“Teach or Perish”

Abstract

Such partly serious statements have permeated the social air of college coffee houses and dorm bull sessions for years. Critical comments now are taking on a more sophisticated tone and de serve the widespread national attention they are receiving. College and university faculties are being drawn dramatically and unmistakably to the point of a major decision which will affect the entire future. These basic teaching problems will not go away but will compound until a satisfactory solution is found. A first major problem involves college faculties who have been unwilling to meet the challenge of intellectual honesty in evaluating their own instruction. The recent call of research has brought an overpowering competition for the talents of many competent college instructors and a second major threat to competent teaching. And a new breed of college student has emerged to express his candid judgments on a wide range of issues in the world about him. One issue is his college education. As a natural outgrowth of that, producing high quality college teaching is a legiti mate and logical choice for his thoughtful at tention. There is little need to labor the fact of student dissatisfaction with current teaching practice in college. The problem is real and tangible, the solu tion is not. Problems well recognized are : Good teaching is not properly rewarded. There is not now a means of impersonally and objectively measuring the quality of teaching. Too many teachers do not understand or care to recognize the total process of teaching. Frequently professors are not available to stu dents outside of class lectures.