Professors should place more value on teaching

Friday, February 6, 1998

Professors should place more value on teaching

RESEARCH: Everyone suffers when instruction takes

a back seat to research

By Howayda Aly

Before I entered UCLA as a freshman in 1994, I read the Daily
Bruin from my friends who attended UCLA at the time. Even before I
knew I was accepted, I would read the The Bruin every now and then
to get a feel for the ideologies which the campus reflected through
its articles.

Sometimes I would read in the Viewpoint section about students’
complaints of how huge the classes were in terms of the number of
people per lecture, and I would also read the common saying of how
each UCLA student is just a number.

Of course, every student who wishes to learn would appreciate a
smaller classroom and back-and-forth interaction with the professor
on a first-name basis. This enhances the educational atmosphere and
gives meaning to university-attained knowledge.

However, that’s why we have a choice, and someone who chooses
UCLA knows the positive and negative ramifications that a campus
catering to 35,000 students has to offer. I can’t say that I have
felt as if I have only been a face among the faces at UCLA all the
time, because the would-be gratification of attending an otherwise
smaller campus has been fulfilled through smaller classes along the
way and seminars where the number of students rarely exceeded 15
students.

Thus, I expected many things when I agreed to attend UCLA; the
long lines at Murphy Hall at financial aid deadlines, construction
mazes and Bruin Walk attackers (I mean solicitors) posed no problem
at all.

They were all trivial and at times amusing matters. However,
never did I expect research to take priority over education. For
the sake of being misunderstood, I advocate research, and think
that it’s one of the great things that distinguishes UCLA from
other universities. Without research, mankind cannot go forward as
we are rapidly approaching the next century.

It is research that has enabled us to find vaccines for many
ailments that, once thought of as deadly, are now trifling
inconveniences. And it is research that will hopefully lead us to
cure serious diseases such as cancer.

Nevertheless, what I’m disputing is when research interferes
with education.

How many of you have taken a class when you feel as if the
professor is an expert on the subject, yet cannot communicate that
knowledge to you? I realize this could be due to a lack of
understanding on the student’s part, which could be solved using
various channels as tutoring, a professor’s office hours or even
the discussion section of that class. But when the majority of the
class agrees that a professor isn’t an adequate teacher of a given
subject despite his degrees and research status in the university,
then there is a problem.

One needs to understand that teaching is an ability that not
everyone possesses. A doctorate might deem somebody an expert on a
specific subject; however, it does not give him or her an automatic
license to teach, which is OK.

Just like some people can draw and some can’t, some can teach
and some can’t. There are talents and strengths that some have and
some do not.

Therefore when a student encounters a situation where not once,
not twice, but more than three times, feels that going to class is
a waste, then something is wrong.

Measures have been implemented to ensure that the department
gets feedback from students regarding courses and professors such
as evaluations at the end of the term.

However, I highly doubt that any negative remarks from students
can change the teaching status of a professor who contributes to
the university through research time and effort. In the end the
student has minimal knowledge of the subject along with a bad
letter grade.

I highly encourage the university, for the students’ sakes, to
find a better way of assessing whether a professor is capable of
teaching a university course regardless of his or her research
position.

It’s enough that one goes through the process of learning in an
atmosphere that fosters competition dictated by grading curves,
graduate school requirements and students who hesitate to share
notes with one another. Let’s not add professors who do an
unsatisfactory job of teaching.