The first study found that there was widespread belief, especially among faculty, that teaching was not respected, was not provided adequate resources, and was devalued in promotion and tenure reviews. On average, the academic community, at all levels, expressed a belief that there should be a more equal emphasis at their institutions. In the intervening six years, there were small but consistent shifts at all but two institutions toward a more equal balance between teaching and research. Perhaps the most interesting finding, in both 1991-1992 and 1997 is that everyone seems to think that people at other levels of their institutions do not value teaching. Faculty believe that chairs and deans are to blame.
Chairs believe that faculty and deans are to blame.
And deans believe that the problem lies with faculty and chairs. The truth may lie somewhere in between. From open-ended comments solicited by the researchers, it appears that rewards and resources do not reflect an equal balance between teaching and research. Which may mean that long-time faculty are still responding to conditions that, in fact, no longer exist. The most amount of change from the first study to the second occurred in how chairs and deans describe their own beliefs and their views of where their institutions should be headed.