Last week the administration announced that the campus Distinguished Teaching Award is being replaced this year by up to 25 awards for “Extraordinary Teaching in Extraordinary Times”:
The award is intended to honor UC Berkeley faculty, staff, and graduate student instructors who in 2020 embraced the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, and engaged in or supported excellent teaching. These instructors and staff used innovative methods and worked beyond their traditional roles to ensure that students remained engaged and supported, and were challenged to do meaningful work under extraordinary circumstances.
The administration is right to recognize the exceptional commitment of so many across the campus, including ladder faculty, lecturers, graduate student instructors and staff – all trying to make the best of remote instruction. But we wonder if this goal is best achieved by selecting 25 for special recognition. We share the concern, expressed by several colleagues on the campus’ “Teach-Net” listserv, where dedicated instructors share ideas and strategies, that singling out some for employing “innovative methods” and encouraging students to do “meaningful work” effectively undervalues the extraordinary efforts of many others to maintain excellence in instruction. Who has not worked hard to retool courses, to provide resources, to offer consultation and friendly aid in this time of emergency? And some of that hard work has entailed less “innovative” methods, like providing extensive feedback on student writing.
We prefer the model developed by Professor Raka Ray, Dean of the Social Sciences. Each and every instructor (Senate and non-Senate alike) active in the division last semester received a Teaching and Service Award, “with our deepest admiration and gratitude.”
While the campus announced a plan to give $2000 to 25 “extraordinary” teachers, UCOP released a letter from President Drake last week, announcing an expanded winter holiday “curtailment” plan that would entail (unknown) cuts in faculty salaries. The letter called for a response but offered no specifics—only nebulous suggestions of a “progressive” approach to salary reductions and a promise to protect “as many jobs as possible.” How can we respond to such a vague proposal?
Michael Burawoy and Celeste Langan for the Board of the Berkeley Faculty Association.