Higher education in the United States is the best in the world. A higher percentage of young adults attend college and earn degrees here than in any other country in the world. Far more international students come to the United States for higher education than to any other country. Our system of junior colleges, state colleges, universities, professional colleges and liberal arts colleges is far more flexible and forgiving than any other. Further, in the United States, universities are the main source of new knowledge and succeeding generations of researchers; they produce more basic research and train more researchers than any other set of institutions in the world.
The dichotomy between good teaching and research is false. Occasionally a brilliant researcher will mumble or tremble before a classroom of students or disdain all but the most brilliant undergraduates, but rarely. (So exceptional are such instances that we always notice!) Most researchers are so engaged in their subjects and have such command of the material that they are fine teachers. Students have to work hard, but expanding the intellect and achieving more than an accumulation of “facts” is always hard and sometimes frightening. There is more to an education than the accumulation of facts. Facts may speak for themselves, but only when we have developed an “ear” to hear what they may be saying.
At the same time, higher education, particularly at research institutions, is much maligned by Americans -- by public officials, the press, and private citizens. Students move into the dorms for their first year and before classes even start are heard to say, "My advisor doesn't care about me; he [usually called a he] only cares about research."
What is the story? Of course, faculty "care about" teaching and advising well. They also care about other things. Personally, they share the hopes, dreams, and concerns that commonly inform human life. But the focus of university professors -- what they care very much about indeed -- is intellectual inquiry and research. They hope their students will share that caring, and they project their hope as expectations. Sometimes students find it hard to understand and realize such expectations, because the effort demands a kind of engagement with material and subjects different from the one for which they were rewarded in high school.
Cornell faculty members teach one or two courses a semester. Compared with other institutions and viewed from the perspective of the 40-hour work week, this may appear to be a very light load. It is not. Cornell teachers spend about half their time doing the fundamental research and artistic projects that create new knowledge and art, define the boundaries between what is known and what is not, and indeed define the various ways of knowing. They apply the same intellectuality to their syllabi and class meetings as they do to their research proposals and publications. Student and professor both are rewarded by the sharp focus and intensity to learning that lead to deep understanding.
What does this mean for Cornell students?
Faculty are not available whenever and wherever students feel inclined to talk with them. Relationships with faculty are like other good, productive professional relationships. In college, as in life, there are formalities to be observed. One must make appointments and prepare for meetings. In fact, opportunities for working with faculty are many, but students must take the initiative and seek them out. Cornell is an extraordinary place for self-starters.
What does this mean for Cornell faculty?
Teaching, research, and advising are the three fundamental responsibilities of Cornell faculty.