Last year I applied for this award, called „RWTH Lecturer“. It is endowed with 7.500 Euro. The title „RWTH Lecturer“ also permits to officially supervise BSc and MSc thesis. And most importantly, it recognises the quality of the teaching the laureates do. It shows appreciation by the university for the job one does as a lecturer.
The reviewers had the following to say about my work:
- High to exceptionally high personal engagement and autonomy in teaching with diverse independent teaching concepts.
- Broad experience and high diversity in teaching, highly motivated in education, exceptional university teaching, with very good evaluation by the students.
- High publication record.
- High acquisition of third party funding.
They came to the conclusion that my performance is just not enough for the award. And the reason seems to be that the budget for the award is too limited to recognise me. They had to decide about funding.
Now, that‘s interesting! I get no recognition for my teaching activities, because of a lack of money?! In reverse, is good education only possible with additional costs?
The „Students going/running scientific“ courses cost only one thing: my free time, since I give them in the evening, clearly after my working day, and I cannot compensate for overtime. I and my family pay for this teaching. No prize money could change that.
The lecture I give on the bioavailability and bioaccumulation of contaminants with the example of chocolate during Christmas time only requires a bag of chocolate sweets. I am happy to pay this privately. Besides this, all it takes is a strong dedication to a teaching that helps the students better anchoring knowledge to memorable examples.
The time I spent to advise students in terms of mobility, going abroad, studying a semester in a foreign country, and the time it costs to coordinate the various mobility programmes, cannot be reimbursed using money. We also couldn't purchase anything that would reduce effort in this regards.
The dedication to quality teaching in lectures, seminars, and practicals, is nothing that one could buy. It also wouldn‘t help to involve a student asssistant from some prize money in whatever tasks, to free up time for improving my teaching material. All I do on a daily basis can be done only be me. We have our resources optimised in this way.
By the way, in terms of improvement, didn‘t some important people say that my teaching is already exceptional? I do not blame the reviewers. They were urged to take a decision. I blame the idea behind attaching funding to a recognition of exceptional teaching.
Telling someone they are doing a good job costs nothing but some kind words. It became so rare in our world. Everything has to be connected to money. But on the contrary, showing appreciation for personal engagement and dedication satisfies and motivates, thus increasing productivity. If you like you can put a price tag on that.
I will apply for the RWTH Lecturer again this year, if allowed. And I might be awarded, if only few candidates are better rated, albeit nothing significant has changed since 2017. It would be only because there‘s funding available. This is the part that really demotivates me.
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