Abstract

Making a Difference: The Impacts of Faculty JERRY G. GAFF Much of the erosion of academic authority in recent years can be traced in large measure to the assessment, rightly or wrongly, that colleges and universities have abandoned their central task of pro­ viding effective education. Many persons, both on and off the campus, feel that faculty members have turned away from teaching, that stu­ dents have spurned thinking in favor of feeling and acting, and that administrators have sat idly by while these changes have occurred. Campus morale and public confidence in higher education have plum­ meted as more and more people have come to believe that the quality of teaching and learning have been compromised. Of particular concern to many observers is the quality of under­ graduate "liberal education." Although that tenn cannot be defined sharply, it manages to imply a special kind of education which is at the heart of most college and university endeavors. In regard to teach­ ing it means more than transmitting facts and knowledge and more than presenting the content of one's academic specialty, however im­ portant these may be. It implies a breadth of concern and an attempt to relate knowledge