Teaching in troubled times

DANIEL McCABE | It isn't easy being a teacher in the Faculty of Arts. In an era of budget cuts, dwindling staff and high student enrolments, the stress is starting to show.

That's the conclusion drawn by anthropology professor Michael Bisson, the chair of the faculty's committee on teaching. Earlier this year, Bisson sent out a survey to the faculty's teaching corps.

"I'm an anthropologist," explains Bisson. "If you want to know what's going on in a society, you ask the natives."

Half the faculty's teachers filled out the survey. Bisson believes the results are telling.

According to the survey, 68 per cent of assistant and associate professors felt overworked in terms of their teaching responsibilities. Slightly over 68 per cent of all the arts teachers who responded indicated that McGill's current plight has reduced their enthusiasm for teaching.

Says Bisson, "The budget cuts are starting to have a real impact in the classrooms. I think people feel at the end of their rope."

Over the last six years, the faculty has lost about 40 professors. The budget for teaching assistants was cut. Class sizes have crept up. The student per teacher ratio has grown increasingly unwieldy.

Still, the faculty's teachers continue to persevere. Dean of Arts Carman Miller notes that in a recent survey of all McGill students, arts students were among the most satisfied with the quality of teaching they received. "There are things that our students aren't happy about," says Miller, "but teaching isn't one of them."

He doesn't discount the results of Bisson's survey though. In tough times, how can people be satisfied?

"It points to the strain of the lack of resources," says Miller of the survey. "We've lost a lot of people in the last few years. The current student/teacher ratio is intolerable. We need more faculty."

Miller is particularly troubled by one finding in Bisson's survey. About 65 per cent of the associate and assistant professors who responded stated that they were under the impression that McGill places more importance on research than teaching. Only 46 per cent of full professors held this view.

In Miller's estimation, the message sent out to professors is unambiguous -- teaching and research are both vital and are interconnected in a research university such as McGill.

"If you look at the names of the winners of the Fieldhouse Award for Teaching Excellence in this faculty, you'll notice people like Charles Taylor, Peter Hoffmann, William Booth. These are outstanding scholars.

"In a research university, the research must inform our teaching. Our students are of a very high quality and they wouldn't be satisfied if all we did was to simply regurgitate somebody else's ideas."

But Bisson believes the perception among junior professors that research overshadows teaching must be addressed head on. "If people believe that research is valued more than teaching, their behaviour will reflect that."

Bisson and Miller agree that the quality of McGill's arts professors isn't at issue. "Our ability to place our BA graduates in good graduate schools is excellent. According to Maclean's, we're the top [arts faculty] in terms of getting funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council," says Bisson.

"I find it heartening that our faculty has one of the most unfavourable student/teacher ratios at McGill and yet our students are satisfied with the teaching they receive," says Miller.

He says a study done earlier this decade in the United States illustrated that the best teaching occurs when "professors are able to invest more time in the preparation and delivery of their teaching."

With large class sizes, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find that time.

In the survey, several professors complained about dirty classrooms or equipment that didn't function properly. "How can teachers feel enthusiasm when they see the classrooms in such awful shape?" asks Bisson.

Library holdings are another sore point. "There are inadequate holdings for the teaching of advanced courses," says Bisson. Miller agrees. "We need a library system that supports high quality teaching and research."

But the large size of the classes was the number one concern. With fewer TAs available, essay questions are eschewed for machine-scored multiple choice exams. Classroom discussions are becoming more rare.

"If it came down to doing one thing to improve the teaching environment, most professors would say add more money to the TA budget. That would relieve a lot of the pressure professors are facing," says Bisson.

"They can bridge a gap," agrees Miller, who says he cut the TA budget with great reluctance. "There was nothing else to cut."

Miller says there is cause for optimism. A new multimedia centre recently opened that will supply students taking language courses with state-of-the-art facilities. Miller is hopeful that a similarly hi-tech centre devoted to visual images, one of the proposals outlined in the Tradition and Innovation document sent to the government, will also be developed. It could feature instant access to the National Film Board's movie library, for instance. The Department of Art History's extensive collection of slides could be digitized and made easily available to students.

Miller welcomes the government's renewed attention to higher education.

"It's very difficult for a society to deny the absolute need for a first class education system. It's a crime against the future to let institutions like McGill deteriorate."

But the government isn't the only culprit, according to Miller.

"The private sector has an obligation which it has not fulfilled. It wants more and more input" into the type of training that university students receive, says Miller. "It also has to come up with some money to help us meet those goals. It can't have it both ways.

"There is a direct correlation between the availability of resources and high teaching standards," says Miller. "The evidence is that this is an excellent faculty of arts. If we are going to continue to be, we need the resources to make that happen."