tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post9137928689400242990..comments2024-03-25T02:33:41.590-05:00Comments on FemaleScienceProfessor: But We Pay a Lot of MoneyFemale Science Professorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15288567883197987690noreply@blogger.comBlogger52125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-19303950466170557232010-07-11T13:40:36.680-05:002010-07-11T13:40:36.680-05:00"...It needs to be reminded that [faculty] ar...<i>"...It needs to be reminded that [faculty] are also lucky to have their job. A job with much more security than most jobs, and one that they love. Society pays for them to do curiosity driven research.....something very nice for those lucky enough to land a faculty job."</i><br /><br />As a faculty member I can honestly say it certainly isn't what I was expecting based on my undergrad/grad experiences. I do very little curiosity-driven research because I can't get funding for it - the agencies want applied research that can be patented or used to define policy. <br /><br />As for being 'lucky' - well I'm lucky I've got a job, yes, but as one of the other posters mentioned we're paid fairly poorly given the amount of training/education we have and the hours are ridiculous (if you want to do good research AND be a good to excellent teacher you're up to ~70h/wk). And contrary to popular opinion - no we don't get summers off.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-40254556979610855042010-07-11T03:04:28.783-05:002010-07-11T03:04:28.783-05:00And I really object to the notion that any student...<i>And I really object to the notion that any student who takes issue with his educational experience is a snowflake, is stupid, etc.</i><br /><br />This. And same for the "oh, they were partying!" if the students look tired or "they don't care!" if they miss a class. It's just as likely that you're dumping on someone who spent half the night studying or working (the tiredness) or was too depressed or homesick to get out of bed (the absence -- but I'm sure she'll <i>say</i> it was the flu or that she "overslept" like I always did.)<br /><br />Undergrads nowadays have a *lot* on their plates, and not just financially. College degrees are more vital to a decent career than ever, sometimes they are a student's only hope for a better life, and yet you act like it's some huge offense that the students are willing to judge the quality of the teaching they receive, and are vocal about their educational needs. It's unpleasant seeing the people who are <i>supposed</i> to be teaching and guiding them (and providing a good example) act like gossipy, disrespectful jerks and call them "lazy" when they have no <i>idea</i> what is going on with the vast majority of their students.Bagelsannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-3853566887936706002010-07-10T19:47:46.855-05:002010-07-10T19:47:46.855-05:00I've been reading through the post and the com...I've been reading through the post and the comments, and getting depressed.<br /><br />At my public R1 university, what I find is that there is not much of a culture of recognition for excellence in teaching. The prevailing culture among professors is that one should do the minimum necessary for your teaching, while publicly saying the opposite. The prevailing culture among the administration is to publicly state that teaching is extremely important, but in practice teaching is valued much lower than research. For instance, to first order, salary is determined by research, and by external offers -- not by teaching. Terrible teaching might get you denied tenure, but great teaching won't get you a big raise. For this reason, I don't blame professors who treat teaching as a place to just "do the minimum" -- those professors are merely responding rationally to the incentive structure established from above.<br /><br />I find it depressing to see the difference in public rhetoric and impression we give to our students, vs our private actions. I also find it depressing that, as a public institution where educating our state's students is supposed to be a major part of our mission, excellence in education nonetheless gets relegated to a low priority.<br /><br />I understand that not every professor will have the capability to become a truly excellent professor, and that not every professor will want to devote their energies to being a truly excellent professor -- some will be merely acceptable but not stellar, and that's OK. However, I still lament that we don't try to provide incentives to those who do aim for excellence in teaching.AnonProfessornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-46210207416090430952010-07-09T11:14:45.936-05:002010-07-09T11:14:45.936-05:00@prodigalacademic:
I sometimes use very close var...@prodigalacademic:<br /><br /><i>I sometimes use very close variants of assigned problems on my exams, and so I can clearly tell who actually did them.</i><br /><br />The prof I worked for had me write half of the exam questions and I used to do that too. In fact, sometimes the prof would use assigned homework problems, word for word, on the exam...and over half the class would get them wrong! Ridiculous.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-71152158270389165892010-07-09T08:29:36.110-05:002010-07-09T08:29:36.110-05:00Hahah - Thanks ComradePhysioProf, very entertainin...Hahah - Thanks ComradePhysioProf, very entertaining.<br /><br />I'm a little concerned about the term mediocrity. When I get served at the bakery, or the RTA (DMV? Car place), I expect some sort of average quality of service. When it sucks, I shrug, when it's great, I'm pleasantly surprised. <br /><br />Academics who are great teachers are wonderful, but generally I expect mediocrity; utility; a prof who gets the course taught. <br /><br />When I was an undergrad I used social services, and generally found that they sucked. One time though, I got a call the next day from the lady who had helped me who said "I have been thinking about your case, and I think you should apply for ...". <br /><br />Unbelievable!!<br /><br />If I'm delighted by an experience like that with social services, why is it expected of my profs.<br /><br />One final thing: In general, the profs I loved in first year, annoyed me by 4th. And vice versa. My least favourite 1st year prof became my PhD supervisor, and a friend.<br /><br />It worries me that *any* undergrads would be trusted for their opinions. No matter how big their debt.Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08582644751812812675noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-91337205999421878332010-07-08T20:44:30.062-05:002010-07-08T20:44:30.062-05:00@unlikelygrad
