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| EDITORIAL: Reward professors who teach well: Pay attention |
|
One of the best professors in Texas, according to a a pair of national
teaching foundations, has his office in Fondren Library.
History Professor and Director of Asian Studies Richard J. Smith's was named Texas Professor of the Year Oct. 8 by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. His honor is worth celebrating. Good teaching, after all, can change the course of people's lives. And while anyone can teach badly, teaching well is incredibly hard. Now would be the time to encourage Rice to reward such efforts. But more important than money or tenure is feedback from students. Even the best of teachers at Rice must walk into a classroom where students are sleeping, gossiping or staring at the ceiling. And while students do and should be able to choose what they do inside a classroom, and some faculty members richly deserve demonstrations of inattention, it does act as a certain disincentive for the instructor. In a sense, we get the teaching we deserve. If we want great teaching, we can reward good professors by taking their classes, doing the reading and letting them know we appreciate the work they're doing.
This item appeared in the Opinion section of the October 16, 1998 issue. |
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