University Rankings

There is a rather engaging article in the current edition of The New Yorker on the compilation of university ranking scales (which you can read here). Such scales are the curse of the academic classes as, the article deftly explains, what they purportedly measure - university ‘quality’ - isn’t what they measure at all. Although the piece is specifically about American universities, the wider concerns and criticisms it raises are pretty much valid for wider global ranking scales too.
Here in Japan such rankings are becoming more insidious and all defining in assessing what goes on in a university. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth when this year’s Times Educational Supplement world university rankings were announced and only two Japanese institutions featured in the top 100. Even here in my little academic backwater such rankings are making their effect felt. At a recent faculty meeting we were implored to do more research, or rather, publish more research.
Now, this raises the rather contentious point of what a university is actually for: teaching and/or research. Traditionally the two have sat side by side, but in this new, quantitative world we work in, research, being measurable (number of papers published, grants received, funds received, etc.) takes priority over teaching.
But does this make for a better university? Not, I would contend, if you are a student. Research (yes, I am aware of the irony) has consistently shown that the two most important variables on students’ academic performance are class size and the quality of the teacher. And note that’s quality rather than qualifications.
Class size tends to be an administrative rather than a pedagogical decision with the result that I end up teaching writing to a class of 60 students. Or rather trying to teach as in those circumstances all you can do is hope that the lowest common denominator, linguistically speaking, doesn’t end up that low (“Me like pley basketboll”, etc.).
The relationship between teaching quality and teaching qualifications is even more tenuous (if it exists at all). I am, Lord save me, in the midst of a drag-down, bare-knuckle brawl with a ragged beast of a PhD, and I can safely say with hand over stressed heart that it will in no way make me a better teacher. Given the extraordinary amount of time it consumes I suspect it will end up making me a worse one.
But, as a doctorate program, it is not supposed to make me a better teacher. Rather, it is intended to make me a professional academic researcher; somebody who, on successful completion of the program (should that blessed day ever come), has contributed a very incremental increase in the sum of our knowledge of my particular field of study. (It’s language policy, by the way. Still your thrilling hearts).
Yet, should you, in your desire to flee Ireland and all things Euro, end up perusing the academic job listings for English teaching positions in Japanese universities, you will quickly notice that most applicants are required to have a “PhD in Applied Linguistics or a related field”. Read on further though, and you find in the job description that you will be expected to teach something along the lines of English conversation, English writing, TOEIC test English, and the ever nebulous General English I. No mention of research despite the fact that in specifying a PhD holder the university is, de facto, intent on hiring a professional researcher rather than a professional teacher.
(Note: I am not saying that the two are mutually exclusive; there may well be some correlation but there sure as statistical heck won’t be any causation.)
Nor, chances are, will the successful applicant find any particular need for her specific area of academic specialization. No classes of wide-eyed, eager undergraduates impatiently waiting to be inducted into the mysteries of Bauldauf’s seven point language-in-planning model. Instead she will be asking students to make pairs and, rather unrealistically, tell each other in a foreign language what they did over the winter holidays.
So why this demand for PhDs? Because they are a quantifiable, easy to measure and thus used in ranking universities. Simple as that.
Ahhh, tis the season to be cynical. Coming up tomorrow: why Santa should be downsized and the elves outsourced to Vietnam.