Candidate questioned by LSU faculty

The only candidate for the job of leading the LSU System told faculty Friday that he supports tenure, which protects jobs but has been under fire at some universities.

F. King Alexander also said he did not know if tuition would increase at LSU under his watch. Alexander said tuition is a complex issue with a lot of variables.

The LSU Board of Supervisors earlier this week named Alexander, who is currently the president of California State University at Long Beach, as its candidate for president/chancellor to run the LSU Ssystem and the Baton Rouge flagship campus. The LSU system is made up of four academic campuses; a law school; agricultural center; a biomedical research center; two health science centers; and 10 public hospitals and related outpatient clinics around the state.

The LSU board has not begun speaking to him in earnest about a contract, Alexander said. He refused to say how much money he would seek.

Alexander came to Baton Rouge on Thursday and spoke to students. On Friday he spent an 1 hour and 40 minutes answering questions from the faculty.

Some LSU faculty challenged Alexander’s academic credentials.

Alexander said he ran a research program at the University of Illinois and was offered tenure there.

“You simply can’t be a great teacher without conducting research,” Alexander told about 80 members in the audience and 150 watchers online.

“My research drove my agenda and my itinerary in the classroom,” Alexander said, adding that he still conducts research and still publishes on higher education financing.

Alexander said tenure protects research.

Several state universities — Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa, for instance — have challenged the need for tenure, a protection that makes it very hard to fire professors.

“The beauty of tenure is that it protects our faculty from external pressures. And when people say tenure needs to be eliminated, I can cite many examples of where intrusion from the outside tried to limit many of our faculty to conduct invaluable research,” Alexander said.

But some professors see tenure as an entitlement and that feeds those who want to eliminate the job protection.

Tammy Dugas said she came from Shreveport to ask questions on behalf of faculty and staff at the LSU Medical School there. She said employees were concerned about their futures as LSU moves to privatize the public hospital in Shreveport, which provides funding and training for medical students.

“The comment from one of my faculty was ‘Save us,’ ” Dugas said.

Alexander said he did not know enough specifics of the structure and financing to comment. “I am still out of the loop,” Alexander said.

Alexander lunched with chancellors from other LSU campuses and visited with Gov. Bobby Jindal on Thursday. He was expected to watch the baseball game between LSU and Auburn on Friday night.

During his time at CSU Long Beach, graduation rates improved to about 9,000 degrees awarded each year. He organized the funding — partially using federal stimulus dollars — to build a $110 million Hall of Science during the height of the recession.

Comments

1) Comment by hemogoblin - 23/03/2013

Dr.Sadow, come visit LSU so you can learn all about research, grants, and teaching in the sciences. There are some very successful researchers here who are also the best teachers. You don't seem to grasp how university science works.

2) Comment by SuzanneMS - 23/03/2013

I didn't mean to imply that all great researchers make great teachers, and certainly at the undergraduate level, it is not necessary to be a great researcher to be a great teacher -- but we are talking about a Research I university with ambitions to be a member of the AAU, and that calls for quality research from every faculty member. AAU doesn't much care about teaching evaluations. As far as I know, no other "flagship" university is also a land-grant institution. Granted UC Berkeley was land-grant, the UC system moved the actual land-grant activities to Davis and other campuses. In most states, the land-grant is a Research II (I can never remember the new Carnegie designations) because it is more appropriate to their mission, which is to serve the needs of the people of the state through applied research and teaching. That's why land-grant institutions include agriculture, home economics (or whatever they call it today), nursing, education, engineering, and other applied fields. LSU is suffering from a split-personality -- it's trying to be a Research I and a land-sea-space-grant institution. Is it possible to reconcile these competing agendas? I don't know -- and more importantly, neither does Alexander. He'll do whatever his masters tell him for 5 years, before moving on to his next promotion.

3) Comment by jeffsadow - 23/03/2013

Much of the commenting here captures accurately the research/teaching debate, but neglects one important differentiation: not all research in created of equal value, or even close. In the STEM areas, I can see where downloads (but no lower than 2/2) to facilitate research and steering teaching to upper division and graduate coursework is valuable, because of the great practical impact it has. But to do the same in other areas is anywhere from an inefficient use resources to the ludicrous. I can tell you 95 percent of the stuff published in my discipline (political science) is trivial to picayunish if not useless. It has very low value in trying to understand the human condition, which doesn't mean it shouldn't be done, but that it is rewarded way disproportionately to its actual usefulness. In my wife's discipline (English), it's probably 99 percent in this category. Almost all of it never would be missed if it never happened, and some of it is so trivial and/or advocacy literature that really tells us nothing if not actually misleads, it shouldn't have seen the light of day in the first place subsidized by tax dollars. This is why I would argue much greater value in these disciplines for those hired into them should be placed on teaching, where this teaching is demanding both in terms of knowledge imparted and in critical thinking skills. That would mean, for example, an English teacher at LSUBR would carry a 4/4 load and graduate student responsibilities (which should not be many because far more English Ph.D.'s get cranked out that are ever needed as only 6 percent ever get a tenure-track job and much less than half ever even end up teaching college at any level, but that's another story) but with few research expectations. Far better for these individuals to be good teachers than good researchers as well, for every student will take their classes as part of a GER.

