Planning for the Research Mission of Public Universities in the Twenty-first Century
no. 101 - June 1997

The State of Research Endeavors: View from the Administrative Level

Larry Clark,
Dean of Arts and Sciences
University of Missouri-Columbia

The Apparent Teaching/Research Conflict

I believe much of the rhetoric that has suffused the debate about the conflict
between teaching and research is based more on myth than on reality; however, these myths are persistent. One recurring belief is that the university's reward system is out of kilter. (Interestingly, one can hear this charge leveled against both "sides" of the argument). I believe we do a reasonably good job of rewarding both outstanding researchers and outstanding teachers. Conversely, we have little problem in withholding rewards from researchers and teachers who are clearly nonproductive. Not unreasonably, however, the bulk of our faculty fall somewhere between these two extremes, and the problem with our reward system is that we find it difficult to evaluate both activities in any meaningful fashion.

The question we need to ask is simple: Is teaching seen as an adjunct to, an integral partner with, or an intrusion upon the research enterprise of the university? The answer is complex and ephemeral, depending upon the individual researcher and the nature of the institution where he/she works. Nevertheless, much of the apparent conflict between teaching and research grows from our attempts to pigeon-hole these activities into separate percentages of faculty time rather than to see each "job" as an integrated whole.

In my view, faculty who choose to work at major research institutions, by the very nature of those institutions, are responsible for the "scientific literacy" of all students, not just those fortunate enough to "assist" in a faculty laboratory. Our research faculty must help us decide what that highfalutin term means and be willing to accept responsibility for seeing that students have the opportunity at the very least to learn how to find solutions for problems that are scientifically based. The research enterprise must be integral to the teaching enterprise, and vice versa. We commit resources and provide opportunities for faculty to do research primarily because we think students--undergraduate and graduate alike--will be better educated in that atmosphere and under the tutelage of a cadre of active researchers than they will at an institution where the faculty may read avidly about research but do almost none of it.

Faculties of departments at major research universities must exercise their responsibility to ask tough questions about the research enterprise. Nothing is exempt: Not the nature of the questions scholars and scientists undertake to answer; not the potential impact of research on the discipline; not the implications--if any--inherent in the source of funding for the research; and not the relevance of the research to the curriculum of the particular department and university within which it occurs. On the other hand, the research community of scholars has the same responsibility to ask equally tough questions about the way students are taught and the curriculum that underpins that portion of the business of the university. Once these important responsibilities are accepted, the line between teaching and research blurs.

The Increasingly Interdisciplinary Nature of Research

Putting together interdisciplinary teams to find solutions to broad research questions is rapidly becoming the sine qua non for obtaining large grants in the hard sciences and the social sciences. Since I spend much of my time trying to erase the barriers created by the hard lines that have been drawn between disciplines and departments, I have become convinced that the department is no longer an administrative unit that can successfully manage today's academic enterprise.

In a flight of fancy, I once mused: What if we stripped departments of all administrative responsibilities except those best relegated to that level, such as the keeping of payroll and personnel records? We could deposit the names of all faculty in a large drum and draw out at random the number deemed to be the ideal size for such an administrative unit (say, 25?). The first group might be called the "Eagles," the next group the "Bears," etc., until all faculty were so assigned. It would then be up to faculty to find their own colleagues for all other aspects of their jobs that need collegial support. For instance, each person might associate with one particular group for research and quite a different group for teaching.

An interesting side question would be which group ought to be responsible for decisions about promotion and tenure. I would argue that the randomly assigned unit would be best, for unless faculty can convince colleagues who know little or nothing about their specialty of its value, their contributions to its knowledge base, and the effectiveness of their teaching, they may well not deserve advancement.

In all seriousness, tenure is not an entitlement; it must be earned and justified. If the very concept of tenure is to be preserved as a viable contract between faculty and the institution, we need to find ways to make our evaluation system less esoteric and to continue serious evaluation of faculty work after tenure has been granted. To do less will eventually lead to the undermining of public confidence in the university as a whole. By the same token, research is more often than not a multidisciplinary effort, and the best place to evaluate individual contributions to a project will probably not be the traditional department. In fact, the collegial research group may well shift from project to project, and individual faculty members may migrate to several groups during the course of a career.