At a recent meeting of the Arts & Sciences faculty, it was announced that Washington University plans to create a new faculty position within Arts & Sciences—the Professor of the Practice. These professors would be something like elite lecturers, with different obligations than normal tenure-track faculty. To be chosen, they must have demonstrated either “an exemplary, long-standing record of experience in the professional practice of the field” or “an effective and successful teaching record.” They will be employed full-time, but like our current lecturers, they will not be granted tenure or voting rights in administrative decisions on par with tenure-track professors.

We would like to commend Wash. U. and the School of Arts & Sciences for deciding to create these positions. It has long been clear to many that skilled teaching has been far undervalued relative to research output among the faculty at Wash. U. Many popular lecturers or professors with less-than-distinguished research records, such as Jerome Bauer and Tzachi Zach, have been dismissed or denied tenure even though many students thought they deserved to stay because of these professors’ dedication to teaching. These new professorships should prove to be a good first step in addressing this concern among students.

Still, we don’t want this gesture to end a discussion about the over-emphasis on research-oriented faculty that sometimes gives the impression that teaching abilities take a backseat. The people that will eventually fill these positions will no doubt be effective teachers, but because of the distinguished nature of the professorship, it is unlikely that there will be enough of them around to offset all of the lack of concern for teaching ability that has been demonstrated by the administration in the past. Attention must still be paid to the rank-and-file lecturers who take on so much of the teaching responsibilities at the University.

Professors of the Practice, if widely established, will be a valuable addition to the learning experience of students in Arts & Sciences. However, this needs to be an expansive initiative and should be the start of a new trend in valuing teachers, not an isolated event.