Bring out the teachers in college professors
What does Hong Kong expect of its thousands of professors?
An obvious answer might be 'excellent teaching for our children'. Alas, universities tend to value research far more than teaching ability. A widely published researcher who couldn't teach would be promoted over an excellent teacher with few publications. In fact, a superb teacher with few citations would likely be dismissed from most major universities.
Why? The answer lies in the international system of university rankings and academic rewards. Ranking universities is largely a matter of counting their research publications in so-called 'A' journals. A university cannot attain a high ranking without them. And a well-published professor can 'go anywhere' for a better career, even with poor marks in teaching.
Can't a professor be both a valuable researcher and a talented teacher? Of course. But, within the limits of a 24-hour day, a professor is often forced to choose between professional activities. As a newly minted Canadian professor recently blogged, 'I've been advised that, at some point I will be faced with the decision of how to spend that last hour before a lecture ... research? Teaching prep? And, the answer, for tenure-track positions is (apparently) research, hands down ... [T]he tenure decision does not reward teaching excellence.'
Research and teaching do not always support one another. Professors do not typically teach their rarified research in the broad-scope university courses to which they are assigned. The pressure is constantly on professors to produce articles in quantity. According to George Leef, of the Pope Centre for Higher Education Policy, 'for every published book or article that really makes a worthwhile contribution to knowledge in a field, there are dozens that [don't] and wouldn't be written if it weren't for the obligation to get things in print.' He says professors should be paid to teach and research work should be done on a contract basis with those who want to fund it.
Clearly, we want to attract brilliant minds as professors for our youth. Research, therefore, should be encouraged and rewarded. But we do not want these intellectuals to sequester themselves in publicly funded 'think tanks' with little or no productive contact with students. Teaching must matter as an important component of hiring, tenure and promotion decisions.
Since Hong Kong is about to hire at least 1,000 new professors to accommodate the enrolment bulge for the coming four-year undergraduate programme, there's no better time to require students to complete end-of-term course evaluations - and then take that evidence seriously in hiring and promotion. Further, we can set written standards for teaching excellence just as we do for research publication. Finally, we can provide on-the-job training for professors with low classroom ratings.
Hong Kong now stands in the enviable position of being a world leader in education reform - we can demonstrate the right balance between excellent teaching and important research.
Art Bell, PhD, is a professor of management in Hong Kong
