University undergraduate instruction at crossroads

Abstract

Charles Sykes, in his book ProfScam (1988), provides a list of indictments against university faculty. These indictments include the charges that faculty members have abandoned their teaching responsibilities and their students; left the nation's students in the care of an ill-trained, ill-paid, and bitter academic underclass in pursuit of their own interests; and created a culture in which bad teaching goes unnoticed and unsanctioned and good teaching is penalized. The author examines charges in the context of the QEEP (Quality of Engineering Education Project) report (1986) and makes recommendations for improving undergraduate teaching at the university level.<>