Research vs. Teaching

Scientists are concerned that American universities are undermining education in the US by "aggressively" encouraging research and not paying an equal amount of attention to teaching, reports the Chronicle of Higher Education's Paul Basken. In a Nature article, University of Vermont biochemist Kenneth Mann says if this trend continues, there soon won't be enough researchers to do research because they won't be educated properly. And in a similar commentary in Science, a group of Harvard and UC Irvine researchers say research success is being counted before anything else when it comes to handing out promotions, and teaching suffers as a result. The researchers are also concerned about all this in light of what are sure to be some tight budgets for science across the country for the next few years, Basken says.