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

Library Trends, Fall, 1995 by Larry Hardesty

Clark (1987a) identified the service of knowledge" as one of the prevailing ideologies of faculty culture (p. 132). Millett (1962) observed that the elite of university faculty tend to look down on their professional colleagues because they are too concerned with technique and method and too little concerned with basic knowledge. This, he asserted, "reflects a belief that professional faculties are largely composed of poor scholars, that is, of persons with an inadequate mastery of a subject-matter field" (p. 98). The theoreticians are ranked highest in the pecking order, with those in the more practical, soft, and applied disciplines lower in the pecking order (Becher, 1989, p. 57). This is a pecking order on which librarians rank relatively low.

De-emphasis on Teaching, Process, and Undergraduates

A major element in faculty culture is that teaching is not highly discussed among faculty. Becher (1989), early in his book Academic Tribes and Territories, observed:

However, if it is indeed the leaders in the field who set the norms,

those norms do not for the most part appear to include pedagogic

considerations. In consequence, there is relatively little in this book

about the transmission of knowledge, as against its creation, development

and communication to fellow specialists. (pp. 3-4)

One survey of 1,680 faculty at fourteen institutions found that 42 percent of them said that never, during their entire career, had anyone talked with them in detail about their teaching. Only 25 percent said that such discussions on teaching had taken place more than once (Gaff, 1978). Freedman et al. (1979) concluded from numerous interviews of faculty:

Perhaps the clearest evidence that teaching undergraduates is not a

true profession is the fact that professors, when they talk shop, almost

never discuss their teaching. Nor do they discuss philosophy

of education in an abstract way. This is not surprising, for teaching

and philosophy of education are subjects in which they have little

background. Discussions of educational programs or reforms usually

proceed as if education had no discipline, no organized or systematic

body of theory and knowledge and no need for such a discipline.

(p. 8)

Freedman et al. (1979) also concluded that faculty members may avoid discussions and reflections because: "Professors sense that they are not particularly adept at teaching and so shy away from reflecting on their points of weakness" (p. 43).

Perhaps they are not adept because graduate schools do not emphasize teaching. Metzger (1987) characterized graduate programs for training faculty as consisting of a "major, a minor, and a vacuum, the last referring to the time and care expended on didactic theory or technique" (p. 161). Knowledge about the discipline is passed on much more carefully than knowledge about teaching (Metzger, 1987, p. 161).

In a report obviously intended to provoke a strong response, the authors of "Integrity in the Curriculum" wrote: "If the professional preparation of doctors were as minimal as that of college teachers, the United States would have more funeral directors than lawyers" (Association of American Colleges, 1985, p. 29). The authors observed that the emphasis of graduate education is almost entirely on the development of "substantial knowledge and research skills" with only an incidental introduction to teaching. Beginning teachers have only the memories of "teaching that was unimaginative, ineffective, and unworthy of a self-respecting profession" to guide them (p. 29). Unfortunately, Fink (1984) found that many first-year faculty members "resort to the traditional and relatively time-efficient mode of teaching: lectures and readings ... [and do] not plan to go back and do a more thorough job of developing their courses because of the pressures of other duties" (p. 93).