Abstract
There has been a continuous movement of faculty at institutions of higher education away from a focus on teaching undergraduate students towards individual and specialized research and graduate teaching. This paper will attempt to explore some of the apparent driving factors for this movement as well the impact that it has on undergraduate learning. These factors include, but are not limited to, professorial desires to spend more time on research and therefore less time on teaching, particularly undergraduate teaching; the pressure to use research as a way to obtain funding and income separate from the institution whom the professors are attached to; the idea that undergraduate teaching is of little practical use to the professor; and that time spent teaching is negatively related to the salary of the professor. These problems are ultimately an issue of the culture of higher education where solving the issue requires a change in the culture and attitude of higher education.
