Is Good Teaching Rewarded at Berkeley?

as published in COLLEGE TEACHING Volume 40/Number 1 (Winter 1992) pages 33-36

Is Good Teaching Rewarded at Berkeley?

Charles Schwartz
(a professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley)

   The Distinguished Teaching Award is given each year to five or six faculty members who have been nominated by the departments and selected for this honor by the Senate Committee on Teaching. The award, based on guidelines and criteria for the competition, encourages and rewards "excellence in teaching on the Berkeley campus." Each winner receives $3,000 and a gift from the Alumni Association.

   My interest focused on the fifty-seven faculty awardees in the years 1980-1989. In the first phase of my study, I inspected the personnel records, which are publicly accessible. I wanted to see if there was an objective correlation between the award and actual advancement, such as promotion or merit increase in salary. In the second phase, I solicited personal observations and opinions of each of the award recipients.

   At the outset, I had the notion that perhaps the Distinguished Teaching Award was in effect, if not in design, more an exercise in public relations - to show students, their parents, legislators, and the general public that this institution is dedicated to good teaching - than a program actually to encourage better teaching. This simplistic hypothesis was neither proved nor disproved by the results of this study. Instead, a much more complex and interesting set of data was gathered about and from these award winners. Perhaps the most interesting results of this study are the observations of the award winners themselves. Among the many people who have opinions about the status of teaching within this university, the awardees' views are noteworthy. I believe that what will have an effect upon faculty members' behavior is their perception about the awards for good teaching, rather than the pronouncements of officials.

Top-Heavy Awards

   Of the fifty-seven award winners during the years 1980-1989, personnel files could be found for only fifty-five. These files formed the basis of the first phase of the study. The heaviest concentration of winners was at the top of the academic ladder in terms of rank and salary. Approximately three-quarters of those chosen were full professors, and many of them were in a special (above-scale) salary range. This is not evidence of an upward bias in the selection of awards because the composition of the Berkeley faculty as a whole is top-heavy: professors (65%), associate professors (15%), assistant professors (11%), and lecturers (9%). (Data are for Fall 1989, counting only those lecturers with appointments at 50% or more for a year or more.) Nevertheless, one should ask: Is giving so many of the awards to so many senior people an efficient way to encourage higher performance in teaching?

   The data show no existence of a general policy or practice that would give an automatic salary increase to winners of the Distinguished Teaching Award.

   The awards are announced in April of each year, and advancements are recorded as of July 1. Therefore, it may be that there is no time for the award to be considered in the review process during the same year.

   In the second phase of this study, I sent a one-page inquiry to each of fifty-five award winners. After two follow-up requests, I had responses from forty of them (a return rate of 73%). The first question asked was, "In your perception, how has the Distinguished Teaching Award affected your rate of advancement or merit increase in salary?" Five options for the answer were given; and the results are shown in Table 1.

Table 1. - Recipients' Perception of How the Award Affected Their Advancement

Perception	Percentage	N recipients
Negatively	2	x
Not at all	23	xxxxxxxxx
Very little	25	xxxxxxxxxx
Moderately	23	xxxxxxxxx
Very much	7	xxx
No answer	20	xxxxxxxx

This is important data because the perception of the award winners determines the way they talk about it with faculty colleagues. I am sure that each winner was delighted and honored at receiving the award. However, if, as Table 1 shows, more than half of the recipients believe that the award had very little or no positive effect on their advancement, their colleagues may well conclude that it is in their own best interests - at least financially - to devote their energies more to research than to teaching.

Finally, my inquiry asked the award winners, "Please write freely on your observations and opinions concerning the relationship between the award and future advancement." Out of the forty respondents, twenty-eight wrote some comments, and I have selected the quotations that I found most interesting. Anonymity was promised with regard to my use of all responses. Several of the opinions appeared more than once, and I have skipped some repetitions.

Observations and Opinions by Award Winners

"I would imagine that the award has only influenced advancement or merit increase in a minor way. . . My own take is that if someone is a bad teacher, it will hurt them more than being a good teacher will help them"

"During the same year when I received the Distinguished Teacher Award I did get an advancement, but it is my impression that it had nothing to do with the award. . . Nothing was said about the teaching award in the letter in the letter which I received, and which described my other achievements in glowing terms."

"I think it would be useful to think of a broader range of rewards than just salary and administrative posts. Good teaching could be rewarded by getting relief from other duties (e.g., committee service) or additional sabbatical leave or seed money for new research and for teaching projects. . . The definition of teaching also needs attention - for example, it should include ore emphasis on mentoring/advising, at both grad and undergrad levels."

"By the time I received the Distinguished Teaching Award I was probably 'too far along' for it to have much influence on my advancement. But I think the award should make a difference - say an automatic advancement of one step (or two if the person concerned was due for an advancement anyway)."

"I find almost negative correlation. Research is rewarded, not teaching, and one is well advised not to become known as a 'brilliant' teacher unless one already has tenure. This sounds cynical, but I think that it's realistic."

"Formerly, as chair of _____, I tried to screen applicants for faculty positions on the basis of teaching potential as well as research strengths. Just recently the departmental faculty has been discussing the perceived changes in the campus' upper echelons regarding the bases for tenure and promotion cases. There is a noticeable awareness that publication no longer drives the entire decision-making process, but there is a lingering doubt about the actual weight given other criteria, especially teaching."

"There are many good teachers I know who have never gotten the award, so its function as a reward for good teaching is sporadic. . . This sounds sanctimonious - but teaching is and does create its own rewards. I think good teaching gets (slightly) rewarded materially. I also feel sure that bad teaching - particularly aggressive and self-aggrandizing teaching - goes unpenalized here."

