editorially speaking The Changing Face of Academe Academia isn't what it used to be. But then what is? The Higher Education Research Institute a t UCLAhas recently published a report ("The American College Teacher")based on responses from 35,478 faculty in all disciplines a t 392 institutions, including two-year and differentkinds of fouryear institutions. Faculty opinions were sought on a broad range of issues including teaching, values, political orientation, and the perceivedquality of their lives. According to this survey, many faculty feel a conflict between their teaching and research roles. Some of the response categories are of interest here. Two-thirds (66.8%)of the survey respondents were tenured, and they were distributed reasonably well among the usual ranks: professor (33.7%),associate professor (25.7%), assistant professor (23.3%), and the remaining ranks (17.2%).The responding faculty indicated that their "essential or very important" professional goals were: to be agood teacher (98.2%),to be a good colleague (80.0%),to engage in research (58.5%),to engage in outside activities (52.5%), to provide services to the community (43.4%),and to participate in committeeor other administrative work (29.2%). The respondents appeared to be highly critical of their students' preparation and academic abilities. In discussing the report, Alexander Astin, one of the co-authors, said, "This doesn't bode well for faculty-student relations. It's always been difficult for faculty to teach poorly prepared students." Only a quarter of all faculty (27%)--20% of those a t two-year colleges-thought that most students a t their institution are well-prepared academically. However, the student body was viewed very differently by faculty at different kinds of institutions, which is probably not surprising. For example, 9% of all faculty rated the students a t their institution as 'Very bright", but only 2% of the faculty at two-year colleges felt that descriptor best described their student bodv. Facultv and private " at public . institutions also held divrrgcnt opinions on this point: 357 ofthe onvatt: universitv f;tcultv thouaht most of the students at their instutitonare very bright, but only 7%of the public university faculty shared this opinion. Interestingly, these data contrast sharply with the students' perceptions of their own academic abilities, as determined in another study by the UCLA group. More than half of the college freshman included in this group's most recent annual survey rated their academic abilities as "above average". Clearly, this difference in the perceptions of the faculty and students. the two .. a o u o s that lopicallv .. " have the meatest interest i n the cducutional process, does not make for an effcctivr educati~malenvironment. The inevitable tension in this environment is further heightened by a third factor.
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Three quarters of the faculty believe that the intellectual development of their students is one of their institution's highest priorities yet only 9.8%feel that faculty are rewarded for good teaching. In the faculties' eyes, administrative messages in this realm are mixed. Still another source of tension experienced by faculty involves the relative importance of their teaching and research roles. The UCLA survey found that 80% of the faculty a t public institutions feel that conducting research is a high priority, but a t the same time, 98.2%of all the faculty stated that one of their "essential or very important" professional goals is to be a good teacher. In this same vein, 75% of the respondents thought that their institutions place a high priority on enhancing institutional prestige. However, the current wisdom holds that institutional prestige is enchanced by research activities, not by good teaching. The tension surrounding this point is also reflected in the amount of time the faculty indicated they actually spend in the classroom. Just over half of the faculty at institutions, and about halfof all university fachty, soend five to eight hours uer week in the classroom: this figure is more typically 13 or more hours per week for two-year college faculty. Clearly, if science education is to improve a t the post-secondary level, both faculty and administration, i.e., those who have a legitimate interest in these institution, must come together in a unified way on the issue of "teaching vs. research". Faculty must not hide behind the facade that "research is really individualized teaching". That kind of teaching is not the issue here. Rather, the problems lie at the undergraduate level where teaching is typically a group activity. Similarly, administrators must not hide behind statements that suggest that they are only following the "will of the faculty" when rewards are made. The administrative arm of higher education must also start to wean itself from the "overhead dollars" that it has become increasingly reliant on to do the things that institutions should be doing for themselves. There are strong signals that the sources of much of the funding that fueled the expansion of science faculties in recent decades will be severely curtailed in the 90's. Faced with the prospect of a decline in overhead dollars, administrators might well take advantage of this impending situation to improve the status of undergraduate instrndion-and thereby the prestige of their institutions from that perspective. Leadership is the key. Administrators must begin to provide leadership, and faculty must insist on leadership where it is lacking. JJL
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Volume 68 Number 10 October I991
799
