to Learn? According to a numher of observers, large research universities generally have not been paying attention to undergraduate education; they have permitted the quest for grant monies to deflect them from the processes of teaching and learnine a t the undereraduate level. Researchers are quick to po& out that do& academic research is a special form of teaching and learning. Nevertheless the resources a t research institutions generally have been "diverted" away from undergraduate education. The diversion often takes subtle forms and its effects may not become apparent for vears. In the sciences. the diversion occurs throunh the loss-of senior faculty i n t h e undergraduate program and their replacement by less knowledgeable (and less expensive) junior faculty such as teaching assistants. The normal need for teaching assistants in the sciences (e.g., for the sake of dealing with the day-to-day aspects of laboratory instruction) is sometimes distorted to make places for research-oriented eraduate students who. with their mentors. view the teaching assistant appointment as a temporary way station on their passage through the academic system. The use of junior faculty in this stopgap way as a p a r t of the overall research program often distorts the relationship between research and teaching. As a result, undergraduate teachine is often ~erceivedto take second lace to research in eithe;resources expended or rewards ofrered. The senior facultv when thev do teach undernraduate courses often do so in iarge classes, especially in l&er division courses. Although hard data are not availahle on the effect that the huntfor research dollars has had on undergraduate education, a numher of anecdotal observations are availahle. For example, the retiring administrative head of a large midwestern university has estimated that the quality of undergraduate education a t his institution declined by about 50% in the last 15 years. Those familiar with other, similar institutions would probably concur with the existence of a decline, although the intensity of the gradient might he debated.
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Pennsylvania State University. University of California at Los Angeies, University of California at Berkeley, University of illinois. University of Maryland at College Park. University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Ohio State University, University of Texas at Austin. University of Washington, and University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Recently, 12 large, research-oriented public institutions1 have formed The Alliance for Undergraduate Education in an attempt to improve undergraduate education. The administrators of the institutions that make up The Alliance have spent the last decade sharing information about research and, apparently, they have decided that the time has come to share information about teaching. I t is clear that the research institutions are rich in libraries, research faculty, instrumentation and other resources. The members of the Alliance will attempt to direct these unique resources toward the improvement of undergraduate education at their institutions. At its inception the Alliance was designed to be project oriented; the first two identified projects deal with training of graduate teaching assistants and assessing writing skills in various disciplines. Other topics of mutual interest have been identified, and they include: the role of faculty in lower division instruction, getting undergraduates involved in research, improving undergraduate advising, retention of "high-risk" students who need remedial work, and dealing with the ethnic diversity of student populations. Undoubtedly one factor driving the formation of the Alliance is the anticipation that research funds will begin to shrink. The Alliance appears to be an attempt to find some common area of cooperation: to learn how to cooperate and what it means to share. The existence of the Alliance would allow scholars to begin to collaborate on research on teaching. The expected shift of funds from the classical research areas to research on teaching seems to anticipate a need for cooperation. Cooperation appears preferable to competition to the members of the Alliance as research dollars (in whatever subject) begin to shrink. The Alliance is a modest start to alter the intense competition for federal funds among academic institutions that has led to the proliferation of duplicate efforts. Such "duplication" in a numher of true research investigations is inevitable (and, indeed, perhaps desirable), but some research oriented efforts, e.g., high performance computing or state-ofthe-art NMR facilities, cannot he duplicated willy-nilly; sufficient resources do not exist to permit everyone to do everything. Thus some see the Alliance as a test bed for learning. We should all hope that the research institutions learn well. JJL
Volume 64
Number 4 April 1987
289
