Well, I for one appreciate such progress, and I always welcome any move away
from theory, especially in my field.

Matthew Guy
Professor of Literary Theory and Criticism
Dept. of English

-----Original Message-----
From: UTC Staff E-Mail List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Richard Rice
Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 7:25 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [UTCSTAFF] Theory and the Real World

President Petersen last week at the Trustees Meeting defended his incentive 
plan to attract and reward the best young scholars in the UT system. A 
recent survey of scholars teaching international relations in Foreign 
Policy suggests that an unintended consequence of this will be a trend 
towards teaching more theory and less real world application. I wonder if 
this will be true in most disciplines at UTC? I quote:

"The international relations field today is surprisingly young: Half of the 
professors who teach at U.S. colleges received their Ph.D.s in the past 12 
years. Even more surprising is how young scholars change the focus of their 
teaching over time. Early on, when young faculty are fresh out of graduate 
school, they focus their teaching on theoretical questions and scholarly 
debates. But, as their careers progress, professors are inclined to teach 
their students more about real-world policy debates and less about 
scholarly arguments. The image of the ancient, tenured professor reading 
from decades-old notes needs to be revised."

  Richard