The university, however, could change the system and reward faculty for devotion to quality instruction first and foremost, discounting their status within their disciplines as original researchers. Senior faculty would then be rewarded for a desire to teach, and instruction, not research, would become the primary focus of a professor' s day. Until this goal becomes clearer, other changes appear moot. An emphasis on instruction can devolve into an emphasis on pedagogical methods rather than the actual learning done by students. An emphasis on research can likewise lionize the discovery of new arcana at the expense of student comprehension - as instructors of all ages teach whatever they are working on, rather than a core curriculum of basic instruction.
Mixed messages result about reconciling instructional goals with the personal goals of the faculty.
Whereas the usual research institution treats undergraduates as necessary evils and graduate students merely as important means to successful research, a teaching institution treats undergraduate students as its raison d'etre and graduate students as perhaps necessary evils for teaching undergraduates in a cost-effective manner. If Auburn's goal is to obtain the best of both worlds of instruction and research, then it needs to remedy the tensions that exist between the two. It will enable intimate undergraduate student interaction with faculty, as well as demand higher standards and greater achievement from those same undergraduates. If these are the goals Auburn should have, its institutional character will have to change. Good instruction and significant research will have to be better rewarded, and insignificant research devalued.