Introduction

In many nations across the globe, such as the US, Canada, and the UK, universities are allocating more positions to academics whose primary or sole role is to teach rather than to conduct research—sometimes referred to teaching academics, teaching-focused academics, education-focused academics, science faculty with education specialties, or a range of other labels.  In contrast to traditional academics who ostensibly allocate about 40% of their work hours to research, teaching academics ostensibly allocate a lower percentage of their work hours to research—usually less than 20% and often 0%.  That is, many teaching academics are not granted time to dedicate to research. 

 

This apparent surge in the number of teaching academics can, at least partly, be ascribed to the motivation of universities to improve the quality of their research.  Many of the university rankings schemes, such as the Leiden and URAP, are more dependent on the quality, than on the quantity, of research publications.  If publications attract many citations on average, universities are more likely to be assigned a higher ranking.  Accordingly, universities often choose to employ academics who specialize in research and can dedicate most of their time to research instead of teaching. 

 

These universities may employ teaching academics to fulfill two main purposes. First, these teaching academics enable universities to teach more students and thus to earn tuition fees—some of which can be dedicated to research.  Second, these teaching academics can enhance their teaching skills over time and thus improve the quality of teaching and, therefore, attract more students in the future. 

 

Teaching academic positions also diminish the reliance of universities on contract staff—sometimes called casual, adjunct, contingent, or sessional staff.  Therefore, universities can circumvent some of the challenges of this reliance on contract staff.  To illustrate, casual or contract staff often experience job insecurity, increasing stress and diminishing their commitment to the role. 

 

Despite the benefits of these teaching academic positions, several problems often unfold.  For example

 

• teaching academics are not as likely to be promoted as their research active counterparts, diminishing the status of this role; their career paths are uncertain

• similarly, teaching academics are not as likely to be assigned leadership roles in the future

• in many universities, teaching academics are significantly more likely to be women than men—and hence these positions often compromise gender equity

 

Challenges that teaching academics experience: Esteem

Universities and other research institutions attach less esteem to teaching academics than to research academics.  To illustrate, Bennett et al. (2018) conducted focus groups, comprising teaching academics, course coordinators, heads of departments, and directors of teaching and learning, to explore the experience of teaching academics.  One participant suggested that “Anyone who is a purely teaching person is never going to feel as valued as a research person”.  This limited prestige can partly be ascribed to the observation that teaching academics do not always choose this role: Academics whose research is not productive are often compelled to assume these teaching academic roles. 

 

Bennett et al. (2018), however, did reveal this perception is more nuanced.  According to the more senior staff, teaching roles should be respected and that some teaching academics had “devalued themselves in their own mind”. But even this perception implies the value of teaching academics has not been communicated across the institution effectively.  

 

Admittedly, some institutions and leaders have attempted to boost the status of teaching academics, but most of these attempts revolved around changes to discourse rather than changes to tangible policies, practices, and provisions (Bennett et al., 2018).  For example, guidelines around promotions seldom mention the metrics and methods that teaching academics should apply to substantiate teaching excellence and to receive a promotion, particularly because participants recognized the flaws in student evaluations of teachers.   

 

Challenges that teaching academics experience: Role confusion

During their focus groups on teaching academics, Bennett et al. (2018) also revealed that teaching academics often experience confusion about their responsibilities and rights as well as the uncertain about the expectations of their department and institution about this role.  Even senior leaders were uncertain about the responsibilities and expectations of these roles.

 

This confusion and uncertainty were partly ascribed to limited support and advice to assist teaching academics.  Indeed, the advice that teaching academics receive is often contradictory.  Some mentors would encourage teaching academics to cultivate their research career and to pursue a research active position.  Other mentors would discourage this pursuit, perhaps because this goal reinforces the assumption that teaching academics positions are inferior and partly because these academics are granted few opportunities to pursue their research.       

 

Some inherent contradictions in this role, as Bennett et al. (2018) showed, can also explain some of this confusion.  As participants in these focus groups underscored, teaching academics are supposed to maintain expertise in their discipline, partly to teach the latest advances and partly to supervise student projects. Yet, to maintain this expertise, they should be attuned to the latest research—but are not granted opportunities to achieve this goal.  Because of the uncertainty about this role, perhaps amplified by the limited status, managers often micro-managed teaching academics.   

