Prof. Allan Bard, a highly respected chemist, scientist, author, and teacher at the University of Texas, recently contributed an editorial titled “It’s Not the Money, Stupid!” to the American Chemical Society’s weekly magazine C&E News (Oct. 11, 2010). He begins with:
“The culture of academic research has shifted over
the past 50 years from research evaluation based on teaching,
creativity, and productivity to one based simply on the amount of money
(often now called “resources”) raised. A number of factors have played a
role in this change: the “business model” for universities, an
increased willingness to accept greed as a virtue in our society and as a
measure of success, and a desire for an easy “objective” measure of
something that is otherwise difficult to quantify.As a result, we have reached the point where faculty members are
judged more by the amount of research funds they have raised, primarily
from government agencies, than by the accomplishments that flow from the
funding. Obtaining high levels of funding is considered not only
desirable, but absolutely necessary, and I’ve been party to tenure
discussions that have centered on this (for example, on the need for
“scoring two major grants”) rather than on the quality of work.”
To my surprise, these comments have raised more than a few hackles and C&E News felt compelled to present both sides in a “Point/Counterpoint” (Dec. 13, 2010). Which raises the question, what is expected from academic scientists?
This question has different answers at different institutions. An undergraduate college like Reed presumably expects its faculty to focus on teaching to a much greater degree than a research university does, but expectations everywhere seem to be shifting towards research, even at Reed. For example, recent changes in the College’s sabbatical program are clearly designed to reward successful researchers.
Prof. Bard worries about the corrosive effects of money on research and how it changes the perceptions of future scientists. He writes, “No wonder we have problems with attracting good young people to careers
in academic science despite large outreach efforts. If working closely
with students and doing long-term fundamental research is not the goal
and money is the important thing, there are more lucrative professions
than academic ones for them to pursue.”
In the Point/Counterpoint, Profs. Glenn Prestwich and Charles Wight take another view. They claim that “a new generation of faculty entrepreneurs has emerged: We identify and
solve real-world problems, translate basic research into applied
technology, and create products as well as publications. We understand
the importance of market pull, and we have learned the business of
science. Rather than teaching only to the 5% who will become professors
and physicians, we provide real-world skills to the 95% who will go on
to become politicians, business owners, writers, and company scientists.”
This last part about teaching “real-world skills to the 95%” seems rather fanciful to me. What useful real-world skill does a future politician discover in a chemistry course? When I crack open the latest editions of chemistry textbooks or examine chemistry course descriptions in university catalogs, I can’t find any evidence of the “business of science”. What Prestwich and Wight describe as “translational teaching” simply doesn’t exist at the undergraduate level, no matter who is doing the teaching (and one might argue that it doesn’t exist at the graduate level either, at least not in any organized fashion). It would be a tragedy if university/college administrators embraced an entrepreneurial model for faculty scientists in the expectation that it will give students more “real-world skills” or a better understanding of the “business of science”.
