H
Battalion/Pags L _
April a «;o rC
Dilemma
(continued from page 1)
said.
Groot also denied that the
University administration places
more emphasis on research.
“I am personally convinced
that A&M does not pay people
more because they’re doing re
search,” Groot said.
If the administration found
the research of a faculty mem
ber excellent but his teaching
poor, it would not approve a sal
ary raise, he said.
However, O’Connor, who has
served on the personnel and te
nure committee that makes deci
sions on promotion and tenure
in his department, said the com
mittee looks at research dollars
and the number of publications
a faculty member has, but relies
more or less on heresay to evalu
ate teaching.
“In the College of Science, in
(the) nine years we have given
Clergyman
backs gay
in pulpit
teaching evaluations in our clas
ses, they have never been col
lected and looked at,” he said.
But Groot said such surveys
are difficult to measure because
students with good grades in a
class tend to give a teacher a
higher rating, while students
with bad grades might give him
a lower rating.
Sending someone to monitor
the teacher’s performance in the
classroom also would be an un
reliable method of measuring
his performance since the
teacher would be aware of the
person’s presence, Groot said.
“It’s really very dif ficult to get
a real objective view of a faculty
member, and this is a problem
not just at A&M — it’s a national
problem,” he said.
Patrick Taylor, president of
Students for Academic Excell
ence, said student surveys would
be more effective if the depart
ments looked at evaluations
from a cross-section of each
class.
Taylor and SAE stress the im
portance of students letting
their instructors know whether
they are doing a good or bad job
of teaching.
Groot, O’Connor and Taylor
all seem to agree research and
teaching go hand-in-hand, but
O’Connor said he has his doubts
about whether research,
teaching and service are being
treated equally by the faculty or
the administration.
A teacher is faced with a deci
sion of how much time he
should spend on each of the
three responsibilities, O’Connor
said.
“When they sit down to evalu
ate your work for a merit raise,
or you know that you’re coming
up for a tenure decision, or
you’re hoping to get promoted,
if what they look at is mostly
your research effort, then ... in
order to survive in that system
you’ve got to put most of your
time and effort on that,” O’Con
nor said.
He said he does not know of
anyone who is not trying to do a
good job at teaching, research
and service, but the pressure to
time away
do research takes
from teaching.
“If it comes down to where
you’ve got to feed a family and
you ... would like to have your
ego flattered — you’d like to be a
full professor, too —- you have
got to put a major ef fort on that
research,” O’Connor said.
But Groot said it is not true
that teaching is only casually
mentioned, and the administra
tion does not consider research
as the most important element
in considering promotion or te
nure.
“I’m sitting in all meetings
when they (the administration)
review the salaries for all indi
viduals,” Groot said. “They do
not take into consideration
whether a person is an outstand
ing researcher.”
He said the University plans
to build a teaching excellence
center, which will prove the
administration is concerned
with teaching.
However, O’Connor said the
administration need not spend
the money on such centers, but
should give faculty the oppor
tunity to choose from teaching,
research and service.
Outstanding researchers
could teach graduate classes,
where students do not need as
much assistance, and spend
most of their time doing re
search, he said.
Outstanding teachers could
spend most of their time in clas
srooms with undergraduates,
while good advisers would have
time to spend with students as
well as teach and still maintain
enough research to keep cur
rent in their fields,
said.
Groot said profess^
extensive research i
mainly graduate classy
University already as»
on the basis of what a J
does well.
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New officers to be elected for the 1982-83
school year.
Everyone Welcome
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Whipped Potatoes
Your Choice of
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TUESDAY EVENING
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Two Cheese and
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Patio Style Pinto Beans
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Choice of one
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Yankee Pot Roast
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Mashed
Potato w
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Roll or Corn Bread & Butter
Tea or Coffee
SUNDAY SPECIAL
NOON and E
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ROAST TURKEY Dll
Served with
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Roll or Corn Bread - Bultei
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Giblet Gravy
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4:30 harbeque Tickets $4 - MSC
the Park by Mt. Aggie
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Muster Ceremony
6:30 G. Rollie White
UNI ^ F* s 1 T Y
Speaker: William Heye