Who Will Our Teachers Be?
I
wish to explore some subjective aspects of the relation of the new instructor to teaching and to his scientific discipline which are cause for a pessimistic view of the future of scientific education. To he a good teacher and to he a good scientist can appear to be in conflict. To the extent this conflict, real or imagined, is felt, the future training of young scientists is in jeopardy. I t is my contention that the scientific community can ease this apparent conflict by programs that seek to recognize the role of these scientists who are devoting a major portion of their career to undergraduate educat,ion. The relationship of a young college instructor to his profession is insecure. His background is usually such that he feels a deep commitment to the importance of undergraduate education. However, the undergraduate years are diffuse compared with the intensity and intellectual stimulation found a t the frontiers of scientific research. The apprenticeship in research that is current American postgraduate training in the sciences is a t first repelling to the entering student. He must shut off certain interests; he cannot be a part-time graduate student. But as he becomes immersed in his problem and understands it more fully, it becomes alive, subtle, mysterious, echoing initial questions and yielding slowly to intense scrutiny yet always withdrawing to uncover new and challenging facets. Involvement grows. As one's penetration into research becomes deeper, the dry scientific prose no longer is a barrier to grasping the excitement of underlying ideas. Seminars bring representatives from other universities to discuss their current research. The commitment is total. Would-be dissenters are converted or leave. Yet such a life is temporary. After the apprenticeship is completed, the journeymen must move on. A majority seek postdoctoral appointments to continue in other laboratories. Many seek appointments a t universities or in research positions in industrial or government laboratories. A few, like myself, test their interest in teaching. Fondness for their liberal arts education leads them to teach science a t a liberal arts college. Armed with the cliche that the teacher who does research is a better teacher (or STAYS ALIVE to put it in the usual strong terms), the young instructor charges forth to serve two masters. The first year passes quickly. The excitement and rewards of teaching are realized. A twelve-hour load for the first year of teaching is as demanding in time and concentration as was graduate school. I t is a fully satisfying and necessary transition to the desired role of teacher-scientist. With experience, lectures are
provocative opinion prepared faster, time becomes available to consider renewing research. The ideas are many. Support is available on a modest scale and one begins to look forward to the day he can again do research. That day frequently comes shortly after one's first final grades are turned in to the Dean's office. The summer is short, however. Too short. The problem, too grand. The facilities, too meagre. Soon the students return. Classes begin but take less time. One is functioning again as a teacher, is involved with his students. The excitements, the rewards of teaching are again realized. As planned, lab work also goes on. Saturdays, an afternoon or two each week keep the problem alive, but there is now a nagging doubt, the beginning of the frustrating knowledge that the dual roles of teacher and scientist cannot be realized. If one is truly a teacher, the office hours cannot be minimal, the concern with one's students cannot be merely professional. Responsibilities to broader aspects of education and committees of various sorts demand time. For the academic term, one is first a teacher and secondly a scientist. But to set aside even temporarily one's involvement with a research problem is a new experience. In the intense years of graduate study, the all night experiment was not rare. To work on the problem was the reality. To set aside one's research for nine months would be unthinkable. The knowledge comes that as a teacher, one cannot fully do research. One cannot refuse the demands of teaching to devote full attention to the problem under investigation. And without that total concentration, there is no true research as measured in the eyes of the ex-graduate student. In the severest sense, without the fire, tho total commitment, such research is a shell, a hollow form, and exercise in laboratory investigation, an application of scientific methods, and nothing more. Such a realization is difficult. One's dual goal upon leaving the University is not only unfulfilled but unfulfillable. Doing research does not help one to be a good teacher because both roles demand total commitment. Such a dilemma cannot be maintained. That activity of investigation which had been so rewarding is still attractive. The return to the laboratory, the testing of ideas remains enjoyable, but gone is the dream that such experimentation can be fulfilling research in the sense that it was in graduate school. Given the realization of the impossibility of maintaining the dual role as originally conceived, there are several alternatives for the young instructor. He may choose to move to a university where there will be greater time and recognition for his research. One friend who had long wanted to teach a t a four-year colVolume 45, Number 10, October 1968
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lege noted : "That ideal college keeps getting bigger and bigger." He now teaches a t a university. One can reaffirm his interest in teaching and turn fully toward it as his source of satisfaction. Finally, the stubborn individual may try to maintain a research program with much more modest goals while teaching. Such research, as it is not fully satisfying, must ultimately be justified as a part of the instructor's overall commitment to teaching and, in fact, such research plays an important part in undergraduate science education. The decisions made by these young teachers have profound implications for the future of scientific education. Their decisions will affect the colleges, their graduates, and the graduate schools themselves. I t is because of these larger implications that the dilemma of the individual instructor merits the attention of the entire scientific community. If the four-year colleges and junior colleges fail to attract young research-oriented staff members, their science faculties will to an ever greater extent consist of those whose interest in science is historical or philosophical. Such men are needed a t colleges, but a department lacking members with strong research interests cannot and will not accurately represent scientific disciplines to its students. They will fail to cornmunicate the excitement of scientific research. Their students will fail to perceive science as an ongoing method of iuquirj . Students with inquiring minds may find their instructors presenting a closed picture of science. Students so prepared are more liable to be victims of a cultural shock upon entering the research graduate community. This is a disservice not only to the students of the liberal arts colleges, but to the scientific community as well. In an age of increasing specialization, it may be dependent on its members with a broad general education background to communicate effectively with the nontechnical public. There is a second way that the research community is endangered if scientific education a t the college level becomes nonrepresentative. Many new scientists are needed. Previously some small liberal arts colleges have had very high productivity in producing candidates for advanced degrees in scientific specialties. To
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an even greater extent they have produced teachers. As the public sector of the undergraduate education grows, the role of the small college in producing candidates will be less important, perhaps, but the need to staff the state colleges with instructors who can attract students to science and who can serve as representative models for scientific careers will be very great. If the problem of attracting research oriented staff to the four-year colleges is as real as I contend it is, then it would be the concern of the entire scientific community and the academic community. There is ample evidence that many are concerned and are taking steps to try to encourage young scientists to teach a t the colleges. These steps, however, reach too few. More concern and action is needed. Current programs in chemistry include modest research support programs expressly for college teachers, effected by the American Chemical Society and the Research Corporation. The NSF supports programs providing for undergraduate research participation in summers, and conferences and institutes do bring college teachers to universities for intense programs in the current status of research in certain areas. The university staff members who participate in such programs are generously serving to aid undergraduate programs. Often these programs reach only those who have confirmed their desire to teach: those who have taught four or more years a t the college level. The beginning college instructor often must compete for funds with his peers (whose training and purposes are different): Programs to support research for educational purposes should be separated. Far more explicit encouragement for those who seek to teach only undergraduates and do research is needed. Additional communication is also needed. The college instructor needs the experience of intense scrutiny of research ideas and results. He further needs to he reminded of the interest and concern for his work held by his colleagues whose careers lie in research. James N. Lowe The University of the South Sewonee, Tennessee 37375
