Editorial distorted Weintraub's message

Most of us who heard Dean Roy Weintraub's recent talk to the Arts and Sciences Council must wonder if the person who wrote your Jan. 16 editorial about it was there. The editorial's distorted version of what the dean said, together with its petulant rejection of the possibility that undergraduates might care about the research done by the faculty, certainly contribute nothing to a realistic assessment of what kind of university Duke is or should be.

In effect, Weintraub was giving a restatement of the job description of the faculty of Arts and Sciences. To most of us that was hardly new. But after a lot of rather sappy talk over the last couple of years in discussions of residential and intellectual life, it was probably necessary to remind everyone that Duke is not a place where faculty are hired to spend all their working hours dealing with undergraduates, and that most faculty have responsibilities of higher priority (including research, graduate students and families) than sipping coffee or cokes with undergraduates in social situations.

Nowhere did the dean suggest that all undergraduates ought to get involved in the research of the faculty; that would be impractical logistically even if it were desirable. But he and others did point to the option of that involvement as one of the strengths of a research university, and we ought to emphasize those strengths in recruiting and advising our students. The obligations of the faculty to do a good job in classroom teaching and advising were not stressed because they are obvious, not because they are of little importance. But those activities occupy generally no more than half of the working time of our faculty.

A student who goes through Duke taking the necessary courses and doing nothing else academically may get a reasonable education, but certainly has not made optimal use of the place. The faculty of this and other research universities are chosen on the basis of their standing as professional scholars, experts who contribute to the advancement of scholarly understanding. To learn from such people can be a much richer experience than merely taking courses from professional teachers. But the student must want that richer experience, and the University must be willing to help both parties to bring it about.

Lawrence Evans

Department of Physics