The Chronicle of Higher Education
Date: March 28, 1997
Section: Opinion
Page: B10
To the Editor:
I find Arthur Levine's statement in "Higher Education's New Status as a Mature Industry" (Point of View, January 31), that he "visited a state in which the legislature was considering a bill to tie faculty salaries entirely to time spent in the classroom" chilling. Not so much because "faculty members at a major research institution in that state" considered it "intellectual McCarthyism," but because he "wondered how such bright people could be so out of touch with reality." He felt that "[t]hey entirely missed the point that the government had labeled their workload insufficient and was punishing them for their unwillingness to improve."
I think he and the state legislature entirely missed the point. Education is not a business in which time spent in the "shop" is the only time that is put in and that counts. What about the countless hours spent in preparation, planning new ways to present material, deciding on a syllabus, developing Web pages, responding to e-mail, counseling students, grading, and on and on? Equating time spent on teaching with the time spent in the classroom is the view of someone who has no conception of what education is all about.
Does anyone really think that a concert pianist should be paid only for the time she or he performs? Teaching is also a form of art that cannot be done well without practice.
Larry Levine
Professor of Mathematical Sciences
Stevens Institute Of Technology
Hoboken, NJ