Fifty years ago if you had a problem you would run to the head of your department as she/he knew all. Industry and government agencies used to wheel them in when there was a problem; but not now. Specialization rules now, since fruits from low hanging branches have been harvested, and one needs to stretch farther and go further. It is more often than not the research assistant knows about her /his subject than his professor. The question is who you would send to the classroom to teach.
In most places, older professors are teaching first-year students and the younger ones teaching the advanced undergraduate/graduate courses; which is right as the older professor has more experience to make things comprehensible to young students.
In the past teaching, the university courses carried a lot of prestige since there were not too many who could teach. But know universities looking for their staff to bring money, thus research has taken over. In the UK students are expected to pay £10,000 tuition fees annually. With this fee comes the demand that what they are getting for their money, which means teaching is important. However, students choose their university according to their rank in the league table which is disproportionately influenced by publications and research funds.
My question is this
Teaching or research is supreme at the university level and why.
This resembles the question: what comes first, the egg or the hen? (I am unsure that the ‘new managerial class’ could really respond this question).
My impression is that universities accomplish many functions, teaching & research are among them, and probably the most important, although not the only ones. From a personal perspective, you learn quite early that teaching is more relative (in the UK is hard to assess how the students receive this teaching, so this is a level generally discontinued when one moves among institutions) than research (it is easier somehow to assess how good is one in research matters; publications are accessible and could be read, etc.), so in order to become ‘accomplished’ your research is what counts at the end of the day. Being a good researcher is as important (often more important) than being a great teacher. From another perspective, you see this great number of students in need of ‘models’ and tuition, so for them, a great researcher who is ‘autistic’ or bad as a teacher is not of great use. On the other hand, you see staff members more gifted at teaching, and staff members gifted at research. From an institutional perspective, I believe that none of the above should come first, and both should be given equal value. Institutionally, you assign staff gifted at teaching to teach (and you satisfy your major constituency-the students) and staff gifted at research to research. This way the stakeholders (in mgmt. newspeak)-lecturers-are also happy, because they could use their gifts where they have the best return on the use of their skills (keeping the employees happy is very important for the universities as institutions, perhaps more important than keeping other stakeholders happy), the main stakeholders (students) are happy, because they are teach by the most gifted staff members, and the research community is happy because is left to do what it could do best.
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