 

Despite this confusion, teaching academics are seldom granted time and opportunities to develop their role.  If assigned to a teaching academic position merely because their research productivity was limited, these individuals needed to adjust their role immediately.  As one line manager emphasized, “It takes years to develop into academic roles! You can’t just expect someone to change so simply.”

 

Challenges that teaching academics experience: Uncertain career pathways

In addition to confusion about the roles, teaching academics also feel uncertain about their career pathways.  For example, in the focus groups that Bennett et al. (2018) outlined, some teaching academics felt they might eventually be classified as professional staff rather than academic staff.  Other teaching staff felt they will continue at the existing level indefinitely.  The absence of successful role models in this position exacerbated this uncertainty.  Conversely, the promotion of some teaching academics in some instances significantly buoyed their peers.   

 

This uncertainty can also be ascribed to the disparity between the role of these teaching academics and the skills they learned during their PhD (Bennett et al., 2018).  That is, some teaching staff felt they could be promoted to senior professorial positions, but only if they assume leadership roles in teaching and learning centers or portfolios—portfolios that serve the entire institution.  Yet, the skills they need to apply in these roles, around education design for example, diverge from the capabilities they acquired during their PhD and work life.     
 

Challenges that teaching academics experience: Workload

Workload, stress, and burnout may be especially pronounced in teaching academics relative to other academics.  Several dynamics could explain this pronounced workload, stress, and burnout in teaching academics.  Specifically

 

• to pursue research active positions, many teaching academics conduct research—but only after hours (Bennett et al., 2018; Nyamapfene, 2014)

• these individuals participate heavily in professional development activities to enhance their knowledge of teaching and learning, but these activities are seldom accommodated in workload formulas (see Simmons et al., 2022)

• tasks often consume more time than anticipated, called the planning fallacy (Buehler et al., 1994), and hence staff cannot always fulfill their deadlines.  If research staff cannot readily fulfill deadlines, they can sometimes relinquish or defer some activities.  If teaching staff cannot readily fulfill deadlines, they will need to work extensive hours, because fewer of their deadlines are negotiable. 

 

Paradoxically, although teaching academics are employed to improve the pedagogy and teaching at universities, they feel they are granted less time than research active academics to develop these skills.        

 

Roles of teaching academics

To appreciate the experiences and challenges of teaching academics, Rawn and Fox (2018) conducted a seminal and illuminating study in Canadian universities that are deemed as research intensive.  Teaching academics completed an online survey, partly designed to measure the activities they complete, the degree to which they feel these activities match the expectations of their role, and their attitudes towards these positions.   

 

As the survey revealed, besides teaching, teaching academics almost invariably contribute to practical improvements and scholarly discussions to enhance the quality of teaching in their department or institution and engage in professional development, such as conferences, seminars, and workshops. This professional development is sometimes called the scholarship of teaching and learning or SoTL.

Furthermore, about 62% of these teaching academics conducted research about pedagogy and 46% conducted research in their discipline in the last two years.  Over 60% of these respondents had received teaching awards.   

 

As an analysis of the medians indicates, a typical teaching academic in these Canadian universities taught six undergraduate courses, supervised two student research projects, submitted a funding application, presented their work at two conferences, attended three conferences, participated in four workshops, served on two university committees, and contributed to curriculum development in the last two years.  

 

In general, over 60% of these individuals felt they were expected to teach undergraduate courses, improve teaching practices in the department, develop their pedagogical skills, and lead or contribute to curriculum development.  In contrast, fewer than 20% of these individuals felt they were expected to teach graduate courses or conduct research in their discipline.  These expectations did not always overlap with reality.  To illustrate, fewer than 44% of these individuals felt they were expected to supervise student research projects, but over 70% of the respondents did supervise these projects (for a discussion on research supervision in teaching academics, see Rowland, 2012). Similarly, more of these teaching academics published research in their discipline than expected.   

