively)low-paid adjuncts just for their teaching skills. Undergraduates would then have a choice of taking a class with the high-prestige scholar who is a mediocre teacher, or the teaching specialist. I suspect many (perhaps most) would choose the latter. Such a program would be easily affordable given Harvard’s vast resources. </p>

<p>Outrageous, you say? Harvard wouldn’t dare to deprive its undergraduates of the long-term benefits of the ‘contact-high’ from close association with top researchers? Well, actually, Harvard is already doing this with its preceptor program, in which adjuncts are hired mostly to teach undergraduate courses, with little research responsibilities and no expectation of a tenure-track pathway. So if Harvard is already running the preceptor program anyway, would it really be so outrageous if it were to expand?</p>

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<p>“if Harvard is already running the preceptor program anyway, would it really be so outrageous if it were to expand?”</p>

<p>Yes. We’re talking about a defined, contained role: expos, intro math, intro languages. All of those courses are about mastering basic skills that you can use in more sophisticated courses. It would be a very different matter to have non-faculty teaching content courses.</p>

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<p>This article makes me appreciate more and more the few truly wonderful TFs that I have had who devoted so much effort to the courses even though, as said in the article, grad school is perhaps teaching the future academics disrespect for teaching.</p>

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<p>Uh, are you saying that intro languages and math aren’t “content”? What is content anyway? </p>

<p>But that may actually be beside the point. However the word ‘content’ is defined, I suspect that the same preceptor pedagogy could be used to teach the entire gamut of intro courses. Honestly, how many research publications do you really need to teach, say, the intro physics sequence (Physics 11), or the physical sciences general education sequence (Physics 1,2,3)? How about any of the Intro Psych courses (Psych 1x)? How about Intro Economics (Econ 10)? Do you really need any research pubs at all to teach these courses? </p>

<p>Besides, think of it this way. Plenty of LAC’s seem to provide excellent undergraduate teaching despite a faculty that, on the whole, is nowhere near as research-focused as is Harvard’s. Indeed, many of the graduates from those LAC’s are admitted to top graduate programs, including graduate programs at…Harvard. Why would Harvard ‘stupidly’ admit into its own graduate programs so many students from LAC’s who clearly did not enjoy the benefits of ‘content-driven’ tutelage by the world’s premier research professors?</p>

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<p>“Why would Harvard ‘stupidly’ admit into its own graduate programs so many students from LAC’s who clearly did not enjoy the benefits of ‘content-driven’ tutelage by the world’s premier research professors?”</p>

<p>Where in the world are you getting this? No one is claiming that Harvard is the only place to get a good undergraduate education, or that graduates of LACs are unqualified. Harvard certainly isn’t saying that. Universities and LACs have corresponding pros and cons. Different strokes for different folks.</p>

<p>The research eminence of faculty is also more dependent on the stature of the institution than whether it’s an LAC or not. The publication demands on a tenure-track English professor at Swarthmore are going to be higher than at unranked doctoral-granting research U’s like Idaho State.</p>

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<p>Um, I am getting it from you. You said that it would be a “very different matter” for nonfaculty teaching “content” courses (despite the fact that preceptors are part of the faculty and that I still don’t know what the difference is between a “content” vs. a “non-content” course). What sort of “different matter” were you referring to? </p>

<p>The LAC’s have clearly demonstrated that you can provide an excellent undergraduate education - with sufficient “content” (however defined) - provided by a faculty that does not necessarily consist of world-class researchers. Why would it then be so outrageous for Harvard to do the same? I therefore don’t see why preceptors couldn’t take over the bulk of teaching in many Harvard undergraduate courses. </p>

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<p>But it will be nowhere near the publication demands of the tenure-track at Harvard or any other elite research university. Nevertheless, they are clearly able to provide an excellent education for their students: alumni from the top LAC’s having noticeably high future PhD completion rates.</p>

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<p>“provided by a faculty that does not necessarily consist of world-class researchers.”</p>

