4. THE SYSTEM AND CULTURE OF NUS TODAY
Andy recognizes that the system and culture at NUS have changed profoundly since he joined in the mid-1980s when NUS was far less competitive. Today, young academics mostly join NUS on tenure-track positions and have to work hard to ensure they get, within a short (and shortening) number of years, a permanent position or else lose their jobs altogether. The dominant perception, particularly among younger faculty, has been that the system rewards research, perhaps in a smaller way teaching, but very rarely service. There is enough anecdotal evidence to show that this is not entirely untrue. Naturally, younger faculty come under tremendous pressure and strain to succeed in gaining tenure and so they focus almost entirely on producing a high number of not necessarily impactful publications. This, Andy thinks, encourages an imbalanced, short-sighted, and quite unnatural approach to the professorial vocation. Competition, Andy believes, is healthy but only if it leads to constructive research outcomes. He believes that collective anxiety has created an exaggerated sense of the difficulty involved in surviving the NUS system. Being excellent in all three areas, Andy believes, is difficult; but finding a balance among the three in order to survive is not. He believes that the evidence of success, if such statistics were made more widely available, would reassure younger faculty that they can adopt a more balanced approach and even enjoy what they are doing without compromising their chances of survival.
Andy notes that the problem is, to some degree, a question of perspective. When one is coming up for tenure, it seems like tenure is everything. Only after the trauma can one understand it in better perspective. While acknowledging that this experience is magnified for many younger faculty members today, for whom much more seems to be at stake in the quest for tenure, Andy admits that he also ‘went all out’ in order to secure his ‘job for life’, mistakenly thinking that with tenure one would have everything one needed. He recalls how some of his expatriate colleagues even gave up their citizenship to become Singaporeans because they thought that it would help them to be tenured. His own strategy was to focus primarily on the link between his research and teaching, in order to give himself a ‘competitive edge’ over his peers. He also took up every opportunity for management work, no matter how difficult it seemed to him. He did not pro-actively look for such opportunities, but did not decline any that were assigned to him. He reasoned that a new and rapidly developing university like NUS would present many management opportunities for people like him, who displayed a positive attitude towards management responsibilities. He was right. Although Andy managed to clear the hurdle without any upsets, he very soon realized that tenure was really the beginning of his academic career. Once he was tenured, he immediately took on more responsibilities and challenges. Students and staff expected much more from him as an educator. In pursuing his research, he had to ‘take on the world’ and achieve international recognition. In management work, his line of vision went well beyond his own office and department. In his pre-tenure years, he had not realized that this would be the case.
Reflection 33: If you are a tenured faculty member, did you have a particular strategy for achieving tenure? What was your experience during the years leading up to tenure? How has your academic life changed after gaining tenure?
Andy believes that NUS could do a better job of communicating the importance of balance when it hires new faculty and when they are annually reviewed.
Reflection 34: Is ‘publish or perish’ the dominant message that you get at NUS? Have you also heard less pessimistic and more supportive messages? Have you ever seen statistics on tenure and promotion success rates at NUS? Would you know where to find them?
The bias towards research, Andy acknowledges, is difficult to deny. In part, this is a function of the university’s need to find its place among the best universities internationally. And a world-class university is mainly judged on research excellence. And yet, NUS cannot relinquish its mandate as a comprehensive teaching university. Being a national university that depends predominantly on public money, NUS also has an obligation to the community and a responsibility to the public. The service rendered by its faculty is also an important gauge of the university’s relevance and impact. Therefore, NUS seems to have multiple objectives that are, for some, difficult to reconcile in their own vocations.
Reflection 35: How would you rank in importance the multiple objectives of NUS, based on what you have seen in practice? How would you rank these objectives, based on what you think should be the case?
This, Andy believes, has created among some groups at NUS a negative culture, in which people have lost faith in the university and feel powerless to do anything about it. Andy, however, believes in the NUS system. He has faith in the transformative power of good leadership, arguing, for instance, that Deans and Heads should work towards empowering faculty in their teaching and research. Today, NUS has become a top global institution, able to attract high-calibre academics and researchers who show great promise. All that the university really needs to do is to provide the necessary resources for excellent teaching and research, and an environment that promotes innovation and enterprise. If NUS can do that, there would be much less need for regular assessments, reviews, and evaluations, thus immediately reducing the amount of administration and bureaucracy, and freeing up faculty time for productive teaching, research, and service. Most importantly perhaps, there would be more time for thinking.
Reflection 36: As an academic at NUS, do you have time to ‘think’? What does ‘thinking’ mean to you? How does ‘thinking’ relate to research, teaching, and service?
Providing the resources and environment for faculty to aim high should be the university’s paramount mission. For instance, NUS should provide, at university and faculty levels, more funding for research developed around curiosity-driven ideas. Compared to the past, Andy feels, there is currently very little support for this kind of research, even though past research has, ironically, produced numerous papers that have helped to push NUS up the university rankings.
Reflection 37: Have you been able to conduct ‘curiosity-driven’ research? What support have you found for this work? How does it differ from the kind of research that the university prefers to support?
Andy’s optimism about changes in the NUS culture and system that will encourage a more balanced approach to research, teaching, and service is also based on seeing new initiatives like the formation of the Teaching Academy in 2009, of which he is a fellow. Through its Teaching and Learning Club meetings, which he spearheaded with Associate Professor Kenneth Paul Tan, faculty and students from across the campus can come together and discuss a range of issues that matter to them.
Reflection 38: Are you aware of the Teaching Academy and its Teaching and Learning Club? If you are, what is your assessment of its efforts so far? What else should it be doing?
And through Academic Journeys (the Teaching Academy’s series of case studies, of which this is the first), faculty have an opportunity not only to reflect critically on their careers in abstract terms but also to see concrete examples of how others have managed their careers under similar or different circumstances.
Reflection 39: These case studies are designed mainly as stimulus for individual reflection and group discussion. From the list of reflection questions, facilitators can select those questions that are relevant to the topic of interest. What other ways can case studies like these be used?
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