Students at research universities complain about the lack of interest in and proficiency of faculty in performing their teaching obligations. I suspect the fault lies on both sides of the lectern. In both cases it's ignorance of each parties' true roles and responsibilities.

Professors complain that students do not study enough and students say "I'm not paying you to make my head hurt --I'm paying you to fill it up with little effort on my part."

The question is raised: Why doesn't it happen all the time? What are the great teachers doing that the mediocre are not?

Perhaps they are educating, from the Latin educere -- meaning to lead. This presumes that the student wants to, and is following. Imagine how disappointing and dispiriting it is for a lecturer to realize students are not following and no matter how well the lecture material is prepared and presented, the situation does not change.

But the student still maintains the material is not being presented properly -- where properly is not a matter of delivery style but more the expectation of the substance -- what the student is to be learning and how this comprehension is to be assessed.

Consider the verbs: training, teaching, educating and research/scholarship. Do they occur in American research universities? Sadly, yes. The first three all result in learning and the last in graduate school.

The objection is that each involves a different process and only the last three are appropriate in a university. University students have passed through the first two during grades K-12 and should not expect to repeat these experiences.

The following is an intellectual argument to motivate students to study harder and for professors to educate.

Training occurs formally from kindergarten to sixth grade. Training is a learning process based on rote/repetition with a reward/punishment system to cause/encourage learning.

For example: One teaches a dog tricks, a child is trained to tie shoes and brush teeth. The grading is equally binary -- satisfactory/unsatisfactory and attendance is required.

Teaching occurs generally from grades 6-12. It is a process that is more complex and not based on a simple motivational system but often involves peer pressure and a competition element.

While this an underlying element of repetition, it is in the form of longer homework assignments. These exercises require the student to generate and follow a sequence of logical steps.

The proficiency of grading is equally exacting with a range from A to F that is assessed in many ways: quizzes, exams, homework and term papers. An important aspect also attempted to be taught is learning "how to learn." This "how to" and "why" are the biggest two deficiencies in the public school preparation for self learning -- attendance is required.

Education occurs formally in universities but also, throughout life. The difference is that the shared responsibility for the learning process, while it gradually shifts from the parent/teacher to the student during the K-12 grades, it is the student's responsibility after high school.

The university presumes the student is self-motivated to pursue knowledge. Peer pressure and competition does and should lessen in importance as motivators, vocational preparation and love of the subject is expected to be at a deeper and more sophisticated level.

The course material should concentrate on presenting broad and integrating concepts, theories and historical patterns with reduced emphasis on simple facts, dates, etc. The professor should describe the discipline's structure and lead the student through the forest of facts -- usually the student can't see the forest for the trees.

Just as high school should prepare the student for life and/or university by teaching "how to learn," the university should educate in "how to create (something new)" as preparation for professional practice and/or graduate school by studying the knowledge, history and methodologies/techniques.

The responsibility for the learning activity should be up to the student. Thus, the professor, in addition to presenting lectures should only need to recommend a few texts, assign and correct a few exercises and certainly not require attendance. The instructional sophistication and assessment of comprehension should be as sophisticated as the subject matter.

Clearly this rather stark educational process is in contrast to the hand-holding occurring at American universities. The instructional and motivational methods and intellectual atmosphere are not much different from high school and cutting class is considered naughty and daring. The university has, until relatively recently, had a responsibility as "in loco parentis" where required attendance, homework and living arrangements are dictated.

In most professions a graduate degree is desirable and in some cases is required. In graduate school, the undergraduate conditions described are more nearly approached although a hand-holding tendancy remains. An important element in graduate school is the development, writing and defense of a thesis.

It is interesting to note that a hundred years ago before the advent of higher mass education, in order to graduate, the undergraduate had to debate successfully a position to demonstrate the comprehension of a subject matter. Beyond mastery of the facts this required the original assembly and generation of rhetoric.

This tradition is continued in graduate school in the thesis defense and comprehensive examinations. The thesis should involve the generation of knowledge by discovery and/or an original combination of facts or recognition of a new pattern/structure. The thesis must be sufficiently complete and correct to be convincing and be a lasting contribution to the field.

Notice the difference with undergraduate term papers that are required to be descriptive and present other people's opinions. This lack of recognition for written and oral rhetoric's importance is a serious undergraduate instructional deficiency -- and is why "engineers can't write" when they enter their profession. They can't use the knowledge and methodologies they learned (by training/teaching) in the university to generate convincing technical arguments. The faculty is responsible for this lack of emphasis and practice.

It is interesting to learn that the field of educational theory has recently recognized this progression of instructional and student sophistication as the grade level and student age increases.

Pedagogy is the term used for training children and has until the last 30 years dominated the theory of instruciton. With the returning adult an appreciation has grown that children and adults learn differently.

Andragogy is used to describe this instructional expectation and methodology. I suspect that outside adult education this term and its instructional consequences are is probably not widely known among faculty and administration.

Certainly university students think they are adults and want to be treated as such. Over this same period strides have been made in relaxing the students' social enviornment but I doubt the students and faculty have assumed equal adult roles and responsibilities in their joint intellectual endeavor.

This article's purpose is to present an intellectual argument as opposed to the typical emotional pep talks presented in an intellectual environment to motivate students to recognize and assume the responsibility for their university education.

The student will realize the first two instructional modes are not to be expected at a university. As an undergraduate one is preparing for a career of creative contribution and accomplishment.

While deficiencies occur on both sides of the lectern, the usual dialogue is for both sides to simply work harder. I hope I have also indicated how both sides can work smarter.