Some professors are here to teach; others focus on their own work. A majority fit somewhere in the middle, working hard to strike a balance between creative output and teaching.
As education debates crystallize around undergraduates’ job prospects, we need to remember UNC exists not only to teach but also to support professors and students in the astonishing, complex project of knowledge production.
Professors paint murals, evaluate HIV splicing, compose poetry, challenge school segregation and further virtual reality.
UNC slowly continues to democratize, extending the promise of higher education to most. In doing so, UNC accepts a role in righting historic wrongs.
To disrupt the wealthy white man’s world, we must disrupt the wealthy white man’s pedagogy. Innovative and dynamic teaching is instrumental — and we are in luck.
From the N.C. General Assembly’s $100 million cuts to UNC funding, to the Boston Consulting Group-led reorganization of New Orleans public schools, disruptive change is hot.
Pedagogy and research will both come under greater scrutiny in the market-focused narrative of the New University.
UNC should steer clear of test-centered teacher evaluation. In maintaining its commitment to professors’ posts as teachers and as academics, we must be alert to the balance of that dual role and be mindful of the tremendous burden these two tasks can bring to bear.
We must take care that expanding pedagogical expectations do not come at the expense of professors’ other work, work which forms the creative heart of the University.