 

Determinants of satisfaction with teaching academic roles.

In their survey of teaching academics in Canada, Rawn and Fox (2018) explored which features of the institution enhanced their satisfaction with their role.  In this survey, respondents indicated, on a five-point scale, the degree to which they agree or disagree with various statements, such as

 

• “I personally value my teaching-focused faculty position”—to gauge overall satisfaction with the role

• “I have a clear sense of the expectations for how Teaching Focused Faculty are to be promoted”

• “I personally feel my teaching-focused faculty position is compensated fairly

• “I personally feel integrated as part of mainstream departmental culture”

• “I personally feel integrated as part of mainstream institutional culture”, and

• “I have a mentor to help me with my teaching career”

 

As the analysis revealed, teaching academics are more likely to be satisfied with their roles if they feel they were compensated fairly, they understand how to increase the likelihood of promotions, and they feel integrated in the culture of their department and institution.  Mentoring did not significantly improve their satisfaction with the role. 

 

Effective models of teaching academics: The teacher-academic developer hybrid identity

Many teaching academics feel that many staff at the institution do not comprehend or appreciate their role.  Therefore, as Godbold et al. (2022) reported, these academics would like their role to be clarified and then promoted across the organization more effectively.

 

Many teaching academics would like to be perceived as teaching specialists: as individuals who have accrued skill and expertise on how to teach more effectively and to facilitate student learning, usually in their discipline.  Because of this expertise, their role is to uncover opportunities and initiatives to enhance teaching and learning in their field.  They might, for example, provide guidance or resources to academics who have not attached the same importance or time to teaching.  This role thus entails both academic development—a role that otherwise tends to be confined to education specialists—and academic teaching.  Godbold et al. (2022) referred to this dual role as a teacher and academic developer as a hybrid identity.

 

This role may fulfill several needs.  First, because these teaching academics impart specialist advice about teaching, these individuals may be afforded the status they deserve.  Second, because this advice is primarily confined to their academic discipline, they are regarded as academics rather than professional staff and thus can utilize their academic credentials.  These teaching academics can utilize this expertise to immerse themselves in rich, innovative projects that enhance teaching and learning in a specific discipline or field.  Hence, their role complements but diverges from the activities of other professional staff, such as learning technologists, curriculum developers, and course designers.

 

Effective models of teaching academics: Professors of Teaching

The University of California introduced a model called the L(P)SOE series (Harlow et al., 2022).  The primary role of academics who pursue this pathway revolves around teaching or activities that improve teaching and learning. The secondary responsibility of these individuals is to pursue scholarly or professional achievement. These individuals are assigned one of three ranks

 

• Lecturer with Potential Security of Employment, also called Assistant Professor of Teaching, suited to academic staff who have yet to secure permanent roles.    

• Lecturer with Security of Employment or Associate Professor of Teaching

• Senior Lecturer or Professor of Teaching

 

In contrast to their counterparts who conduct more research, promotions of these teaching academics primarily, but not solely, depend on the teaching excellence of these individuals. Typically, about 65.5% of their time is dedicated to teaching, 18.6% is dedicated to scholarly activity, such as research, and 15.9% is dedicated to service work, within or outside the institution. 

 

Harlow et al. (2022) conducted a study to explore the motivations of executives to engage these professors of teaching.  The researchers interviewed 6 department chairs or vice-chairs, 8 deans or associate deans, and 11 chairs of hiring committees.  In general, these individuals engaged these teaching academics partly to diminish the teaching burden of other academics and partly to improve the teaching practices in their discipline.  They discovered, sometimes unexpectedly, these teaching academics could also attract grants to conduct education research and to improve teaching as well as publish this research.  Teaching academics also collaborated with peers in other disciplines and departments to facilitate teaching innovation.     

Nevertheless, some individuals were reluctant to engage teaching academics.  These managers were concerned the department or institution may be perceived as a university that prioritizes teaching, instead of research, potentially diminishing their prestige.  Nevertheless, until the value that institutions attach to teaching and research are comparable, research academics may not be as inclined to respect and collaborate with these professors of teaching as hoped.   

   

References

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