Calculating the value of a professor

STORRS — Tom Ebaugh, working toward a Ph.D. in chemical engineering, says Radenka Maric is the reason he’s doing it at the University of Connecticut.

“I wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t,” said Ebaugh, 24, wearing plastic gloves and protective glasses at a fuel cell energy laboratory, part of UConn’s Center for Clean Energy Engineering.

Originally from Pennsylvania, he is among a handful of graduate students working under Maric, who is not only a professor in sustainable energy, but as of July, vice president of academic research at Connecticut’s flagship university.

Until she took that job, Maric taught fluid mechanics to undergraduates. She still works with students doing independent study and dissertation research in her labs. She pulled a worn, spiralbound notepad from her office shelf, filled with handwritten calculations in anticipation of questions students might ask.

The idea of research professors teaching one more class per semester — suggested by Republican lawmakers as the Legislature wrestles to come up with a budget — might not seem like a big ask.

Maric, however, said it would irreparably damage the university to which she moved from Vancouver, British Columbia, seven years ago.

“Many would quit,” Maric said of research professors. “For every class I teach, I spend 12 hours preparing for the class, then after class, six to eight hours reviewing, meeting students.”

Teaching assistants can grade papers, but Maric insists on going over them as well, to make sure students understand what she is teaching.

“We should never compromise on the quality,” she said. “If quality is not there, students will leave.”

The Republican budget that would have required UConn professors to carve out more time for teaching fell victim to a gubernatorial veto, but not everyone was convinced the idea is dead.

“It is not a done deal yet,” said Michael Bailey, executive director of UConn’s union chapter of the American Association of University Professors. “I guess if it was mandated in state statute, (UConn’s) president would have to abide by it.”

Contributed / Charles Yarish, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, works with students in his lab in Stamford, reviewing farmed seaweed that they recently retrieved.