Rediscover Teaching, Service During This Academic Year

I observe the "New Year" on the opening day of classes. Each fall since I was three I have paid homage to the occasion. I have been taken, or have taken myself, shopping for the proper attire, pencil box, notebook, slide rule-or whatever-to commemorate the year gone by and to celebrate the year to come. Every year-66 of them-has been more exciting and challenging than the preceding one. New discoveries-my own, my students', my colleagues'-to be revealed. New ideas integrated with old truths. Teaching that impassions and empowers large finite numbers of undergraduates to explore the metabolic pathways and savor biochemical nutrition. The singular moments when a grad student falls in love with science. New challenges to ensure that the science literacy of elementary and secondary school students will be adequate for them to participate more meaningfully as citizens in a democratic society. Will you be excited and renewed when school opens this year? Are you waiting for Godot? Or will you continue to suffer from conflict of commitment-far more pernicious than conflict of interest-that threatens the integrity of our learning institutions? Do you proudly display "Scholarship-Teaching-Service" emblazoned in a variety of varsity colors on your T-shirt knowing full well that some academic criteria are far more equal than others? Will you give integrity and meaning to the hypocritical admonition of Polonius to Laertes: "To thine own self be true"? Will you behave as a Skinnerian creature inexorably driven by the neuroendocrine forces of the hypothalamus? Have you been conditioned by the punishment/reward systems of our academic maze? Is the jingling of the coins of the realm-Gold, Space, Glory-heard only when Grants-Publications-Peer Prizes signals jackpot on the slot machine of academe? What happened to Teaching? To Service? Not to be nervous! Everyone knows that these ephemeral obligations cannot be accurately and objectively calibrated and thus are not counted. Could we just proclaim how sensitive, aware, and caring each of us-in our own fashion-is to these facets of our academic excellence? Then we can continue our serene, uninterrupted upward mobility. There is too much pompous cant and rhetoric concerning the commitment to teaching in our colleges and universities. Daily we read about the growing legions of "gypsy professors" who wander the freeways crying, "Will Teach for Food." Sans security, sans opportunity for scholarship, these transient pedagogues carry an increasing burden of teaching hordes of lower-division students herded into required courses. Since when are these essential subjects beneath the dignity of our tenured faculty? Once upon a time the fashionable liberal arts curriculum in America was founded on literature, history, economics, and sociology. Today it is biology. A tidal wave of students on our campuses across the land find fascination and excitement in learning that DNA begets RNA and RNA begets protein. Some come seeking careers in biomedical science. Others come to save the environment and its denizens. Others come because of the intrinsic beauty of the discipline and how such knowledge can enhance their human potential. We must not treat them with scorn. We are pedagogically challenged to embrace the intellectual affection of our students and return, in kind, our concern for them. University and college presidents and deans need be mindful that campus resources should be mobilized to meet the new student demands. Effective faculty must be recruited. Teaching laboratories should reflect contemporary biological practices. New strategies and tactics should be adapted to make the learning process more vital and dynamic. Not only does our insensitivity and ineptness impact upon those students who would become scientists, but also our benign neglect of teaching profoundly influences the science literacy of those who would enter the worlds of government, commerce, communications, law, and elementary and secondary education. Less than 10 percent of the credentialed elementary schoolteachers in the United States have completed one year of college-level science. How can we expect them to make science wonderful for our children? How many of our knowledgeable physical and biological science majors seek to teach at the primary or secondary school level? What more meaningful service could we perform as academic scientists than to forge an effective and sustained relationship with our primary and secondary school-teaching colleagues. Forget about the one-night stands as "Golly Gee, Doctor Science!" at the local school. How about developing and participating in an in-service program for teachers? Our most effective and prestigious professors must take a leadership role in communicating the cognitive and affective dimensions of our sciences in a fashion that the teachers can bring into their classrooms. Such relationships between the schools and colleges must be collaborative. Epicurean repasts must be shared, not administered as some unpalatable total parenteral nutrition. Both sustain life. Only one provides pleasure. Life is all about pleasure. If they-the system, the granting agencies, your department, the committees, your distinguished fellow academicians-won't provide the externalities of reward, then what? Stop being a victim. Establish and act upon your own personal existential reward system predicated upon "Scholarship-Teaching-Service." We are creatures of sensuality. We all want to get an A. The issue is not the least amount of effort you have to expend to get it. Recognize the minimal thresholds and constraints placed upon us by Others. Only we can still establish for Self far more demanding thresholds to attain the most pleasurable stimuli of teaching and service. Maybe Godot will come tomorrow. Maybe Godot will build the bridge to the new millennium. Maybe Godot will be you. Paul Saltman is a professor in the department of biology at the University of California, San Diego. He can be reached via E-mail at saltman@biomail.ucsd.edu.

Rediscover Teaching, Service During This Academic Year

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