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While apparently the idea of improving the undergraduate experience though research is very popular, at least at some community colleges, elsewhere universities have wondered if maybe research prestige actually acts to the detriment of high-quality undergraduate education. According to an article by Eric Kelderman in the Chronicle of Higher Education:
Some higher-education experts [believe] that many large research universities are placing too much priority on activities that raise the profile and prestige of their institutions but do little to improve undergraduate education. Such activities include contracts for private research and public-private partnerships to market new patents.
The issue is whether the increasing amount of support coming from sources outside state tax dollars “is causing these institutions … to move away from their public mission,” [said Jane Wellman, executive director of the Delta Project on Postsecondary Education Costs]. “The answer in too many cases is, unfortunately, yes.”
When universities focus on serious research that can result in greater prestige and also higher funding. It doesn’t generally help undergraduate education at all, however. Indeed, many argue it just causes universities to shift funding away from the actual education of students.
At the University of Vermont, for instance, president Daniel Mark Fogel announced in 2009 that in the future UVM would focus on three research areas: food systems, complex systems and neuroscience, and behavior and health. Called the “Spires of Excellence” plan (or sometimes the “Transdisciplinary Research Initiative”), this new emphasis would essentially determine all hiring and investment decisions UVM made in the future.
In response, the college’s Student Government Association promptly announced its opposition to the plan, saying it “will have a negative impact on the quality of undergraduate education.”
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Alex on May 24, 2010 7:15 PM:
This is definitely true. At Dartmouth COLLEGE (not UNIVERSITY), I was never taught by a grad student/teaching assistant. You need to have some research focus to attract top minds, but the primary focus needs to be on professors who want to teach students.
Greg on May 24, 2010 7:19 PM:
During my undergrad at Michigan in the late '80s and early '90s, it was clear that the school wanted the big grants aimed at the sciences and that many of the university's day-to-day resources were being funneled in those directions. The president of the university at the time had been a physics prof and saw everything through the lens of big money.
Supposedly there was a backlash that refocused resources on the undergrad colleges within the university, but I have no real evidence other than some alumni magazine articles to back up that claim. The U of M I went to was very different than the school my parents attended 30 years earlier. I suspect it is even more "corporate" now, and I'd venture that most tier 1 large state schools are in the same boat.
It's all about the Benjamins.
Matt Weiner on May 24, 2010 7:26 PM:
The UVM faculty senate and Graduate College also voted to protest the TRI project -- see Tom Streeter's excellent comment to this article.
I'm not sure it's as simple as research vs. teaching, though. One concern is that the TRIs will redirect research funding away from the faculty who are not involved in the TRI areas. But undergraduate teaching is a concern; UVM has begun to rely more on large classes, and many faculty (as well as the students) would like to see them devoting money to reversing that. I'm not sure that research funding at most universities involves this sort of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
R on May 24, 2010 7:39 PM:
It's been amusingly sad to watch the UVM conversations from 40 miles south. A while back, the then-president of Middlebury College announced a focus on "Peaks of Excellence." That initiative died a quiet death, after it became clear that (1) some of the "peaks" were wishful thinking and not based in any reality, and (2) it doesn't really help morale or the PR folks (excuse me -- "External Affairs") to suggest that some animals are more equal than others. Of course this was at an undergraduate liberal arts college, not a university trying to polish its image as a research institution. But it's still unclear whether the UVM administration stole the "peaks" lingo (in which case why didn't they pay attention to the consequences?), or came up with it on their own.
Daniel Luzer on May 24, 2010 7:48 PM:
@ R: Specific use of the word "peaks" I'm not so sure about, but the whole "spires of excellence strategy" comes from a plan dreamed up by Frederick Terman, who was provost of Stanford in the 1960s. Later Michigan and Berkeley used "spires of excellence strategy" concepts in their development plans.