4) Comment by Crawdaddy - 23/03/2013

Since Alexander used the word "simply" in his generalization, which I believe he would revisit were he to read the excellent comments below, I will say that based on my 35+ years of teaching graduate and undergraduate students, and being heavily involved in research and service, the "best" teachers I have encountered are "simply" those who care tremendously whether or not their students have sufficiently mastered the subject matter. I have found that if a faculty member truly cares enough about students to put the necessary effort into teaching, then research and service will be natural components in the process. And Dashwood, I don't know if am misinformed, but I grant that I may be "simply" jaded.....

5) Comment by dashwood - 23/03/2013

GardenVariety--I have been reading your recent posts with interest and believe that we are much more in agreement than in disagreement. Let me clarify a few points. First, I agree that Alexander's statement was pandering and that he does not have the record to give his statement much credibility. Second, I agree wholeheartedly that not all researchers are good teachers. There are some LSU faculty who focus so much on research that they do not give students the time of day. So, being a good researcher is not a sufficient condition to make someone a great teacher. Third, there are research faculty members who are, indeed, publishing a lot of CV filler. I blame the LSU culture for not holding faculty to a higher standard, and CV filler often gets counted the same as high-impact research. So: you are correct in stating that being an active researcher doesn't necessarily make someone a great teacher or, for that matter, even a respectable researcher. Fourth, when I refer to "entertainers," I am referring to the faculty members who are great at keeping students' interest but who are not current in their fields and who teach students outdated material. When students refer to such faculty members as "great" teachers, they are characterizing style over substance. With all this said, however, I do think that the best teachers at LSU are the ones who combine a cutting edge research agenda--and not CV filler--with an enthusiasm for their subject matter and a willingness to convey that enthusiasm to their students. There are faculty members at LSU who combine a high level of substance with an entertaining teaching style and who are devoted to integrating students into their research work. In my experience, the vast majority of the best teachers at LSU combine a cutting-edge research orientation and an engaging, enthusiastic teaching style. For a research university like LSU, these are the faculty members who we all should be emulating.

6) Comment by GardenVariety - 23/03/2013

As blunt as Crawdaddy was, he did not call research nonsense. He called Alexander's pandering statement nonsense; in the process, he touched on a topic with which we academicians, particularly in state universities and colleges, do a poor job of accepting. It is a topic which leads us to fight amongst ourselves at our expense, delivering us all into the hands of those who do not value what any of us does. First, let's dispel some fallacies. It is a faulty generalization, not to mention bad assumption, to say that researchers make better teachers or assume that all research is equal. Many researchers should be kept far away from the classroom, but come hell or high water, they should also be kept in labs, offices, and the field. Not-so-paradoxically, some are not able to be around other human beings, lacking interpersonal skills, which might be why they're outstanding researchers whose work is indispensable to the human race and world. You and I both know, dashwood, that some research is merely CV filler, careerist hackwork, self-promoting conference fodder, etc. In fact, because of the "publish-or-perish" orthodoxy that has dominated for at least thirty years, most faculty have had no choice to supplement high- quality work with faddish garbage. Another false premise is that teachers are less because they aren't doers/makers. Many teaching-focused faculty are the best ambassadors for the fields they teach, particularly during students' first two years at a university. If it weren't for their sometimes "entertaining" approach, young students might not have the "spark lit," choose an appropriate major, or stay in school. What is not a faulty generalization is that a sizable number of researching faculty who do teach only want to deal with seniors and grads. I can empathize, but I refuse to buy into the self-deception that all, if even most, research-teachers are Prometheus in corduroy. All that said, though, researchers (whether teaching or not) AND teachers (whether research-focused or not) will suffer if we don't band together to defend academia from the scoundrels, charlatans, and profiteers to which I've referred. Otherwise, those LSU diplomas that you eulogized will be as useful as garden hoses in Bayou Corne.

