Teaching and research in contemporary higher education: An overview

Abstract

While universities in the Middle Ages were primarily teaching institutions, since the establishment of Berlin University in 1810, there has been much discussion of the relation between teaching and research in higher education. Which is the primary function of the universities and of the academics employed at these institutions, do these functions reinforce or compete with each other, and might there not be variation depending on a particular institution’s mission, the student body composition, or other factors? A notable illustration of this tension was the controversy associated with the decision to establish the Johns Hopkins University in 1876 as a graduate school without a linked undergraduate program. US higher educators have in recent decades revisited the controversy, with one milestone being Ernest Boyer’s Scholarship Reconsidered that argued for more attention to be focused on the scholarships of integration and dissemination. This book seeks to address the issue of the teaching and research, a controversial topic in higher education research, using empirical comparative data-the Changing Academic Profession survey in 2007.