In my department, the only faculty positions are for researchers. This becomes a problem when researchers only want to do research, but, because of contractual obligations, are forced to teach 1, 2 or even 3 classes each semester. This is far from ideal for these researchers.
I know that in many colleges and universities in the United States there are tenure track positions for research faculty and teaching faculty (is it the same elsewhere?). In my mind, this makes the most sense because the researchers get to do research, the teachers get to teach, and everyone is happy.
So, why isn’t this the case here? There is still the very much archaic feeling that teaching is “second class” to research. That, if there were teaching faculty, they would be treated as “lesser” faculty, and this just isn’t fair.
Personally, this is garbage (to put it nicely). I know many people who would love the opportunity to teach full time, with job security, and not have to do research (I am one of them). Why not get people who love what they do to do what they want to do? Research would be done more effectively and efficiently, and the level of teaching would increase exponentially.
Many of our universities fully admit that their focus is not on teaching – that they are research institutions (even though some pride themselves as giving “the best” undergraduate experience). Why not have both? It’s an easy enough fix, and imagine how much better a university would be if they had great research and great teaching!
What is the situation at your university or in your department? Are there research tenure tracks and teaching tenure tracks? Do you believe there is a benefit to having both, or is it better to only have researchers?
“I know many people who would love the opportunity to teach full time, with job security, and not have to do research (I am one of them).”
So am I! This is why I even got a PhD in the first place. I just wanted to teach at university level. There are a few teaching jobs (my former department had 2, on top of 50 research faculty who also taught) but not enough by far to give work to everyone who wants one.
I pretty much gave up on teaching as a full-time career a while ago. If I could teach on the side, one course a year, on top of another job, I’d be very happy. As long as that other job isn’t research =P
Grumpy pants.
I’m not grumpy, I’m
SleepyDopeySneezyjust being realistic.I haven’t seen many (if any) tenure-track teaching-only university positions here; it seems that more universities are relying on adjunct faculty (non-tenured) to teach courses. Unfortunately, these positions pay much less than tenured positions.
There are also teaching positions available at two-year colleges, but I don’t think they carry tenure.
Forgot to mention the Brown link was only an example; I’m not anywhere near Brown and was too lazy to look for specific positions at the local U website :)
I hear ya, Eva! That’s what makes this whole thing so frustrating. I know a lot of professors here don’t even want to teach and would be happy to get rid of their teaching load to someone who wants to teach for a living.
Ken – yeah, that’s the same here. They sometimes hire sessionals, and the pay is horrendous (about the same as a TA for the same course!). But, they’re not even doing that now because of the hiring freeze :P
It’s no different around here, you have to do research to teach – and I think whining about not wanting to teach and how much time it takes away from research is also mandatory if you are going to teach :)
I know of some professors that are into teaching fulltime, but they have done all the ground work setting up their own labs and so and then kind of pushed the lab over to some senior people in the lab. While still officially in research, they spend their time teaching and planning for courses and so on. But that seems like a very long detour.
There is one benefit with having active researchers teach though, and that is that you as a student will meat all the interesting researchers doing the work you might be interested in joining for a project or you thesis. In most courses I’ve taken we’ve had different lecturers for each topic, so you really get the chance to meet a broad selection of scientist. But then again quite a few of them are really disinterested in teaching and that is not great for the quality of lectures, of course.
And finally, after this long rant, good luck finding a teaching position :)
There is one benefit with having active researchers teach though, and that is that you as a student will meat all the interesting researchers…
Yes, I can definitely see the benefit in that, but only if the researcher is a good teacher/speaker. I just find that, if the person isn’t interested in teaching, they’re not a good speaker and make even the most exciting topics seem boring. That’s not so good for getting students interested in research.
If we had great teachers getting students excited about the material, then telling them about what research is being done in the department, it could benefit everyone.
I don’t know – perhaps I’m too idealistic. Or (more likely) I just want a full-time teaching job (without having to go back to school again) and want to show how good it could be! LOL
Alyssa – there are also full-time community college teaching positions (places like Centennial, Seneca, etc. – you know what I mean since we’re in the same geographic area). I know a few PhDs who’ve taken these positions, but they’re very hard to obtain, usually requiring some years in the trenches as part of their very large pool of part-time/occasional instructors. Salary is lower than university academic positions (not surprisingly). A bigger problem for many is that the programs available are not suitable to our skills or background (astronomy, for example ;)).
I think there’s a real cultural divide at universities – I imagine a full-time, non-research teaching position would get very little respect at the departmental level, as compared with a tenured research position where the faculty member is pulling in valuable dollars (and overhead). On the other hand, there are certainly universities that are more “teaching friendly” than others (I’m thinking smaller ones, like Trent, or Mount Allison – you probably know others). But separate F/T, tenured, teaching vs. research positions – I can’t see that happening at the university level, at least not in this country.