Rethinking Faculty Role in a Knowledge Age

ABSTRACT While the relationship and the relative importance between the primary faculty tasks of teaching and research have been debated and empirically examined, the fundamental faculty expectations at most universities remains unchanged. The shift to a knowledge age and the need for knowledge workers along with an emerging paradigm shift towards learning begs that the traditional faculty role be reexamined. The need for faculty to disseminate information has been replaced by the need for learners to know how to use and apply information. In this article, we apply value chain analysis to determine where the focus of faculty work is located and to identify how faculty can best create leverage among their activities along the chain. This analysis yields a shift in faculty focus "downstream" in the value chain, where more is expected of faculty in the areas of course design and student learning and assessment. In fact, the article points out several trends that clearly indicate that this shift downstream has taken place. Based on this value chain analysis, the authors draw conclusions on what changes should be considered regarding faculty roles. INTRODUCTION Scholars have attempted to determine what, if any, relationship exists between research and teaching (e.g., Hattie and Marsh, 1996; Rowland, 1996; Marsh and Hattie, 2002). That is, do the skills required for effective teaching and effective scholarship complement one another so that one can be competent or expert in both? Correlation studies have at best found no relation - in some cases it has been found that there is a negative relation (e.g., Hattie and Marsh, 1996). During this time, our understanding of knowledge, an epistemological question, and our advances in learning theory have widened the gap between actual teaching practice and espoused learning designs in college and university classrooms. The faculty role, working on a well-worn model of performing both research and teaching, is increasingly under stress to improve both. As such, it begs the question of whether teaching and scholarship are truly complementary skills and processes; that is, can faculty build leverage by spending time in one endeavor to inform and help the other? While there is a need to continue to examine the empirical basis for the assumed synergy between research and teaching, it is time for University administrations to act on the paradigm shift that is often attributed to the knowledge age. Driven by the simultaneous breakthroughs in technology and learning theory, the knowledge age has created an environment of constant change and changed the value propositions of knowledge itself. Other industries such as newspapers have had to change their business models based on this shift. Many sober educators, based on these external trends, have called for radical change - including change to traditional faculty roles - to take place in the field of higher education as a whole (e.g., Barnett, 1992; Guskin, 1994b). In fact, one of the primary challenges facing Universities today is that they must become more efficient in the use of their resources. With faculty being the primary resource of universities, the question must be addressed as to how to use these resources most efficiently. Does the traditional model that calls for nearly equal amounts of time spent between research and teaching (with relatively smaller responsibilities for service and administration) allow for the efficiencies necessary for the modern University? Are there other ways of conceiving of the faculty role to make more effective and efficient use of this essential, but costly resource? This article will use the conceptual model of value chains to analyze the faculty role; specifically, it will propose that based on the leverage points for faculty work, many universities should consider differential faculty roles to create efficiencies and to become more effective in delivering value in a knowledge age. …