Why Colleges Cutting Courses For Professors

Sunday Insider

March 25, 1990|By New York Times

With a faculty shortage expected in the mid-1990s, many colleges and universities are discovering that the best way to attract and keep able professors is not with money but with light teaching loads.

But the eased teaching loads coincide with a rise in public concern about the quality of higher education.

When faculty members teach less often, students pay the price in the form of larger classes, less flexible course schedules and higher tuitions that result from the need to hire more faculty.

''You've got to give faculty time to prepare their classes,'' said Susan Reverby, associate professor of women's studies at Wellesley College.

''Students sometimes think we learned it all in graduate school and can just spout it out from yellowing notes.''

While this is undoubtedly true, the result in all too many institutions is that faculty members are spending less time doing what most people believe they are paid to do: They teach less.

Critics argue that American higher education has created a system that actively discourages teaching in favor of more prestigious pursuits like research and scholarship.

Teachers in community colleges normally carry the heaviest loads - typically four courses a semester, or eight a year.Many selective private institutions, like Brown University, have long required faculty members to teach only two courses a semester, or four a year.

Administrators blame the trend on competitive factors. The State University of New York at Albany recently lost in the bidding for an English professor partly because the University of Southern California required that only three courses be taught a year.

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