At most colleges and universities, promotion and the achieving of tenure depends far more on research output than it does on the quality of classroom instruction. Consequently, undergrads often complain that their teachers “phone it in,” treating the class in a perfunctory manner and hardly ever being available for student questions and concerns.


The University of North Carolina system is trying to do something about that — or at least trying to create the appearance that it is. In today’s Martin Center article, Anthony Hennen writes about its efforts at improving the quality of teaching.

For one thing, each of the system’s constituent institutions selects one faculty member as its best teacher and that individual receives a cash prize of $12,500. But as Hennen notes, exactly how the selection committees make their selections is unknown. Do they just rely on student evaluations, which are of very dubious value since many students give high scores to faculty who are entertaining and give high grades for little effort and low scores for demanding ones. If the way to get yourself in the running for an award is being popular, that would tend to be counter-productive.

Many of the UNC schools also have “teaching centers”that are supposed to help young faculty members improve in the classroom. That sounds good and might be useful, but there seems to be little evidence that they actually make a difference.

Also, the time demands on faculty are increasing, despite the constant growth of corps of administrators. Hennen writes of his exchange with NC State architecture professor Patrick Rand:

Administrative support ‘is as low as it has ever been,’ Rand added, which means that professors are doing work once done by administrators. The growth in administrators tends to be in student affairs or other non-academic areas of a college, rather than in support staff for professors.

Is the quality of teaching improving throughout the UNC system? We have no way of knowing.