Back To Researching: A Note for UMC Lecturers

Lecturers are designed to teach and research. Any other duties, especially if done excessively, destroy this primary designation.

Ma Chung boasts a teaching staff that comprise mostly young lecturers with at least Master’s degrees. What Ma Chung should provide is a conducive ambience for these lecturers to teach their subjects, conduct scientific research, and run social devotion programs that suit their disciplines.

To do so, not only do they need stimulating schemes like LPPM research grants or supply of latest updates on research grants from outside, but they also need special time allocation for writing articles, planning research, or conducting scientific investigations. Hey, they are lecturers, they are not simply teachers in some private course!

If such thing has not manifested yet, there are probably some causes:

First, Ma Chung lecturers are probably too swamped with their teaching hours and other non-academic duties. Teaching too many classes exhaust them because they have to make thorough preparation for each class they are teaching. If they still have to run here and there supervising an organizing committee for certain non-academic tasks, no wonder they don’t have any energy nor time left to mull about a research topic.

Second, Ma Chung lecturers are simply not interested in researching. Critical stance, long preparation, a lot of writing, and data analyzing are not things that appeal to them.

What Ma Chung needs is a constant encouragement from the top executives to keep them interested in researching. One or two lecturers who have won research grants or have finished outstanding research works may serve as role models for the others. ‘Healthy envy’ usually works best to silently motivate lecturers.