The purpose of this letter is to give students a degree of understanding about what is required of a professor. If the question was posed to students “What makes a good professor?” you will likely get various responses such as: “One who puts the students first,” “A good teacher,” “One who can explain material in a way that I can understand,” “One who makes time for the students outside of the classroom,” etc. All responses will have common themes which centers on an ability to teach and a degree of care for the students.
Even though this sounds good and may even be good, the mark of a good professor is RESEARCH. Research includes journal articles, grant projects, and presentations at professional conferences, all of which have little or nothing to do with teaching.
Everything that we do that is beneficial to our careers as professors centers on research. As professors we would like to be good teachers as well as researchers but it is better to be a good researcher and a horrible teacher than to be a good teacher and a horrible researcher. This may be shocking to students, but in higher education teaching is second. I recall talking to a professor about how things were at his institution and I recall him saying “the greatest indicator that a person will not make tenure and will soon be forced to leave is if that professor wins the TEACHER OF THE YEAR award.”
In the interviews that I have been on for various positions (academic and nonacademic), only on one occasion was I ask for teaching evaluations, but of primary importance on all of them was my publication record. The tenure process of any institution of higher education with the exception of maybe Jr. Colleges (possibly) is based more on research output than on teaching ability.
As some of you know many of our colleges at SU are accredited, which means according to some accreditation body we are legitimate, official, and we have achieved some minimum standard for their approval. Each year or so, we are required to give a report to these accreditation bodies on our progress and status.
In my 4 years at SU I never received a form to fill out about the lives that I have changed, about the students who appreciate my ability to teach effectively, about the individuals who were inspired to be better students, etc. However, every form that I have filled out in reference to the accreditation process in our College ask for the number of research publications, grant projects, and research presentations at professional conferences, but nothing about teaching.
At larger institutions where a professor may teach only 1 to 4 classes a year it may be possible to be an effective teacher as well as researcher.
However, at SU and many other smaller institutions we may teach 8 to 12 classes a year which leaves very little time for research. Given the limitation of time we are always forced to make a choice between research and teaching. One option is that we can forgo research in the name of teaching which is academic suicide (even at SU), or we could do just enough research for the SU tenure process, which is also a career killer if you ever plan to move on to another institution.
For one concerned about his or her career a final option is to forgo classes for research, which means that you dedicate the least amount of time possible to classes, which includes little to homework, scantron exams, minimal office hours, etc. For any professor that cares for students this is hard to do, but conditions force us to do it.
To all students who complain about professors in regards to time, dedication, teaching ability, etc., knows that we are operating in an environment where teaching is second to research.
