Setting priorities
Professors shouldn’t focus on research

Out of 385 professors at TCU, 236 are considered to be tenured.

Hiring more faculty would allow professors to stay fresh and more involved in their research, some professors say. More research would then entail possible publications, which is a way of considering a professor for a tenure position.

Since when did being a professor mean having a title rather than simply being a teacher? Professors should focus on their students and their classes rather than any outside work that might get them published.

Mary Volcansek, dean of the AddRan College of Humanities and Social Sciences, said that although professors are not paid to work during the summer, most of them are still here doing writing and research. Isn’t that part of their job?

Some schools at TCU don’t even bother recruiting more students because they simply don’t have enough professors.

Ed Kolesar, chairman of the Faculty Senate Tenure, Promotions and Grievances committee, said one way to improve research quality is to bolster the graduate programs so doctoral candidates can help faculty in research. Better graduate programs will also attract better faculty because of research capabilities.

Shouldn’t we hire more professors so we make the 15:1 ratio exact, rather than averaging all the professors and all the students and saying that’s the ratio of students to a professor for the entire university? How many of us actually have classes with only 15 students?

TCU’s motivations for hiring more professors is all for the wrong reasons. We don’t need more professors for research. We need more professors to teach.

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