Matters of State

Teaching is our top priority, and research helps us do it better

Zacharias

Then, as now, opinions differed as to the accuracy of that assessment, and many educators felt themselves unjustly maligned. But the report had the salutary effect of reviving a long-lasting debate over how we go about educating our children.

Should we get "back to basics"? Or adopt individualized and self-paced curricula? Do textbooks and teachers pay too little heed to the Anglo-European antecedents of our democracy at the expense of "cultural literacy"? Or are we remiss in failing to embrace multiculturalism?

The debate continues, and that is healthy. People who care passionately about education, though they may disagree about the form it takes, are less likely to be engulfed by mediocrity or deluded by simplistic solutions to complex problems.

That is one reason I welcome the expanding discourse on the directions and outcomes of higher education. For it seems to me that the spotlight of public attention has shifted to colleges and universities, and whether they are performing as they should.

It has been more than five years now since former Secretary of Education William Bennett made headlines with blanket criticisms of higher education, and Allan Bloom made the best-seller list with a frontal assault on universities (The Closing of the American Mind). But the flow of critical books and articles has only heightened since then.

In December, yet another blue-ribbon panel delivered its verdict in a report called "An American Imperative: Higher Expectations for Higher Education." It remains to be seen whether this latest prescription for what ails us will ever rival "A Nation at Risk" as a conversation starter. It is, however, further evidence of a continuing and perhaps widening public perception that higher education is not fulfilling its promise.

Let me be clear at the outset: that is not a perception I share. I do, however, believe that higher education, like every other component of our society, can benefit from self-examination. I also believe that higher education can and should devote more energy to stating its case, explaining its value, and documenting its impact on society. And if a rising tide of criticism is the impetus for a widespread discussion of the role of higher education in our society, then some good can come of it.

Frankly, I think some of the criticism has exaggerated our shortcomings. A university engages its students in a process of learning—it does not inject them with knowledge. If a student fails to participate, no amount of clever planning will make him or her learn.

At the heart of the discussions of higher education, it seems, lies a deceptively simple question: Are our universities focusing on teaching? Or, as the first question implies, are professors sequestered in ivory towers where esoteric research supplants useful instruction?

Elsewhere in this magazine you can read about a number of Mississippi State faculty members whose efforts are helping to improve the quality of life in Mississippi and beyond. Those same activities are helping to improve the learning environment in Mississippi State classrooms and laboratories. Is that research, or is it teaching? To my mind, it is both.

One of the most frequently recurring themes in discussions of higher education's role and performance can be summed up as "Teaching versus Research." The problem with that debate, as some of my colleagues have eloquently pointed out in an article in this issue of Alumnus, is that it is predicated on the false assumption that teaching and research are somehow at odds.

In fact, research is in essence a way of learning. It is seeking knowledge, and sharing it. Research is not an activity divorced from teaching. It is an integral part of it.

Teaching is paramount at Mississippi State. It is the first and most important thing we do, and we do it well. And one of the primary reasons we do it well is that so many of our faculty members are in the forefront of their professions. They are actively engaged in pushing back the frontiers of knowledge, and their students are benefiting from it.

The way to make research institutions like Mississippi State into even better teaching institutions--a goal we can all support--is not by reducing the amount of research they do. A better idea may be to increase the level of student involvement in research. We're doing that at Mississippi State. More than 2,000 undergraduates were directly involved in faculty research and service projects last year on the payroll, earning more than $2.4 million in wages from external sources.

Such assignments may be among the best learning experiences these students ever have. I can't think of a better way to learn, or to inculcate a sense of excitement about the learning process, than by rubbing shoulders with a faculty member who has the talent and energy to probe the boundaries of his or her discipline.

Our task is not only to produce graduates whose heads are packed with facts. The aim of a college education should be, among other things, to produce human beings who can ask the right questions, assimilate and reformulate information, and discern relationships among disparate bits of knowledge--a process remarkably similar to what we call "research."

The institutions including Mississippi State created as a result of the federal land-grant university legislation of 1862 were for the most part "A&Ms," dedicated to bringing the practical benefits of higher education to the people. Research, particularly in agriculture and the "mechanical arts," has been part of that process from the beginning. It has made this a stronger institution and it has improved the quality of life for hundreds of thousands of Mississippians.

Our primary purpose is to serve Mississippi. We do that in a way and to an extent unmatched by any other institution. To carry out our mission, we need teaching and research.