The Emporia Gazette

May 27, 2012

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Back in April, I wrote one of these columns about the changes I have observed going on in higher education. State teachers colleges have become state universities. The land-grant institutions, which specialized in agriculture, home economics and engineering, have become state universities which specialize in everything. Liberal arts colleges have changed their names from college to university. Junior colleges have become community colleges and often are pushing on with some four-year institution activities.

So it has happened. The general opinion, I think, is that the changes have been good. That is not my opinion, however. I thought our old system of higher institutions of different types was very good. It would still be as it was, if I had my way. Obviously, I did not get my way and certainly shall not in the future. So be it!

There is one aspect of this trend of all institutions becoming general universities that I find particularly bothersome. That is that all of them now expect their faculty people to function and perform just like those in the big universities. That means that teaching is no longer the main task for faculty members. It now becomes only one of three duties. Those are teaching, service and research.

I do not have any problem with the first two duties being expected of any faculty member at the smaller institutions which now see themselves as universities. Teaching, as I said above, is the prime task. Then, too, faculty members should be expected to perform some forms of service for their institutions and their communities.

Requiring research from faculty members of former teachers colleges and liberal arts colleges, however, is pure nonsense. I said “requiring,” not “permitting.” It is fine to permit those who wish to pursue a research direction to do so and to support them. And for them to teach their students something about research and inquiry. But to require research and publication from such faculty members makes no sense, in my humble opinion.

Our faculty members at those institutions which were once teachers colleges should not be penalized in gaining tenure and being promoted simply because they have not done research and produced publications with their name on them. If they are good teachers and perform some institutional and community services, they should become tenured and be promoted.

Such has not been the case at Emporia State, for example. Some fine teachers have been denied tenure and promotion because they have not done enough research. That is nuts, in my opinion, and would not happen, if I had my way.

Even the big research universities realize that some of their non-researcher faculty are so valuable that they should be rewarded with tenure and promotion. I recall such a case, in which I was involved, back at the University of Missouri.

We had a young faculty member whose primary assignment was to handle the General Botany course. That meant dealing with about 1,500 students each semester. He had to do a great deal of lecturing himself and supervising many others who taught labs and some lecture sections. He handled his assignment marvelously. And he served the institution and community well in various ways.

When it came time for him to be considered for tenure and promotion, he was criticized for not being involved in research and publication. I wrote strong support for him and pointed out how important his teaching and service was. And how time-consuming it was for him. He was tenured and promoted.

So, you see, even big research-oriented universities sometimes do not require that all their people contribute to all three areas of teaching, service and research. It seems ridiculous to me that smaller institutions — former teachers colleges and liberal arts colleges — feel that they should require all three activities.

There is another aspect of this present emphasis on all higher education faculty people doing research. It often results in weak research and very weak publications. It is common for four, five, six or more names to be on one publication. It has stimulated the coming of all sorts of weak, insignificant journals where this so-called research can be published. I do not feel that this result has aided the development of our higher education system at all. If anything, it has weakened it.

Enough of my tirade against these directions of higher education. In summation, we should not expect all faculty people to be proficient in everything. Good teaching is most important. Adding too many other requirements for advancement and success is not sound. It is a weakening aspect. Our system would give this aspect much more consideration, if I had my way.