<p>Maybe there’s a real difference in the sciences, but in the humanities at least, I think the faculty at Williams and Swat would take serious issue with your accusation that they aren’t world-class researchers. At any rate, whether they are “world-class” or not, they ARE researchers, aka professors tasked with creating new knowledge, not preceptors tasked solely with conveying what is already known. I objected to your proposal of expanding the preceptor program, NOT to the idea of replacing the Harvard faculty with Amherst faculty. Amherst faculty are a world away from the journalists and native speakers (aka skill practitioners) Harvard hires as Expos/language preceptors.</p>

<p>I said that there’s a set of pros and cons with LAC vs. university education. Yet you’re arguing with some fictitious person who insinuated that LAC grads are incompetent and that Harvard would be stupid to take them on as PhD candidates.</p>

<p>I’m not interested in arguing with someone who insists on authoring the other side of the argument instead of responding to what I actually said.</p>

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<p>They can take as much issue with it as they would like. That doesn’t change the fact that, on average, LAC professors, even in the humanities, are not world-class researchers - meaning, as impactful on average from a research standpoint as the professors at the top research universities. Heck, I don’t even think they would disagree with this characterization, as it seems uncontroversial. </p>

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<p>To be clear, preceptors often times engage in research as well. But obviously not to the same level as standard tenure-track junior faculty. </p>

<p>For example, Derek Bruff was a Harvard math preceptor for 2 years. During that time, he continued to engage in research, presenting at a number of mathematics conferences. </p>

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<p>What I meant is that Harvard could greatly expand its preceptor program to one that might actually be a tenure-track position and would also perhaps involve some research responsibilities, but continue to maintain a focus on teaching. Right now, the best job candidates won’t take the Harvard preceptor position because it’s not considered to be a tenure-track position. But many surely would if such a track was available, even if the odds of obtaining tenure were small. {Let’s face it - plenty of young scholars dream of just one shot at tenure at Harvard, however small the chances may be. Heck, I suspect that many current Harvard junior faculty would cut off their right arms in exchange for tenure.} </p>

<p>But like I said, why not offer a choice? You can continue to offer courses taught by Harvard’s eminent current faculty. You can also have some courses taught by preceptors who are hired largely for their teaching abilities. Given Harvard’s vast resources and the fact that preceptors are cheap, Harvard could surely afford to provide such an option. Harvard undergrads could then choose which classes to take. If research eminence is truly valuable, then surely the undergrads will choose the former. </p>

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<p>Whether you choose to participate or not, the upshot is that you seem to agree with my central point, which is that undergraduates do not need to be taught by world-class researchers to receive a strong education. </p>

<p>And that’s the point that the author of the Crimson article was making.</p>

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<p>sakky opined:

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<p>Is your basic assumption that world class researchers are less effective as teachers than whoever else Harvard might put in a classroom? That is not my experience. In my own Ivy undergrad experience, the professors whose name and impact I still remember a few decades later were, indeed, world class researchers. They were also extraordinary teachers. (The one non-world-class researcher who I still remember vividly was a charismatic young Frenchman who taught introductory French – I’ve loved French ever since.) </p>

<p>As an academic, I know that there’s only so much time in a week, and time spent on research is time away from preparing for classes, and vice-versa. So I have to make choices, but that is no reason not to care about both, and not to do both as well as I can. I think I succeed at both reasonably often (and have assorted external metrics to validate my judgment). </p>

<p>My own experience, having taught at both Harvard and a public university lower on the prestige hierarchy (and having been an academic administrator whose work included assessing the research and teaching effectiveness of faculty colleagues) is that research productivity and teaching effectiveness are imperfectly, but positively correlated. People who are better at one tend to be better at the other as well. Yes, I’ve known great scholars who were lousy teachers and great teachers who could never get much published, but they’re exceptions to the broader trend. Strong researchers tend to be smarter, more creative, harder-working, and more passionate about their field than those who are less productive. They often bring that passion into the classroom in exciting ways.</p>

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<p>It’s not my assumption, rather, it’s the assumption of the author of the Crimson article that started this thread.</p>

<p>To repeat:</p>

<p>Researched-obsessed faculty members consistently define impact in ways that bring them either extra attention, money, or—ideally—both. Few seem excited by the chance to inspire young minds or driven to direct their considerable creative and analytical powers towards transforming the learning process. My former department has senior faculty who have contributed in many ways to the broader Harvard community, but none of them stepped forward to transform CS50…"</p>