Do What You Like: the Separation of Teaching and Research

I have a major request for change in higher education:  that professors have more choice over what primary responsibilities they have: teaching or research.  This lets them be free to pursue the direction that interests them the most.  This is where the professor can have the most impact, doing the research they love or teaching the class they can make the most engaging.  Shifting the responsibilities around to professors that prefer the work is a common-sense idea that shouldn’t have downsides.  It reminds of an excellent talk Dan Pink gave at the RSA [https://youtu.be/u6XAPnuFjJc]:

This is not the sort of the thing that I would have done 3 years ago before I knew this research.  I would have said: “you want people to be innovative? Give them a frikin’ innovation bonus.  If you do something cool, I’ll give you $2,500”.  They’re not doing this at all.  They’re essentially saying: “You probably want to do something interesting, let me just get out of your way”.  One day of autonomy produces things that had never emerged.

My undergraduate university didn’t subscribe to this approach at all.  Multiple professors were visibly disgruntled about the teaching they were obviously pushed towards, and teachers that went above what most classes offer were rarely given recognition of their work and efforts.  Traditional incentives, like salary and promotions, do not directly lead to better professor performance.  I’m saddened to say I don’t see these changes happening soon because universities can’t adjust easily to match enrollments to only the professors that wish to teach.

I’m frankly surprised that universities that prioritize research even offer undergraduate degrees.  It would seem that nearly all graduate students and professors are expected to dedicate a good portion of their time and effort to teaching the undergraduates, who have relatively little research output.  Perhaps it is an accreditation requirement, or a more stable income source (tuition) than research.  I do see how there’s a mutual benefit of having them both working together, but nearly all universities I’ve seen either offer just undergraduate degrees or undergraduate + graduate degrees in their disciplines.