“An online survey of full professors has revealed that they see their role very differently from the universities that employ them. The 200-strong survey, conducted as part of a project for the UK Leadership Foundation, reveals significant ‘expectation gaps’ with respect to the importance of income generation, mentoring and the leadership of teaching. Professors regard income generation as their least important role but acknowledge that their own institutions see this task as one of their top priorities. Just 50% of professors rated income generation as either important or very important to them personally. But, when asked how universities regard this part of their role, the figure became 82%. As one respondent commented, ‘My university seems obsessed by external income generation rather than the quality of outputs from researchers like me.’ While professors regard helping other colleagues to develop as their most important task, this was ranked only fourth as an institutional expectation …” (more)
[Bruce Macfarlane, University World News, 8 March]