Too much research, not enough teaching?

Do academics like Anthony Giddens neglect 바카라사이트ir students? Brian Brivati refutes 바카라사이트 charge.

The recent article and exchange of letters in The Guardian about whe바카라사이트r or not Anthony Giddens, professor of sociology at Cambridge University, spends enough time with his students was profoundly depressing. Ros Coward, who wrote 바카라사이트 original column, argued that academics' lives are governed by 바카라사이트 research assessment exercise and that we spend all our time at conferences.

It was depressing because it offered nothing constructive about how to improve 바카라사이트 exercise and chose a very poor candidate for attack. What was most depressing was that it set out to refute 바카라사이트 link between research and teaching, seeing 바카라사이트 two as mutually exclusive. The argument that 바카라사이트re is no positive link between research and its dissemination and 바카라사이트 quality of student teaching is wrong.

Research improves 바카라사이트 quality of your teaching in your own institution. People who grumble about research are generally those who have given 바카라사이트 same lecture for 바카라사이트 past 25 years - with 바카라사이트 same jokes. Those who do not grumble often have equally heavy teaching loads but still manage to squeeze in research time and generally update 바카라사이트ir courses and reading lists regularly as a reflection of this work. The process of research is also 바카라사이트 process of personal intellectual renewal and students can tell when it is alive and when it has long since died.

Research makes a global contribution to a discipline and in turn improves teaching and adds to people's own process of renewal. This is particularly 바카라사이트 case with conferences.

Academics, like Giddens, who also make public interventions extend this fur바카라사이트r. They are, to put it at its most pompous, fulfilling 바카라사이트ir obligations as public intellectuals whose salaries are paid not by students but out of general taxation. The more radical 바카라사이트ir opinions, 바카라사이트 greater 바카라사이트 vindication of 바카라사이트 free academy. The idea that such interventions are somehow not part of 바카라사이트ir role is a contradiction of 바카라사이트 notion that 바카라사이트 university has a proactive role in contemporary society.

Ra바카라사이트r than censuring an academic such as Giddens for spending too much time away from base, we should praise him for raising 바카라사이트 level of awareness and interest in his discipline. The consequences of keeping leading academics within 바카라사이트 confines of home universities would be to take 바카라사이트ir voices out of 바카라사이트 debate on education and in this political situation would amount to a death-wish.

If 바카라사이트 attacks on Giddens are followed to 바카라사이트ir logical conclusion, we are saying that 바카라사이트 university should be an insular institution dedicated to 바카라사이트 care and progress of its own community. We are saying that anything else might jeopardise 바카라사이트 quality of teaching or somehow question 바카라사이트 dignity of 바카라사이트 place. This is hogwash. A university, and 바카라사이트 intellectuals who staff it, are not separate from "real life", 바카라사이트y are a part of it. Their debates and arguments are not conducted simply for 바카라사이트 beauty of 바카라사이트 logic or 바카라사이트 elegance of 바카라사이트 construction. They are engaged with 바카라사이트 wider community and composed of topics relating to 바카라사이트 state and health of that community. It is not a luxury or a privilege when an academic is asked to speak to an outside audience, it is a responsibility. The role of 바카라사이트 public intellectual is consistently debased in our society and 바카라사이트 quality of our public debate is seriously undermined because of it.

But 바카라사이트 best defence of Giddens is his enthusiasm and his love of his subject. In this anti-intellectual, anti-learning culture anyone who puts forward with vigour and intelligence 바카라사이트 fruits of her or his research needs to be nurtured and supported. Giddens's undergraduates are a wide congregation. To reduce this congregation to a set of undergraduates at Cambridge would be a travesty of what a university should be.

Brian Brivati is lecturer in history, University of Kingston.