editorially speaking The Value of Teaching a week in class. Interestingly, for both doctoral-granting The current cry for curricular reform would appear to suggest t h a t teaching is a n important activity in institutions and liberal arts colleges, faculty pay decreases postsecondary education. Indeed, it would seem that in the substantially if instructors spend more than six hours current climate the persistent tension between teaching (eight for liberal arts faculty) per week in class. The highand research might even be resolved to give a slight advanest faculty salaries in research universities are earned by tape to those who believe that teachiue is the ~ r i m a w those spending the least amount of time in class; the lowf&ction of the postsecondary education system. e ~ t - ~ afaculty id in these institutions are those having bean analvsis bv James Fairweather recentlv released bv the tween six and 11 classroom hours. Finally, faculty who ~ a t i o n a ~l e A t e on r Postsecondary ~ e a i h i n ~ ,e a r k n ~ , teach only graduate students earn more than their peers and Assessment a t Pennsylvania State University indiwho have~aiycontact with undergraduate students. cates that the faculty reward system has not caught up The em~iricaldata show a com~limentarvrelations hi^ with current interests, and there are questions as to with respect to faculty rewards and research or scholarly whether it ever will. productivity (as measured by the percent time spent on rePrior to the Fairweather analvsis. " .onlv" attitudinal inforsearch), the total number of publications (expressed as mation (e.g., suweys of faculty perceptions) was available books or articles published in refereed journals), and on the imoortance administrators lace on teachine. The al on exwhether facultv have been ~ r i n c i ~investieators ~ainveatherstudy foeuses on adnhnistrative beh&orfundei reserach prbjects: Except fo; liberal arts ternally not perceptions-with respect to the reward system and institutions (where too few data are available to make refactually verifies that teaching is a t best a neutral influliable estimates), faculty who spend more time on research ence and a t worse a negative influence on faculty income. are compensated at higher rates than faculty who spend The newly released report considers compensation patless time. Salaries ranee from a hieh of about $50.000 for terns at four t w e s of four-vear schools: research institufaculty who spend morethan 34% of their time on rksearch tions, doctorai-granting institutions, comprehensive to a low of about $30,000 for those spending less than five schools, and liberal arts colleges. The focus of the data is percent of their time on research. Generally, for faculty a t faculty "activity" as it relates to faculty salaries. Faculty all types of institutions, the larger the number of profesactivity is defined as time spent on teaching and instrucsional Dublications. the hieher the financial com~ensation. tional productivity and tim; spent on reseaFch and scholFaculty with more than 30 publications ( r a n ~ n from g ararly activities. ticles i n refereed journals-through book r&iews) earn The results can be summarized by considering two comelations, teaching vs. compenstation and research vs. comabout $56.000 annuallv com~aredwith facultv with two or pensation. Both lead to the same conclusion: teaching is fewer publications, who earn about S33,000. This pattern not valued as much as research in the four types of holds true for fncultv at lihrral arts and comorehensive inpostsecondary institutions surveyed. stitutions, where tradition holds that undermaduate eduFairweather's analysis of the empirical connection becation is supposed to be important, as well as at research tween teaching and compensation involves a number of and doctoral-granting institutions. Being a principal infactors, namely, percentage of time spent on teaching, vestigator on an externally funded project also correlates hours in class per week, and contact hours with students. strongly with substantially higher salaries, e.g., about The data show that, overall, faculty are paid a lower $51,000 compared with about $39,000. amount, about $35,000 on average, if they spend more ~iearly,research and scholarship are the dominant salthan 72% of their time teaching, and a higher amount, ary considerations for all four typks offinstitutions studabout $56,000 on average, if they spend less than 35% of ied, including liberal arts colleges. These empirical data their time teaching. In effect, doubling the time spent suggest that if the current interest in curricular reform is teaching leads to roughly half the salary. Liberal arts wlto eive rise to chanee. - , academic institutions must address leges are the exception in that the pay differential is not critical issues involving the reward system. Curricular restatistically significant. form will necessarily have to be by teachers of Fairweather also found a "negative correlation" between chemistrv. or researchers. or both. However. both teachers t class and facultv salaries. the amount of time s ~ e n in and researchers know that efforts in this realm will not be Over the entire sample of faculty for all four tydes of iustivalued. Few are willine to sacrifice their nrofessional lives. tutions, the average salary ranges from a high of about including their livelihood, to engage in activities that are $51,000 for spending less than six hours per week in class not valued. JJL to a low of about $37,000 for spending more than 12 hours
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Vilume 70 ~umber.3 March 1993
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