All three missions are interdependent. A. Undergraduate Teaching As a respected teaching and research university providing public service, Michigan State is committed to intellectual leadership and standards of excellence. Undergraduate students deserve creative and committed instructors, scholars, and researchers. Unlike some research universities where many faculty conduct research exclusively or teach only graduate students, most faculty at Michigan State include the teaching of undergraduate students among their responsibilities. This University believes that all students can and should benefit from the classroom instruction and expertise of senior faculty as well as junior faculty, and of those who have devoted themselves to scholarship as well as those who have devoted themselves to teaching.
Undergraduate teaching is important for intellectual and professional reasons.
There, students learn both the art of reasoning and the limitations of reason. There, they realize the ways knowledge is created, transmitted, and evaluated. Teaching requires a commitment, an acknowledgment before others of disciplined standards, judgments, and practices, and a moral relationship linking the individual, the larger community, and the public good. Within such a community, students deserve to be taught well. The working environment and the reward system at many universities could do more to encourage the fullest possible commitment to undergraduate teaching.