Newsgroups: bit.listserv.qualrs-l
Date:         Sun, 15 Nov 1992 17:34:00 CST
              <QUALRS-L@UGA.BITNET>
From:         Gary Shank <P30GDS1@NIU.BITNET>
Subject:      forward from david morgan

passing this on from david morgan because i think the list would
appreciate it....gary shank


Gary,
  I didn't know to what extent you wanted these directed to the list in
order to spark a discussion, versus sent to you personally. If your
preference is for the former, you have my permission to forward this
to the list for distribution.
D.M.

  My primary position is in a small research institute on aging within a
larger unit (Urban Studies and Public Affairs) that is almost entirely
quantitative. Because of the budget crunch in academe, I am under great
pressure to write grants that produce release money (i.e. to "buy my time"
so that my unit can use the money they would ordinarily spend on my salary
to help make ends meet). Unfortunately, in my field virtually all grants
are for quantiative research. Consequently, I am currently the principal
investigator on a very large, 3-year survey research project which pretty
much keeps me from doing any qualitative research.
  I suppose the short and simple version is that it can be damn hard to
be a qualitative researcher, even a relatively well-known one, and hold
a job that demands that you bring in large grants. Perhaps this is more
workable in education, but in gerontology, perhaps 10% of the money for
social science research goes to qualitative work. Being in my quantitative
mode, I've calculated that if you go to a review panel that has an 80%
percent reject rate, but only 10% of what they take is qualitative,
then a qualitative researcher is effectively facing a 98% rejection rate
  As long as I am composing this lament, I'll add a little bit about
teaching. The department I am affiliated with has 3 required courses
in quantitative methods (30 weeks on the quarter system). The faculty and
students keep asking me to offer an additional course in qualitative
methods, and are bummed out that after trying this once I have refused
to do it again. Basically, 2 major problems surfaced. First, you can't
turn even an advanced graduate student into a qualitative researcher in
10 weeks. Second, most of the 15 students who took the course the first
time automatically expected me to chair or at least serve on their
dissertations because there are almost no other faculty who do qual-
itative methods. (And, if you followed what I said above, you probably
figured out that I do not have a teaching appointment, and I do have an
institute director and a dean who expect me first and foremost to bring
in externally funded research, although I am sure they would love to have
me do all kinds of additional teaching and mentoring in my "spare time.")
  Anyway, the short version of that problem is that it can be hard to
convince students and colleagues that someone will have to commit
resources to qualitative methods if they want to have any decent training
available. Clearly they recognize what it takes to have Ph.D.-level
training in number crunching, but they seem to think that having one
faculty member who knows qualitative methods is sufficient to get the job done.
(If they were exposed to the variety of perspectives on qualitative methods
that get discussed on this list, it would blow their minds.)
  OK, I don't want to make it sound like I've got the worst job in the
world, I know I don't. But the point is that it is damn hard to do quali-
tative research within the limitations of this particular job. I sense
a broad view that professors are pretty much free to do whatever we choose,
but for myself, I find it very hard to choose to do qualitative research
if I want to keep this job!
==>David Morgan hjdm@PSUORVM
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