Thursday, October 16, 1997
Visiting lecturers’ integrity may save UCLA
TEACHING: Inept tenured
professors shortchanging students to do research
By Elizabeth Scandizzo
I don’t know about you guys, but I came to this university to
learn something. I have always wanted to expand my mind and broaden
my horizons, but somehow this institution believes that people come
here only because of the name UCLA has generated through its
high-profile research. This is not so for many of us.
What Professor Frymer wrote on Tuesday ("Both visiting
professors, students lose in education," Oct. 14) went right to the
heart of the matter. He gave a professor’s perspective on the
university’s attitude toward visiting lecturers and teaching – so
now here is a student’s.
I have seen many excellent professors come and go on account of
their status as "visiting lecturers" over the past years, and
frankly, last year was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Well, what do I mean by this?
People view public universities as degree factories that simply
produce mindless individuals with a piece of paper in hand. Little
thought is given to the idea that some students really want to
think and learn. Well, UCLA has finally lived up to that reputation
of the public university. They taunt us with professors who give a
damn about their students’ learning and thinking, and then throw
them away like an old pair of shoes.
When I first came to UCLA, I had no idea what a visiting
lecturer was, although I had a handful of them. It is a misleading
title. These people are not simply lecturers, but most (all the
ones I have had) are professors who have worked hard and deserve a
little more respect than the title suggests.
It is more than the title that proves how little respect these
professors are given. Many of them teach two to three times as many
classes as tenured professors. The university gets away with
abusing these professors who actually want to teach, because UCLA
is such a prestigious institution and they’ll do whatever it takes
to be here. They take many people who are young, energetic and
fresh from getting their doctorates and whittle them down to
nothing, making them want to leave so the university can move on
and abuse another young intellectual.
Well, guess what? This can’t last forever.
See, the university is making one grave error. Since these
professors want to be here so much that they will work without
tenure or benefits, they actually are determined to be good
teachers. They take the time to make lectures interesting and are
willing to work with their students instead of being obsessed with
research.
Take Professor Frymer, for example, who on any given day of
office hours will have a trail of students waiting in line down the
hall. He takes the time to speak to each and everyone of them. He
tries to solve their problems and actually will do it with a smile
on his face. Many of the tenured professors lecture out of
contractional obligation and see it as time taken away from their
research.
Last year, the university made a grave error that will not be
overlooked by many. One of these so-called "visiting lecturers,"
who incidentally won an award several years ago for his teaching,
did not have his contract renewed because he had been a visiting
lecturer for so many years that the university was not capable of
abusing him anymore under his conditions of employment.
He was one of the few professors who actually engaged the
students in debates – even in classes of 100 or more – and forced
students to think, not regurgitate. True, it takes longer and more
effort on the part of the professor to create courses in that
manner, but the results are a fulfilling and truly university-level
class. Why did the university not hire him? Apparently the research
he was doing was not something the university was interested in
having. Who cares that he had students who followed his classes
because he was such an excellent professor? Who cares that we lost
a man who was integral in showing students how to think? Who cares
that he was the man that cemented what I wanted to do with my life
because of the things he showed me?
How dare UCLA call itself a school? It is a research institution
with a couple of professors that run around trying to do their best
and make up for the other professors who are incapable of teaching.
If the university continues to bring in professors for a quarter, a
year or five years and then let them go on their merry way, in time
people will see this university for what it is. If they (those at
the top) care anything for this school, they would make it their
priority to have well educated, thinking students. After all, this
research institution could not exist without there being
students.
The current system is pathetic. These visiting lecturers are
some of the best professors I have had in my years here. Do
something to make sure they don’t leave, but don’t taunt us by
letting them teach a couple of great classes and then disposing of
them. Tenure them or do something about those that have tenure,
because even with their titles and recognition, many cannot teach
and should not teach. Hire teachers, not researchers.
Oh, and to you administrators, you’d better make sure that
Professor Frymer is not disposed of like the others, because he,
like many other lecturers, has so much to offer this campus even if
it isn’t being published.