Re-emphasizing Teaching (Abstract)

Author(s): Ed Wiley, III

Minority Rewards

Resistance to Change

The Black College as a Guiding Light

Emphasis on research in recent years has caused several universities to move far off their teaching and research mission. There is a need for the reallocation of faculty time between teaching, research and service. A study on this subject indicated that this could only be achieved if the system for recognizing and rewarding effective teaching was changed. The study showed that professors are spending less time in the classroom and an even smaller share of their time is being devoted to advising and mentoring students.

Minority Rewards

The study showed that a new system has to be developed to evaluate faculty contributions. One suggestion was peer evaluation. This arose out of a complaint by many women and minority faculty that white, male professors are frequently exempt from the unrewarding task of mentoring students. They believe that this takes away from the time that the minority and female faculty can spend doing research. At present most universities use student evaluation. However, the committee thought that peer evaluation would be better because peers have a better means of evaluating course content and teaching style than students do.

Resistance to Change

The study showed that many white institutions did not respond well to the need for diversification, and suggested that a system for rewarding schools that voluntarily initiated efforts to increase diversity would increase the rate at which change would occur.

The Black College as a Guiding Light

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have been recognized as teaching institutions, focusing less on the research aspect. The teaching quality and success rate of graduation is extraordinarily good. Their method of mentoring is also different. The schools motivate students to make them successful, instead of setting up barriers for them to jump over. The study found that HBCUs have the reverse problem: trying to put more emphasis on research. They hope that more research will mean more corporate funding into the institutions as well as keep them at the cutting edge of technology. They are trying to strike a balance between teaching and research. At the HBCUs a variety of criteria are used to evaluate the faculty. It involves a mixture of peer evaluation, student evaluation and evaluation of community service on a regular basis.