"After receiving the award and starting a quite successful term as chair, I requested: (1) an acceleration; (2) a computer; (3) supplementary support for my sabbatical. All three were refused. When I complained about the last, the dean informed me that teaching and service do not count at all on such decisions."

"I received the award the same year I was granted tenure, which means the award came too late to be used in my tenure case. By the time of my next major promotion (to professor, four years later), the award was probably 'old news' and not a big factor. On the other hand, I think my overall high teaching ratings have been a significant factor in various promotion cases."

"I received a chair and a substantial salary increase in the year of the award. But it would be naive to attribute that largely or even partially to the award. (There was an outside offer that triggered the change,) This is an instance in which there is an apparent "objective correlation" between the award and advancement. But the appearance is an illusion."

"My perception about the recognition of good teaching stems from my stint as chairman (about ten years ago). Superior teaching is certainly used in my department as an argument in making a case for advancement, not the only, or even most important, argument, of course. The university officially bases advancement on performance in the triad of teaching, research, and public/professional service. . . In my department there are cases of refusal of advancement because of continued poor teaching performance, even though the research record was superior."

"Teaching has not been considered as important for advancement as research. However, I found that 'bad' teaching is a considerable impediment for promotion (at least in our department). It would be also important to reward good teaching in addition to 'punishing' bad teaching."

"I am not sure that there should be any link between salaries and this award. It is a once-in-a-lifetime award given to a very small number of people selected in ways that are not entirely clear to all faculty. If good teaching is to be rewarded (I don't think it is), I would think that a system that rates every faculty member every year would be much more relevant."

I asked whether each individual had served as an academic administrator, department chair or other position. My purpose was to see if administrative experience might correlate with the general cast of opinions given - whether fully satisfied with the status quo or expressing some criticism. It seems not to.

Changing the Reward System

   How well, then, does the present system serve to encourage faculty members to improve their teaching? The critical question is one of motivation because once faculty members decide to invest some additional time and energy on their teaching, there are excellent resources available on this campus - and at most colleges. With many competing demands upon their time and energy, each faculty member must set some priorities, by careful analysis or by simply following the crowd; and it is here that we should focus our attention. How the reward system works, and how it is perceived to work, are both central factors in leading each faculty member to set priorities.

   The following recommendations - based upon the data and comments reported above as well as my own thoughts - are offered. The first two (A, B) focus narrowly on improving the Distinguished Teaching Award; the next one (C) proposes an alternative to the competitive award; and the last has much broader applications and implications. None of these is a revolutionary proposal; nor is this list supposed to be complete.

Recommendation A: The Distinguished Teaching Award should carry an automatic one-step increase in salary, independent of any other advancement considerations for the individual. This was explicitly suggested by two of the winners. Its purpose is to make the award more real than symbolic.

Recommendation B: The Distinguished Teaching Award should, as a general rule, be given only to faculty members in the lower range of the salary scale, with an additional preference for younger members.

   If the purpose is to encourage faculty to devote more energy to better teaching - by holding award winners up as models to be emulated - then giving it to people already at the top of the academic ladder or to those near retirement seems to be a waste.

In addition, I would recommend that one particular component of teaching - the supervision of graduate students engaged in research work - should be greatly diminished or even eliminated as a criterion from the competition for the award. This particular component is closely tied to the faculty member's own research work and already is, I believe, given lots of weight and reward in evaluation and advancement.

Recommendation C: The Distinguished Teaching Award should be abolished; in its place the regular faculty advancement process should allow for a special one-step merit increase for any faculty member who has demonstrated outstanding work as a teacher.

   The competitive nature of the award may have more negative consequences than positive ones. Many excellent teachers have probably felt frustrated that their entry into the competition ended in failure. The entire business of academic "prizes" is fraught with parochial boosterism; and much of this competitive activity produces more image than substance.

Recommendation D: In every case for faculty advancement there should be mush more feedback - both analytical and constructive - from the administrative review process to the individual concerned.

   Several of the award winners' comments noted the difficulty in knowing how and why certain decisions about their advancement were made. Praise, or criticism, is most helpful to faculty members in seeking to improve their performance, whether in teaching or in any other aspect of their work. That this is not regularly done may be a habit left over from the antique social convention that "gentlemen" do not tell one another how to behave.

   Several quotations above refer to "punishing" poor teaching performance, but friendly and constructive criticism can be much more productive than just a bureaucratic slap in the face. A senior faculty member who is denied a merit increase for poor teaching, while being praised for research accomplishments, might well react with frustration and bitterness that could lead to even worse teaching. Remedial education, not punishment, is the better route; and the Berkeley campus has developed admirable resources to provide help in teaching, once a faculty member chooses to seek this help. Much here depends upon how the department chair handles such cases; and this, in turn, depends greatly upon what guidance the administration and the Senate give to the chairs.

   In the quotation in the box from the chairman who cites cases of poor teaching preventing advancement, one sees a startling break with convention. The canonical incantation by leaders of the university is that research and teaching are the twin duties of faculty members, that excellence in one is inextricably tied to excellence in the other, and that the faculty review and promotion system pays close attention to evaluating and rewarding both. From this all-too-common formulation an uninitiated listener would imagine that research and teaching are given equal weights in evaluating performance; but, of course, this is not true at our university.

   According to the experience of one author (who chaired one of the major departments on campus and is an individual widely respected for accomplishments in research and teaching and service), teaching counts for at most 25 percent in the whole faculty evaluation process. Others may guess a different figure; but I think we owe it to ourselves, our colleagues, our students, and our public to be more candid about this question.

   With the widespread concern about better teaching, I believe that this is a fertile time to go beyond the unfortunate superficiality of the Distinguished Teaching Award. We can replace it with a merit increase and with new administrative encouragement for and recognition of good teaching.