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Bringing Up Undergraduate Teaching
Dartmouth College is particularly known for the strength of its undergraduate education. As the College moves further still towards being a research university, shifting concentration to publishing from teaching and to specialized graduate programs from general liberal studies, undergraduate teaching must grow and improve as well, lest Dartmouth cede its position as a preeminent college for that of a mediocre university. While Dartmouth’s administration remains focused on, say, median beer consumption and sexual instruction, the Student Assembly’s Academic Affairs Committee, chaired by Aly Rahim ‘02, will soon propose an "Undergraduate Teaching Initiative," showing that at least one group on campus has its priorities straight. The UTI, which will be formally proposed as a resolution to the Student Assembly this term, has four components. The first would establish annual assessments of professors and mandate the gathering of statistical information relating to undergraduate teaching at Dartmouth and comparable schools. The second component would create a new award for professors who have particularly endeared themselves to their students. The third would award grants to professors to pursue "innovative teaching." Finally, the fourth component is a recommendation to the College to create a "Center for Undergraduate Teaching," modeled after the "Center for Research on Learning and Teaching" at the University of Michigan. The UTI is admirable in that it addresses a real problem: the quality of undergraduate teaching at Dartmouth has been dropping for years as the College’s goals have shifted elsewhere. Class sizes are larger than in the past; dependence upon visiting professors and graduate students is growing; tenure decisions are based upon a multitude of factors that were once considered unimportant (race, sex) or were less emphasized (published output); and, socially, the extinction of the ‘Gentleman’s ‘C’" often thrusts students, and their willing accomplices, professors, into sacrificing learning for grade points. Dartmouth is hardly unique in any of these concerns and, indeed has fared better than many schools. A friend at Harvard in his fourth year, for example, complains that he has yet to speak face to face with a full professor. Though the UTI’s focus is on the ball, its actual proposals are less encouraging. If anything the UTI demonstrates that there is no quick or easy fix to the problems of undergraduate teaching. Consider the proposal’s components from the first. Annual assessments of professors are of questionable value. Such surveys invariably suffer from respondent selection bias and, too often, confuse good feelings about a professor for strong teaching skills. One need only peruse the Student Assembly’s current Professor and Course Reviews to be convinced of this point. For example, a professor known among his colleagues and students in his department for his sluggish courses and uninspiring lectures, syllabi, and assignments is rated "A+," whatever that means. In more detail, he was rated to be "responsive to students in class," "available out of class," and good at inspiring interest in his subject. Four students contributed to the professor’s rating and none rated the homework or exams as being "too hard" or agreed that the course was paced "too quickly." In other words, expect an easy ‘A.’ Broader statistical measures, such as average class-sizes within departments, are less susceptible to this kind of confusion, but hardly require something so grand as an "annual assessment" to gather. Note as well that broader statistics can only be symptoms of a problem in teaching. Reducing class size, even dramatically, does not guarantee better learning. Annual assessment sounds good, but unless rigorously conceived and implemented will be entirely useless, and even if executed perfectly will be mostly inconclusive. Even more empty, though, is the proposal to create "Excellence in Teaching Awards." While pleasant for all concerned—the selected professor, his or her students, the Assembly’s Academic Affairs committee that would grant the award—the possibility of being chosen in what amounts to a lottery is hardly the incentive to inspire professors to excel in the classroom. Besides, any professor driven to excellence by the promise of a public ceremony and wall-plaque shouldn’t be eligible to win. Unlike the first two, the third component of the UTI, "Innovative Teaching Grants," has substance. The Student Assembly would award three grants of $1,000 each to professors to pursue innovative ideas in the classroom. Substantive? Sure. An appropriate use of Assembly funds? Probably not. Encouraging and funding curricular development is the domain of every department on campus. That money that would otherwise fund student activities must be so diverted raises red flags about the College’s and departments’ budgeting. More likely, this sort of development can be kept within existing mechanisms. Yet, grants to professors are not always inappropriate. They could be a great way to encourage professors to improve their own skills in ways that would benefit students. Grants could offset the costs of a professor learning to program computers when a synergy exists between that and the professor’s teaching area, taking a term off to study current developments in his or her field, or reading extensively in an entirely foreign field entirely when, again, synergy exists and teaching would benefit. Such grants would complement, rather than compete against, departmental funding. The UTI’s final component, which would lobby for the creation of a "Center for Undergraduate Teaching," is the proposal’s most complex. It is also the proposal’s most unnecessary. The Center would provide "various types of support and resources to ensure excellence in undergraduate teaching at the university." It would be run by "expert staff," which, in addition to dishing out advice, would monitor classes and provide feedback. While these responsibilities sound harmless enough, their vagary is troubling: what kinds of "support and resources" would be provided? Would classroom evaluations be used for anything other than the professor’s own benefit? And who would make up this "expert staff?" And, if they’re expert professors, why aren’t they teaching? To answer these questions, one need only research what is identified as the proposed Center’s model in a preliminary draft of the Academic Affairs Committee’s proposal: the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching at the University of Michigan. That center concerns itself with the mundane matters of instructional technology, student evaluation, and faculty research assistance, all of which are already addressed at Dartmouth. The benefit of tying such diverse services together within a single office is that office’s ability to use these mechanisms to lobby departments and faculty for "curricular reform." So, what is "curricular reform?" According to the Michigan Center’s mission statement, it is "the infusion of multiculturalism into the curriculum." It is "the creation of learning environments in which diverse students can learn and excel." Unscrambled, curricular reform is the injection of identity politics into all manner of study. This sort of curricular reform is the same loosening of expectations and abandonment of standards that contributed to today’s relative dearth of excellent undergraduate teaching. Couple that with the proposed Center’s evaluative role and an administration bent on enforcement of its narrow political ideology and such a Center as proposed could be awfully effective at keeping faculty politically in line. With its most important services already extant and its ideological function thankfully unfulfilled at present, the Center for Undergraduate Teaching is an idea whose time is never. As the UTI so ably demonstrates in its faults, there are no easy answers to the shortcomings of undergraduate teaching at Dartmouth. Quality of teaching always comes back to one difficult, hard-to-quantify variable, the professors themselves. Thus, more worthwhile proposals will concern the faculty and be constructed, by necessity, with the faculty’s involvement. Faculty hiring practices, pay, and tenure policies are all issues with great direct bearing on undergraduate education, but all must be addressed by the faculty and administration with the student body’s support and urging. No worthwhile proposal can come from the Student Assembly alone. Despite the sloppy construction of its actual proposals, if the Undergraduate Teaching Initiative focuses debate on the undergraduate academic experience, it will have served an admirable purpose. The big question is whether the faculty and administration are interested in discussing such matters, or if their thoughts are occupied, to the exclusion of all else, by matters like Thursday-morning quizzes and whether students spend their Friday nights dancing in the basement of the student center or fifty feet away in Psi Upsilon. The defeat of the UTI (if it is even brought to a vote) should not be the end of the Student Assembly’s interest in undergraduate teaching, but the beginning of campus-wide discussion. Rarely have these pages recommended the establishment of a committee for any purpose (especially when the Student Assembly is involved), but, in this case it might not be such a bad idea and certainly a better use of time than flinging around well-meaning but poorly-conceived resolutions.
— Andrew Grossman |
