Editor’s note: This is the second of a three-part series. The first part was about BYU-I’s faculties focus on learning.

Unlike most university faculties, BYU-Idaho’s shed the desire for personal notoriety and professional development through published research and instead accept a heavier load.

BYU-I professors teach about twice as many courses as professors at other universities.

“Faculty who choose to come here have made a career choice to be intimately involved in the lives of students,” said Max Checketts, academic vice president at BYU-I.

The heavier teaching load not only allows the faculty to focus on teaching, but also provides an opportunity to teach at lower costs.

“As you get more and more focused on research, you actually get faculty disconnected from the classroom . . . and yet the resources required to sustain the research endeavors go up and up,” President Clark said. “So the overall costs go up, but the quality and impact on the undergraduates does not.”

BYU-I’s focus on teaching students may serve as a model for other institutions, which are not on a sustainable financial path, President Clark said.

“As more and more [universities] and higher education facilities ... come under more pressure to improve quality and lower costs, people will begin to look around for models and find that we’re pursuing one that has a lot of merit,” he said.

Many outside of BYU-I, see research as a duty for professors.

“If your focus really is improving your teaching and you want to research how you can improve teaching, I think you’ve got to be publishing what you’re learning and getting others to react to it,” said Neil Anderson, a professor at BYU.

Anderson said he’s able to lead the class into interesting ideas for further research in his field.

“There are many [professors] that don’t approach it that way,” Anderson said. “They see it as something completely separate. [But] with a well-planned focus, faculty members become better teachers because they’re engaged in thinking about sharing their ideas with others.”

In Anderson’s department, faculty members are expected to produce at least one significant publication per year, which was explained and agreed upon.

BYU-I does not require professors to research and publish results. In addition, the lack of academic ranking of faculty and influence of gospel values combine to create a unique situation ... for students.