Great Idea...Let's Get Ride Of Research!

It's true, the GOP is trying to put forth a plan that will eliminate sabbaticals for professor's in the state of Iowa.  Why?  Because according to Danny Homan, president of the largest state employee union, Professors should be in the classroom to teach, as there job "description" requires...

"They are being paid to not do what they were hired to do, and that's teach in the classroom," he said. "It's time that practice ends. We don't have the money."

Part of the problem with this statement is the mere fact that professors aren't simply being hired to teach, they are being hired to be a contributing member to their discipline.  The Sciences go out and discover new innovations and contribute that to the world on multiple occasions, writing is going through constant changes which require extensive amounts of research, and history profs. are constantly faced with the new discoveries found by archeologists that they must implement into the classroom. Mr. Homan wants us to believe that these profs should be in the classroom and teach.  But how a teacher one teach if they are unable to do what is necessary to stay up to date with their discipline?

Unlike most jobs where you learn everything you need to know in within the place you work, college professors have to go out on their own to research the ever-changing qualities and knowledge of their profession.  It's hard to grasp the audacity of the GOP in forcing a state-wide sabbatical cutting mandate for all Iowa, government funded universities when they obviously have no idea what good this time off from teaching can do for the educational standards within the classrooms.

"I'm sure they feel it has great symbolic value," said John Curtis, director of research and public policy for AAUP "But the loss, of course, is what the whole purpose of sabbatical is: to allow faculty members to do research, to engage in understanding new developments in their discipline and then to bring all of that back to their teaching."

Educational standards have been steadily declining within American's colleges and universities while they raise the standards of the athletic programs and popularity contests.  If the Republicans want to help decrease spending, but maintain and/or increase the the academic excellence of the students, start looking into cutting spending on other things and not the professors ability to better themselves as teachers.

My mother is a college professor and is actually the head of the English & Foreign Language Department.  From what I learned of her time spent on sabbatical, while still having a lot more free time than she had while teaching, she still utilized this opportunity to finish and publish her dissertation, which resulted claiming the title of Doctor Trapp.  This is what she was hired to do, teach and to contribute to her society and discipline!  And she is better for it.

I don't actually see this GOP plan being put into motion as many Iowa profs will move elsewhere so they can have this opportunity given to them.  But the fact that it's even being considered by Republicans just shows how much they value the education in general.