[251] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Northeastern to review tenure?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Christopher D. Beland)
Fri Apr 27 18:23:34 2001
Message-Id: <200104272223.SAA13791@Press-Your-Luck.mit.edu>
To: Aimee L Smith <alsmith@MIT.EDU>
cc: mit-talk@MIT.EDU
In-reply-to: The events that comprise the history of the universe.
Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 18:23:00 -0400
From: "Christopher D. Beland" <beland@MIT.EDU>
> The myth that MIT is concerned about teaching quality is easily
> debunked when one learns that teaching ability is not at ALL a
> factor in tenure decisions.
I don't think that's entirely valid.
First of all, there's a problem of who you mean by "MIT". Certainly,
there are faculty who are very concerned about teaching quality, and
who are constantly seeking feedback from students, through course
evaluations and in class itself, to improve it. And certainly many
administrators care about teaching quality because degrading it
undermines the quality of students MIT can attract, which undermines
the quality of faculty MIT can attract, both of which undermine the
quality of research done here, which undermines teaching quality,
etc. MIT has official support for improving teaching quality through
many programs designed to help professors evaluate their teaching
styles, use new technology to improve delivery and interaction, and
through supporting course evaluations.
> The teaching award is well known as the "kiss of death" for
> untenured faculty. (Teaching was not considered for tenure at my
> undergrad university either.)
The teaching award got this reputation from three years in a row of
unfortunate coincidence.
But overall you are right; teaching is severely undervalued with
regard to tenure decisions. I would not go quite so far as to label
the MIT administration "Stalinist" or fascist, however, which just
seems incendiary and counterproductive to the issue at hand.
-B.
===============================================================
Christopher Beland - http://web.mit.edu/beland/www/contact.html
MIT STS/Course 6 (EECS) - MIT Athena User Interface Project
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