I haven’t yet read the piece that Rick discusses below; I’m looking forward to it. But, Rick, I want to ask you: If one believes your second proposition, the adage that “the problem is, it’s the same third,” does that necessarily mean one buys the first proposition — that more engaged scholars will also be more engaged teachers?
I do believe it’s often the same third that excels across the whole range of activities, although putting it in that waggish way is perhaps a little unfair; the number is definitely higher than that for some faculties, and some of those people outside the “one-third” are either doing a great job along one or two of the axes or a fair-to-good job along all three. And I do tend to echo the proposition that more engaged scholars make for more engaged teachers, and vice versa.
But lately I’ve been wondering whether we, or at least I, have not become a little reflexive in assuming that this is true. Is it necessarily the case? Aren’t there also plenty of people who are engaged scholars but disengaged teachers, or highly engaged teachers who don’t write much if at all? Can we really say that being a good or energetic scholar conduces to good teaching or vice versa? Before accepting what has become something of an academic’s bromide, I think we should give it a dip in the proverbial acid bath.
It is possible that there is correlation but no causation here. It is even more possible that both qualities — energetic teaching and energetic scholarship — are siblings, children of the same causal parent, rather than being in a causal relationship with each other. A person who is engaged, energetic, and committed to her job in general may also be committed and engaged as both a teacher and a scholar. Maybe she finds ways of making those two things symbiotic — indeed, maybe she is the kind of person who creates and exploits many synergies in many areas of her professional and personal life — but the root cause is the sense of energy she brings to all her commitments rather than any relationship between teaching and scholarship.
Don’t get me wrong: I am deeply committed to both teaching and scholarship; I love both aspects of my job; and in my case, I believe each has been helpful in advancing the other. But if I’m the kind of person who is apt to get the most out of my job (occasional bouts of blogging or computer Solitaire or surgery notwithstanding), I would think that, wouldn’t I? I am just not sure that we should placidly accept the proposition that more energetic teachers are more energetic scholars, or vice versa, because one has something to do with the other. They may have little or nothing to do with each other; and it would be useful to keep that in mind, so that we can properly value people who are engaged along some lines but not others and leave it at that, or think more creatively about ways to get them involved in the aspects of their academic responsibilities that they are less keen on. What’s more, come tenure and promotion time, perhaps we should not assume that junior faculty who seem engaged along one line of their job are necessarily going to be, or remain, engaged across every aspect of the job.
Posted by Paul Horwitz on May 1, 2008 at 11:48 AM
Comments
Rick, thanks. I agree that neither of the arguments you relate at the end of your email are necessarily true and that both can be exasperating — largely because in both cases, the argument is made to sound as if the person is a dedicated teacher who simply cannot tear time away from teaching, when he or she may simply be uninspired as *both* a teacher *and* a scholar.
Posted by: Paul Horwitz | May 2, 2008 3:12:06 PM
Paul, your comments are, I think, on target, and provide a fair corrective to my own, perhaps too-quick post. You must be right that the connection (between good teaching and an engaged scholarly life) is not a *necessary* one. But, it does strike me (and, I gather, you) as a very-common one. I guess (and maybe this was / is unfair) I was letting show some of my exasperation with the claim one sometimes hears that those who push, in the legal academy, for more scholarly engagement are *necessarily* sacrificing teaching and students’ interests, and also with the sometimes-offered justification for not writing, i.e., “I’m too dedicated to my teaching”.
Posted by: Rick Garnett | May 2, 2008 2:24:05 PM
Mark, on that last point, William Van Alstyne had a good short piece a while back on teaching constitutional law in which he suggested, to the best of my recollection, that there is a point, a few years into teaching a subject, that is the apex — a point at which you understand the cases and the subject well enough to do a bang-up job of teaching it, but before the ambiguities and nuances have become so noticeable and overwhelming as to defeat your ability to teach the material cleanly at a level that is reasonable for a class full of students. I am not in complete agreement with that, but certainly there are significant elements of truth to what he says. It’s worth looking up.
Posted by: Paul Horwitz | May 1, 2008 11:34:10 PM
What I’ve observed in my short time teaching has generally confirmed the view that committed scholars tend also to be committed teachers. As a student I always felt like this ran only in one direction – all the good teachers I had also were good scholars, but some excellent scholars were not good teachers. I have personally found teaching and research mutually reinforcing, for the most part. But one thing I have noticed more recently is that, when I’m teaching the subjects about which I have thought the most – generally meaning those about which I’ve written – I actually have a harder time. I think this is in part because I feel pressure to take what I’ve been researching and make it part of the class, and sometimes it just doesn’t work especially well. It’s also, I think, because the more I know about a subject, the more I see the ambiguities. I’m happy to wallow in those, but students often are not – at least at first. When I teach subjects that I understand more superficially, everything seems more straightforward.
Posted by: Mark McKenna | May 1, 2008 8:48:02 PM
I appreciate AnonProf’s comment, but let me add a note of clarification. AnonProf, as I read his/her comment, is suggesting that law schools only pay lip service to good teaching, and thus that the smart money is on focusing on scholarship, at least once you’ve attained a basic level of competence at teaching.
Maybe, maybe not. But I would suggest that this is a somewhat different question than the one I’m examining. I’m asking whether energetic teaching actually contributes to energetic scholarship, and vice versa. It’s on that point that I have registered my doubts — and only doubts; I haven’t registered a strong opinion to the contrary, I’ve just suggested that we ought not take any causal link here for granted. Speaking personally, I certainly will continue to devote more than minimal effort to my teaching, regardless of whether it has a marginally depressive effect on my career prospects, for the simple if idealistic reason that I believe that if you approach all aspects of your work with energy, commitment, and thoughtfulness, your career prospects will to some degree take care of themselves.
Posted by: Paul Horwitz | May 1, 2008 4:59:38 PM
I think Paul is right to sound the skeptical note he does. Haven’t we all encountered lots of folks who have essentially blown off teaching to spend more time writing? And isn’t devotion to teaching looked on askance by your faculty? It should be good enough, they say, but needn’t (and shouldn’t) be any better, right? After all, compared to prolific scholarship, teaching doesn’t count for much; it’s window dressing for just the reasons Sovern’s article articulates. It seems to me that any time above the minimum we spend on teaching is a lovely donation, but not particularly good for one’s career prospects — unless it’s in the seminar devoted to one’s own research agenda.
Posted by: AnonProf | May 1, 2008 4:42:49 PM
I am one of those who, like Paul, firmly believes that my teaching benefits from my research and vice versa. Does this necessarily translate equally to others? What I can say is that, in my experience, the existence of truly “committed” teaching and research never truly reveals itself until after tenure is granted.
Len
Posted by: Len Rotman | May 1, 2008 4:27:58 PM
Could it be a generational thing, at least in the legal academy? After all, scholarship has only been part of the deal outside the top-top schools only for about 25-30 years. Most people being hired today (and, say within the past 10-15 at the vast majority of schools) understand that teaching and scholarship both are part of the picture and, as a result, the teaching market now largely attracts, as serious candidates, those who are committed to and engergetic about both elements of the job. On the other hand, much of the much-discussed deadwood consists of people hired under a different set of professional expectations.
FWIW, my experience–as a student and a faculty member–is that the committed teachers were committed scholars and vice versa. Note that does not mean they were *good* at teaching; only that they were committed to it and took it seriously. Some people just are not good in the classroom, although they do care about it a great deal.
Posted by: Howard Wasserman | May 1, 2008 12:52:37 PM