MADISON, Wis. — University of Wisconsin chemistry professor Robert Hamers has a jam-packed day ahead: an hourlong lecture, a conference call with colleagues about nanotechnology, meetings and plans to check on students in the lab.
With a workweek that he estimates often extends to 65 hours, Hamers is hardly lazy, but Gov. Scott Walker wants to make sure professors like him don’t neglect the classroom.
The governor has joined a national conservative push to get professors to do more teaching and less research. Provisions in his state budget proposal would reward faculty who spend more time in the classroom and make state aid to universities contingent on faculty instructional hours.
Republicans say they want to ensure undergraduates get enough bang for their tuition dollars. University officials say the GOP is trying to appease a base that’s suspicious of higher education in general, and they worry about pushing professors to deliver lectures instead of pulling in federal research dollars and seeking discoveries that reshape society.
“The idea that learning only takes place in a classroom setting is completely wrong,” Hamers said, calling it “an outmoded way of thinking.”
“What is more valuable?” he asked. Providing a lecture for 75 students or offering a two-hour, one-on-one interaction that a student remembers “for the rest of their life?”
It’s difficult to gauge how much time professors spend in classrooms across the country. The American Association of University Professors, the nation’s leading group representing college faculty, does not track classroom time, believing it’s not a good measure of productivity for faculty who might also do research, serve on committees or perform other administrative duties, said AAUP Research Director John Barnshaw.
