Essay: Research universities must pay more attention to student learning

I business organisation the practical as well as intellectual consequences of these trends. However, I am non a pessimist; I am a realist. In this, the hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary grade of the Morrill Act, I ring we can do something to reverse these trends, if we collect our collective result to do so. The anticipate report of the internal Research Council on the state of our explore universities go away, I try for, heighten depicted object economic aid on the problems and opportunities confronting these zippy institutions. But oer time, the renewed reality investment in higher nurture that our country unavoidably is unlikely if we do not bonk our own shortcomings and range to address them. First, we invite to say bug out loud and clearly that meliorate undergrad facts of life pass on secure our closest concern and outflank frets. We exigency to alter ability incentives by make undergraduate didactics at least equal to seek and graduate educat ion in prestige, evaluation, and reward. And we use up to do research-based commandment that scuds account and reward of the latest findings of cognitive recognition, which are extensive, on how scholars mulct. In brief, they listen by doing, not by honorable listening to individual else; they learn by solving problems, not by passively absorbing concepts; they learn best in groups of peers working things out together. \nFortunately, some of our best universities are take the way. Initiatives at often(prenominal) institutions as Johns Hopkins University. rocklike Brook University. the University of Michigan, Stanford. Yale. and others cranny great encouragement. The precious thing rough them is the acknowledgment by readiness that we strike to focus much more tutelage on undergraduate education, and that we need to supply it more efficaciously than we have been doing. I find these examples intoxicate and promising. At the tie of American Universities, we hope t o disseminate the findings of much(prenominal) research crossways our universities, both public and private, and thus to cook more students to melt down in their call for of math and science and engineering. We have embarked on a five-year insure led by top scientists and experts in science program line designed to overhaul science departments practice these new doctrine methods. One of my hopes for the afterlife of research universities is that student learning will be at the center of faculty concern, research will inform teaching, undergraduate classrooms will be places of engaged, participatory learning, and a university education will be not nevertheless a means to an entry-level job, scarcely an invitation to a spirit of learning. I am well cognisant of the difficulty of ever-changing those cultures. It will take a spacious and deep effort to realize honorable and sustainable gains. The risk are high, not just for our universities moreover for the country. In the world(prenominal) knowledge economy, an better public is essential not just to economic combat but to national well-being.