Survey Suggests Teaching May Be Getting More Emphasis at Research Universities By DENISE K. MAGNER Academics who work at research universities have often said that it's important to balance scholarly work with teaching -- but everyone knows which of the two has taken precedence. Now a new survey suggests that teaching is no longer getting short shrift. Since the early 1990s, Robert M. Diamond and his colleagues at Syracuse University's Center for Instructional Development have monitored faculty members' attitudes toward their duties at research universities. In 1991, the center conducted a national survey of professors and administrators at 49 institutions and found that most perceived a "strong institutional emphasis on research," although they personally favored a balance between teaching and scholarship. The center recently completed a follow-up survey of 11 of the 49 institutions, financed by a $25,000 grant from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The results, released this month, reveal some surprising shifts in attitudes. In the 1991 survey, when asked whether their institutions favored research, teaching, or a balance between the two, 73 per cent of the faculty respondents reported that the emphasis was on scholarship. In the follow-up study, conducted in 1996, that proportion fell to 49 per cent. Similar shifts were apparent when the same question was posed to department heads, academic deans, and other administrators. "In the majority of institutions we studied, major changes in perceptions and priorities were taking place," said Dr. Diamond, who has just stepped down as director of the center to head the university's new Institute on Change in Higher Education. "You're finding more dollars going into teaching. You're finding more emphasis on teaching. And at some of these places, in the hiring process, you're finding a much clearer emphasis on teaching than you did five years ago, which is pretty important." However, he said, the institutional rhetoric about teaching is not always matched by the reality. Additional comments provided by some respondents in the survey suggested that promotion-and-tenure committees "are still behaving the way they always did" -- emphasizing research much more than teaching, he said. Still, Dr. Diamond viewed the findings as encouraging. Teaching has taken on greater importance at eight of the 11 institutions, respondents in the survey reported. That doesn't necessarily mean that teaching is valued above research, but that professors and administrators see the institution moving toward a more even balance between the two areas than existed five years ago, he said. The "most pronounced" shift in attitudes toward teaching came from academic deans, a report on the survey said. In 1991, 45 per cent of them said their institutions should emphasize research, 20 per cent preferred teaching, and 35 per cent favored a balance between the two. In the new survey, only 17 per cent felt that their institutions should emphasize research, 34 per cent said teaching, and 50 per cent said the two duties should be balanced. Aside from their institutions' stance on teaching versus research, participants in the 1996 survey reported that their personal priorities had changed since 1991. In nine of the 11 institutions, the number of professors and administrators reporting a strong personal emphasis on research declined. The Syracuse center's report does not identify the 11 institutions that participated in the follow-up study, but Dr. Diamond said they were a representative sample of public and private universities. Copies of the report, "Changing Priorities at Research Universities: 1991-1996," are being sent to participating institutions. A limited number of additional copies are available free from the Center for Instructional Development, Syracuse University, 111 Waverly Avenue, Suite 220, Syracuse, N.Y. 13244-2320; (315) 443-1524. Copyright (c) 1998 by The Chronicle of Higher Education http://chronicle.com Date: 01/09/98 Section: The Faculty Page: A16

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