To the Editor:
This year, the Student Assembly has made the Undergraduate Teaching Initiative (UTI) a top priority to ensure that students play a significant role in maintaining excellence in the Dartmouth classroom. We are pleased that the administration, especially Dean of Faculty Jamshed Bharucha and his office, has been responsive to our initiative.
The new programs announced by Dean Bharucha represent earnest efforts to recognize that there must be a concerted effort to harmonize research and teaching. We are certain that these new resources will go a long way in promoting teaching and learning outside the classroom. This type of teaching is a unique and often overlooked aspect of a Dartmouth education, but is one that makes an enormous impact on any student's learning experience.
This allows us to be optimistic about future commitments to teaching in the classroom. In a few years we hope that a Teaching and Learning Center will have a permanent role on the Dartmouth campus. This Center will be a place for programs enabling professors to enhance teaching methods and pedagogy for the classroom. We also hope that significant grants to develop innovative teaching will exist alongside professional development grants. Such grants, which exist at many colleges, play a distinct role in developing unprecedented and effective teaching methods to bring the classroom to life.
Student Assembly understands the research and teaching are not mutually exclusive. In order to maintain a strong teaching ethos, however, we must recognize that teaching, as research, deserves its own distinct and generous set of resources. We have taken significant steps toward establishing these generous resources but there is much to be accomplished in the years ahead.
