Faculty culture and bibliographic instruction: an exploratory analysis - The Library and Undergraduate Education

Library Trends, Fall, 1995 by Larry Hardesty

Understanding the faculties is no small undertaking. Clark (1987a) has pointed out the "sheer scale of American higher education" (p 54). Some 3,000 institutions, enrolling almost 12 million students, employ 700,000 to 800,000 part-time and full-time faculty members (Clark, 1987a). Nevertheless, most faculty members share the experience of advanced study at only 100 to 150 leading graduate institutions in this country (Bowen & Schuster, 1986), which limits diversity among the faculty. What are some characteristics of faculty culture?

Emphasis on Research, Content, and Specialization

Kuh and Whitt (1988, p. 76) identified a basic value of faculty as the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge. Faculty have a responsibility to be learned and to convey this learning by means of teaching, inquiry, and publication. The development of academic culture in this country has placed an emphasis on the latter two activities.

Much of the growth in American higher education occurred during the late 1950s and 1960s at a time when the German research university model held a particularly prominent role. As a result, many faculty members currently teaching in higher education received graduate training and hold values based on this model (Bergquist, 1992, pp. 25-26). This graduate training is a significant force in socializing students into the roles and expectations of faculty life (Tierney & Rhoads, 1994, p. 14). Graduate school socializes students into "the culture of the discipline" (Kuh & Whitt, 1988, p. 77). From graduate school, prospective faculty "learn to master language specific to their field of study, read journals germane to that area, and discover conferences that they are advised to attend either to present a paper, meet colleagues, or interview for a job" (Tierney & Rhoads, 1994, p. 14). This socialization continues after the individual obtains a position and seeks to publish articles and make presentations as they "burrow" toward tenure. The irony of this system is that most of the faculty will find themselves in institutions "where the culture does not reward research in a manner akin to the research university" (Tierney & Rhoads, 1994, p. 17) and doing what graduate school did not prepare them to do--i.e., teach. Nevertheless, Clark (1993) wrote: "The reward system of promoting academics on the grounds of research and published scholarship has become more deeply rooted in the universities, would-be universities, and leading four-year colleges with every passing decade" (p. 166). Specialization dominates graduate study, and faculty defer to each other based on specialization. According to Sanford (1971), among the rules of faculty culture are:

One should not in conversation with colleagues or other professionals

go beyond the bounds of one's own specialty. Other rules hold

that if something outside of one's specialty comes up for discussion

he should always defer to other specialists, even though this puts an

end to the conversation.... (p. 359)

Bergquist (1992) also noted that most faculty members are expected to confine themselves to disciplinary matters. He noted: "Only the academic administrator and librarian [emphasis added] are allowed to be truly interdisciplinary, and they lose academic credibility when they assume these roles" [emphasis added] (p. 41).