Right, At Ohio State in the humanities, where I once taught, teachoing
didn't matter. They could use it as an excuse to zap you, but teaching
without research spelt death. Interestingly, the law school actually cared
about teaching, and had some of the best instruction I have ever had.
Kalamazoo College, where I taught before I went to OSU, cared only about
teaching, and probably evaluated that entirely on the basis of student
evaluations. Actually K also cared about collegiality, which makes sense in
a community of that size. The student-evalution based approach did tend to
encourage a bit of dumbing down and pointless showmanship,a s well as grade
inflation.
--jks (a former academic)
>
>What is sad is that teaching is so little respected in hiring decisions. I
>have to say that I was incredibly spoiled getting to go to the small
>liberal
>arts college thing. At Amherst, students sat on hiring committees and
>student letters would kill a prof coming up for tenure if he or she stunk,
>so the faculty either were good teachers or learned how to do it at an
>acceptable level. It amazes me that at both Berkeley and Yale, really
>terrible teaching is allowed to exist and it makes almost no difference in
>hiring and tenure decisions.
>
>My basic attitude is that a good teacher, even with conservative politics,
>is a far more radical thing than a radical prof who sucks at teaching. A
>good teacher awakens excitement and engagement and I think that is
>ultimately more likely to lead to radical reevaluation of the world and
>possibilities.
>
>It is the deadening of imagination that most breeds apathy and acceptance
>of
>the status quo.
>
>It's not that I denigrate radical scholarship, since I'm a good consumer of
>it, but there is no question in my mind that my radicalism was more fed by
>the good teachers I had early in life, and not necessarily just the radical
>ones, far more than any particular book I may have read.
>
>-- Nathan Newman
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Michael Yates" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Sent: Monday, March 05, 2001 8:39 PM
>Subject: [PEN-L:8698] Re: Re: farewell to academe
>
>
>Nathan,
>
>Your comments are very well taken. Two comments: Most teachers are not
>very good at it and do not take the time to learn how to teach
>effectively. Second, new teachers, including progressives, say that
>they cannot make waves til they get tenure. But passivity becomes a
>habit, and it is rare inded that a professor who kept quiet for 7 years
>suddenly becomes a troublemaker. I have supported for tenure some
>persons with whom I had sharp political disagreements just because they
>were troublemakers from the start.
>
>Michael Yates
>
>Nathan Newman wrote:
> >
> > I have to say that I have great sympathy for Michael's commentary on
>left
> > academia. I never really intended to be an academic, although there
>were
> > short periods when I considered it while working on my Ph.D., but the
> > biggest deterrent was that I didn't want "to be" any of the folks I saw
>in
> > the professoriat-- talking the talk but doing almost nothing to engage
>snip
>
>
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