A New Direction for Teaching

Last week, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) reached a milestone. In blunt and forceful language, a new report prepared by the Task Force on Teaching and Career Development acknowledges what students have been saying for years: Harvard has a pedagogy problem. The 86-page report recommends 18 concrete and sensible strategies for the improvement of teaching at Harvard, but if the report is to make more than a mere dent, its proposals must be brought to fruition. We hope that the Faculty, the new president, and the new dean of the Faculty will fast-track the implementation of pedagogical reforms proposed by the Task Force rather than leaving the report to collect dust next to similar reports that have preceded it.

The report correctly identifies Harvard’s pedagogical gap and faults institutional priorities rather than individual practices. A university that verbally expounds the merits of teaching but only rewards achievement in this area with a smattering of prizes and awards can never be recognized as a true model of pedagogical excellence. Many of the report’s anonymous quotations from faculty and graduate students—which reveal that good teaching is not just ignored, but even looked down upon—further verify Harvard’s deficiency. We applaud the Task Force for its commitment to students and for its sound practical diagnoses. The importance of such a strong public commitment to teaching by nine of Harvard’s most recognizable names should not be underestimated.

Three of the Task Force’s recommendations deserve particular attention from the full Faculty. First, the Task Force’s recommendation to create monetary and career path incentives for good teaching are on target. Currently, there is almost no incentive for good teaching. Teaching awards don’t consistently lead to above-median pay adjustments, and professors who gain distinction as teachers by being appointed to prestigious Harvard College Professorships do not see immediate bonuses. Faculty members will never be encouraged to focus on their pedagogy until their efforts translate into more than titles and pats on the back. Instead, we support the system endorsed by the Task Force’s report to base adjustments in pay scale—currently only the product of top-notch research—equally between research and teaching. The proposed grants for teaching are also a step in the right direction.

Nothing in academia, however, is more coveted than career advancement. Harvard purports to factor teaching into tenure decisions and has added more documentation of teaching ability to tenure reviews. But in a review of all appointments during 2005-2006, the Task Force found almost no discussion of teaching in formal case statements for junior faculty appointments. For tenured appointments, such statements were shockingly irregular. The committee correctly suggests that teaching records should be examined more thoroughly and consistently. A change will only occur when Harvard sends a clear signal to prospective faculty members that teaching matters in tenure decisions.

Second, the Task Force’s proposal to create a system for faculty to audit and evaluate their colleagues’ courses will create a culture of constructive criticism that can only benefit teaching. Similar systems already exist at many of Harvard’s professional schools, and FAS should follow suit.

The third key recommendation is that course evaluations be mandatory for all courses over a certain minimum size. This page has consistently lambasted faculty who believe that getting feedback from students is below them because they are “more wise.” Regular evaluations should form the cornerstone of improved teaching.

But diagnosing a problem is quite different from curing one. The implementation of most of the Task Force’s recommendations will inevitably depend on the goodwill and focus of the Faculty, which has yet to fulfill such lofty expectations in other areas of undergraduate education. Officially, there is almost no way to ensure that professors audit each other’s classes or that teaching evaluations be given more weight in highly secretive and subjective tenure decisions. If faculty want to solve Harvard’s pedagogical deficiency, they must recognize that, at the end of the day, the onus of responsibility will fall squarely on their shoulders.

The Task Force recognize that its job is not done. Instead of publishing its report and dissolving, the Task Force needs to be an active voice and watchdog, its mission unfinished until FAS treats teaching as a primary, not secondary, responsibility.

In an otherwise commendable effort, we have only one direct criticism of the Task Force’s report: It does not fully consider the role of full-time teachers such as lecturers and preceptors. The report does dismiss a dual-track tenure system, which would create one set of appointments only for research and another only for teaching. But there is another solution, which we have advocated in the past: hiring top-notch teachers for full-time teaching posts and renewing their contracts indefinitely based on their teaching performance.

Currently, Harvard does not allow lecturers or teaching fellows to remain at Harvard for more than eight years. This archaic rule has a negative payoff: individuals who are hired for and excel at teaching students must leave regardless of their pedagogical ability. The typical argument for the eight year cap—that forcing lecturers to leave the University prevents them from getting stuck in a long-term teaching position—is paternalistic. If top-notch PhDs want to focus on teaching, Harvard should let them do so. And Harvard should go one step further by giving these teachers a hand in crafting curricula and requirements, a privilege currently reserved for full faculty.

The proposed “Compact to Enhance Teaching and Learning at Harvard” has given us new hope that the Faculty will renew its effort to improve teaching. Its implementation must now become a top priority of the entire Faculty, a reoriented Task Force, and the administration, lest that hope be squandered.