In her Sept. 21 opinion piece “Want to know why professors don’t teach?” Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente argues university professors are less concerned with educating undergraduates than increasing their volume of published work, regardless of who reads it.
Wente cites growing class sizes, low student engagement and an all-time high dropout rate as indicators that professors in the millennium are preoccupied with research at the expense of their students’ academic success.
From a student’s standpoint, it’s regrettable the reward system for career success as a professor depends so much on a body of published work. To achieve tenure, professors must strive to be considered valuable in their departments and published work is one of the few tangible ways to measure this success. It’s unfortunate a professor’s research makes him or her an asset to a university while teaching skills are considered secondary. But making blanket statements degrading professors’ willingness to put time and energy into their lecture-hall lifestyles is unwarranted.
There are professors who excel in the classroom and it’s refreshing to notice they care about their students’ learning. This level of teacher engagement encourages students to go the extra mile, too.
We shouldn’t let professors shoulder all the blame for incompetent students, either. In an academic climate where independence is valued, a student struggling with essay-writing should take advantage of the many resources offered on campus.
Wente’s observation that increasing numbers of classes are being taught by graduate students, rather than professors, is relevant. But because many grad students are on the career path to become professors, it seems logical they practise their instructing skills if we’re to expect any teaching savvy from professors of the future.
The academic world may have changed since Wente’s “golden age” when classes were smaller and professors were valued for their classroom charisma. But it’s passively retrospective to mourn the end of an idyllic, fairy-tale notion of education without considering modern pressures that mandate professors to churn out papers if they want to keep their jobs.
Perhaps universities should re-evaluate what institutions of higher learning prioritize, but it’s misguided to shoot the professors themselves, who are merely the messengers of academia’s modern face.
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