| Criticism of higher education in the United States has become frequent in recent years. Part of the critique is directed at faculty productivity, faculty involvement in undergraduate education, and whether allocating institutional and individual resources to research and publication diminishes educational quality. Faculty perceptions of the situation are at odds with the critical perspective. This interpretive study regards "faculty productivity" as a political term and as a socially constructed problem, and intends to expand our understanding of how the academic profession views productivity by answering the question: How do faculty describe productive academic work?; To understand the perspective of the academic profession, I analyze faculty members' responses to interview questions about their work, and then I compare their statements to A.A.U.P. position papers on productivity and the regulation of academic work. Finally, I compare this evidence to a critical position. Twenty-seven faculty interviews are examined. The sample includes interviews with faculty in a baccalaureate college, a public masters' university and a public research university in humanities, natural science and social science departments. Faculty members' comments are coded and categorized to examine within and between group similarities and differences in the profession, institution, discipline, and department regarding their descriptions of productive academic work and orientation to teaching, research, and service.; The respondents' views of productivity show little consistency, except among institutions. Individual descriptions emphasize research, and less frequently teaching. The A.A.U.P. position stresses the importance of all three functions to academic work. Individuals and the A.A.U.P. agree with the critical notion of faculty accountability, but reject external control of faculty work. Faculty in the research university and baccalaureate college, institutions with high research expectations, view productivity primarily in terms of research, while faculty in the master's university, where research expectations are low, typically include research, teaching and service in their descriptions. Institutional reward systems and administrative practices strongly influence how faculty members view productivity. Efforts to reform higher education should consider how external funding policies and institutional practices direct faculty attention and heed the A.A.U.P. recommendation to value a much broader range of teaching and research activities than is currently rewarded. |