7) Comment by dashwood - 23/03/2013

Crawdaddy is misinformed about what makes a great university teacher. Of course the primary mission of the university is teaching, but the production of new knowledge is not a trivial part of LSU's mission. Without an active research agenda the question becomes WHAT a professor is teaching. The best teachers at LSU are those with active research agendas that keep them at the cutting edge of their fields of study, who integrate their undergraduate and graduate students into their research programs, and who convey to students the newest knowledge related to their fields of study. There are many LSU faculty members who fit into that mold--they are enthusiastic about what they study, convey that enthusiasm to their students, and teach them about the newest developments. On the other hand, there are quite a few excellent entertainers at LSU who are "great" in the classroom but who are not at the cutting edges of their fields and hence are teaching students warmed-over and outdated material, albeit in an entertaining way. I also know a few research-inactive faculty who are great teachers because they spend a great amount of time keeping up with the latest developments (even though they are not doing much research), but there are not many in this category. What differentiates many students with an LSU degree from those with a degree from non-research institutions is that the LSU students are getting a heavy dose of cutting edge material that is generated by faculty members' involvement in the research process.

8) Comment by GardenVariety - 23/03/2013

At the risk of being accused of equivocating, I generally agree with you as well. What I think Crawdaddy was getting at was two-fold: 1) the university's broader, tripartite purpose and 2) Alexander's willingness to say anything to provide cover for his practical appointment by LA's political and higher ed bosses. Now, let me pick up some of the points of disagreement and put them into context. LSU, going back to Emmert, shot itself in the foot when it attempted to become a research-first institution; that was an unrealistic stunt hatched by some of the same people who are now trying to turn LSU into a job-training facility. The goal of Master Plan I was to increase LSU's regional research clout in order to bring in more grant money and enrollment numbers. We see how that worked out. One consequence was that faculty members who were service-oriented were punished, even though they were using that service to contribute to both teaching and research. Another consequence: teaching was farmed out to instructors and grad students in order to free up faculty for research, but that didn't produce what the corporate types wanted because they don't understand the difference between conducting research and making widgets. Then, in another pr move (Master Plan II), the corporate-styled geniuses drastically cut and downgraded instructors in order to say that undergrads were being taught by faculty experts, brimming with insights and innovation from their research. Consequence: research, teaching, and service suffered. And, finally, when the Jindal anti-education juggernaut kicked into gear, it's been do more with less, fend for yourself, fulfill unfunded mandates, increase completion numbers, focus on workforce development, bring in more federal money, don't criticize the governor, generalize instead of specialize, ad infinitum. Instead of building a solid state land grant institution--equally committed to students, community, and research--LSU has been all over the map, which has made it exceedingly vulnerable to the scoundrels, charlatans, and profiteers now circling over it. Instead of focusing on being a research university at the expense of the two other legs of the higher ed stool, it should've been developing itself into the premier comprehensive, multifaceted UNIVERS-ity of the state (stress the broad-mindedness of university instead of single- mindedness). Nevertheless, if what Alexander portends comes to fruition, everything that you, Crawdaddy, and I have written and want is moot. Here's cold comfort: We're on the same side, one way or the other.

9) Comment by SuzanneMS - 23/03/2013

I wouldn't classify it as "nonsense," although clearly he meant to pander to his audience. You simply can't be a great teacher of graduate students at a research university without conducting research yourself. Research produces the raw materials of teaching by uncovering new truths, new realities, new relationships that form the foundation of teaching. Researchers who take their results into the classroom provide students with the most current knowledge, not just the knowledge in textbooks that were outdated when they were published. Teaching graduate students means mentoring them in the research process, which you can't do if you don't know what it is yourself. The mission of a research university is research, teaching, and service. The mission of a teaching college is teaching, research and service. This misunderstanding in Louisiana is partially responsible for the proliferation of "universities" and the lack of support for community and 4-year colleges -- and the dissatisfaction with the results of those "universities" which really should be, at most, 4-year colleges.

10) Comment by GardenVariety - 23/03/2013

100% agreed, Crawdaddy.

11) Comment by Crawdaddy - 22/03/2013

“You simply can’t be a great teacher without conducting research,” that statement is nonsense. There are a number of faculty members at LSU who are on teaching appointments, and some on clinical appointments, who do not do much if any research and are still great teachers. I realize that research brings in dollars and prestige, but the primary mission of the the university when considering the trinity -- teaching, research and service -- should be teaching the student.

12) Comment by GardenVariety - 22/03/2013

He met with the governor BEFORE meeting with faculty?! Oh, and what a reassuring comment: "I'm out of the loop." One can only hope that's the case; it seems, however, that he's well into "the loop," based on how intensely he's been courted. And of course he's going to say he believes in tenure and research to Friday's audience. He might be professionally unqualified and intellectually inferior to most in the room, but he's not stupid. This whole situation would be a farce if it didn't portend tragedy. Go, Tigers!