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The system is unfortunately unfair to everyone, in the sense that it's an unfair expectation for people to love and be good simultaneously at teaching and research. I met many people that want to do research (because of passion or because that's what gets you a career) and are bothered by teaching; I've also met people, including myself, who prefer teaching to research, and it's unfair that neither of these groups can express their skill properly.

I predict that in the future there will be more of a separation of careers, especially at the bachelor level, where having an instructor that knows the state of the art of research is not so necessary (although I'd argue that they should have a PhD). This is already happening a bit, say, in the UK, especially in fields like CS where courses are required also in other degrees curricula.




Talking with my partner just now, it seems like some universities in the USA practice this now. Some colleges at Iowa State University seem to have professors that have very low research expectations, and they typically teach the 100 and 200-level classes. Those teachers seemed to have packed lecture halls, since those profs truly care about teaching and don’t have the stress of constantly producing papers from a large lab.


Those are term faculty. They typically aren't paid well.




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