Dartmouth has long prided itself on the quality of its undergraduate teaching among its Ivy League peers. Many consider it to be the very hallmark of a Dartmouth education. This commitment cannot become trite. Last year's Academic Direction Report presented by the Student Assembly emphasized the distinction between mere public emphasis on teaching and institutional support of teaching. There is no bigger academic issue at the College than the continued preeminence of undergraduate teaching. The aim of the Undergraduate Teaching Initiative is to ensure that SA plays an active role in ensuring that undergraduate teaching remains front and center of the academic institutional agenda. The UTI is envisioned as a permanent and continuous initiative of the Student Assembly dedicated to keeping teaching at the fore of any discussion about the academic reorientation of Dartmouth.
Currently the UTI is composed of four components, each of which attempts to use a different aspect of advocacy available to the SA. Component 1 is an annual assessment of undergraduate teaching. This assessment will be a departmental report card. UTI Component 2 builds upon previous attempts by the SA to recognize superior faculty through the Excellence in Teaching Profiles Awards. Such awards would be presented on a quarterly basis. An outstanding teacher would be selected for recognition through nomination to the SA. UTI component 3 provides faculty with the opportunity to apply to the SA for innovative teaching grants. Though faculty have access to grants for various research initiatives, access to grants for pursuing innovative ideas for the classroom do not exist in any real form at the College. UTI component 4 involves drafting a report in support of the creation of a center for undergraduate teaching at Dartmouth. Such centers are invaluable resources for fostering undergraduate teaching on campuses across the United States.
Over the years Dartmouth has tended toward an increasingly research-based orientation. Though research can undoubtedly complement undergraduate education, many professors and students have noted a tacit tradeoff on important aspects of teaching at Dartmouth. Though it may not be the intention of professors to neglect their teaching responsibilities, they often have no choice but to conform to the "publish or perish" ethos of the large research university. As one professor anonymously notes, "I've been told, 'You're spending too much time with students. You need to tell students no. You will not be tenured based on your teaching.'" His response to this sort of pressure -- "If Dartmouth is going to be more research oriented, then I want to play the game ... the whole way. I might as well go to a place like the University of Chicago where there are more resources." The introduction of an increasing research-orientation, therefore, must be made with the Dartmouth raison d'etre firmly in mind: undergraduate liberal arts with superior teaching. Developing a research orientation any other way, simply relegates Dartmouth to the ranks of second or third tier research universities. We can be a first-rate undergraduate College that happens to have strong research programs and opportunities, or we can be a middle-of-the-pack research university that happens to have an undergraduate College. Why leave a niche of preeminence in search of mediocrity?
The UTI is about thrusting sustained student advocacy into this vital issue area. The various components, more than anything else, are intended to generate dialogue and self-reflection among students, faculty and administrators. When we offer grants, for example, the objective is not to make this a permanent role of the SA. Instead, we are attempting to speak as loudly as we can with our modest budget. Our desired statement -- if a student government with a meager budget can make a material commitment to supporting innovative teaching, there is no reason that the College could not match this tenfold. Ideally, the College has to establish an institutional support structure for teaching. Every other Ivy League college (even those with lesser public emphases on teaching) has such structures, as do many of our other peer institutions. Such a support structure would involve among other things a support-staff of administrators with an educational background in pedagogy, the availability of teaching grants and stipends, centrally administered standardized and public assessments of courses, training/orientation for new faculty, seminars on teaching issues/methods, and perhaps a physical plant from which to coordinate these activities.
The UTI is about the SA embracing a "big issue" that concerns every single undergraduate on this campus. Ideally the UTI will evolve to incorporate more components, with each uniquely contributing to the continued preeminence of undergraduate teaching at Dartmouth. If we are to uphold what is most valuable to us in our classroom experiences then we must come together with a common strategy. It is our hope that the UTI , as it grows and expands over the year, will fulfill this vital function.