That happened to me my first year a...@unlikelygrad<br /><br />That happened to me my first year at college--one of my science classes had "optional" ungraded problem sets. Being a clueless freshman, I didn't do them until the night before the exam. I was fortunate to squeak by with a C, but I learned my lesson about "optional" assignments.<br /><br />In my 200 person class, I do not collect assigned problems. I sometimes use very close variants of assigned problems on my exams, and so I can clearly tell who actually did them. I have to grade everything myself, so I get an excellent handle on who knows what. :-)prodigal academichttp://theprodigalacademic.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-2388478301445150972010-07-08T20:41:16.823-05:002010-07-08T20:41:16.823-05:00Other. Today's undergrads are paying way more ...Other. Today's undergrads are paying way more for their education than you did (even with inflation considered). I know some who are leaving with 30 years of student loans to pay off. I'd do the math...<br /><br />If you're attending a state research university and are paying, say $25,000 (resident) to $50,000 (non-resident) for tuition and fees (and excluding books and room and board) for four years at a (my) state university, and you take a fairly normal course load of, say, 32 courses, and each course has 4 instruction hours per week on average for 15 weeks = 1920 instruction hours, then you're paying about $13 to $26 per instruction hour. <br /><br />For what other services do we pay that amount and what do we expect? Many services. I'd say some mediocrity is allowable at those rates. <br /><br />But if you're paying $150,000 to attend a private research university, then we're talking about $78 an hour, which is in line with what doctors and lawyers charge -- I would not accept mediocrity from those professions and would not accept mediocrity from professors at these rates either.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-43963072837718074742010-07-08T18:43:57.908-05:002010-07-08T18:43:57.908-05:00I think there is another aspect of universities th...I think there is another aspect of universities that is being overlooked here: the opportunity to network and explore.<br /><br />Undergrads routinely participate in a myriad of extracurricular activities, some of which can be just as instructive (if not moreso) than what's learned in the classroom.<br /><br />Students will have to learn to teach themselves at some point, and attending a big state school basically forced that upon me due to the lack of resources to give undergrads a more personal mentoring experience. I didn't find that too bothersome as I found myself working on many side projects with fellow students. In fact, in my case, I think it's fair to say that I gained at least as much from my extracurricular activities as from the classroom.<br /><br />As an engineering student, having exposure to the big technology companies is another major benefit of attending a R1 university. Those companies don't bother to visit every school, so the proverbial getting a foot in the door is a lot easier at a R1 university, even for undergrads.<br /><br />Most students don't go into research. Even though I ended up going the Ph.D. route, I still keep in regular contact with my former fellow students, many of whom are working on interesting projects and know interesting people (that they can introduce me to in the future should a mutual interest arise).Yisong Yuehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07112299585878991257noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-89346012972852974802010-07-08T17:26:50.564-05:002010-07-08T17:26:50.564-05:00Tomorrow's Professor Blog has a recent post ab...Tomorrow's Professor Blog has a <a href="http://tomprofblog.mit.edu/2010/06/22/1037-the-link-between-teaching-and-research-does-it-exist/" rel="nofollow">recent post about this topic</a>, which cites <a href="http://www.ncsu.edu/felder-public/Papers/Teaching-Research(JEE).pdf" rel="nofollow">this paper</a>. Apparently there's a significant negative correlation between the research orientation of a university and educational outcomes, and that "Attending a college whose faculty is heavily research-oriented increases student dissatisfaction and impacts negatively on most measures of cognitive and affective development. Attending a college that is strongly oriented toward student development shows the opposite pattern of effects."<br /><br />So perhaps things really were different at your undergraduate institution compared to your current R1 institution.Female Computer Scientisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16445505185253882833noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-49414463970620977572010-07-08T16:58:39.064-05:002010-07-08T16:58:39.064-05:00Why aren't more tuition-paying parents indigna...Why aren't more tuition-paying parents indignant that their children don't come to class, don't stay awake or spend lecture on facebook, don't do the minimum work, don't do the readings, don't study...? The lack of personal responsibility (not to mention laziness) among the undergraduates at my school is appalling.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-79082814510240358092010-07-08T16:17:24.632-05:002010-07-08T16:17:24.632-05:00#1: Universities are like that.
@prodigalacademic...#1: Universities are like that.<br /><br />@prodigalacademic:<br /><br />You know why students don't spend much out-of-class time studying any more? Budget cuts. Seriously.<br /><br />See, most students won't do problem sets unless they're going to be graded, and most departments don't have the money to hire graders.<br /><br />Last semester I served as TA for a moderately-sized lecture class, ~100 students. I had to hand-grade a couple of multiple-choice quizzes, back before we got our Clicker system working properly. That was not too bad. I can't imagine grading weekly problem sets (non-multiple-choice) for the same number of students, though. <br /><br />What I did was hold review sessions (and office hours) where anyone could come in to get help on the homework. I usually got ~20 people in the review sessions, maybe only one or two people per week in office hours.<br /><br />The prof who taught the next course in the series had one TA for his lectures, 750 students total. You really think he was going to assign problem sets that would count towards a student's grades? Not possible. He'd need 20 graders to make that work, and our department can't afford that many. Heck, he can't even give non-Scantron tests any more.<br /><br />Somehow we need to convey to students that assigned homework sets are necessary to success, even if they won't be collected and graded. As I've written before, <a href="http://unlikelygrad.wordpress.com/2010/06/28/advice-to-a-graduate/" rel="nofollow">learning is an internal process.</a>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-471468675948559712010-07-08T16:17:24.631-05:002010-07-08T16:17:24.631-05:00@Anonymous 11.25:
I disagree that students' as...@Anonymous 11.25:<br />I disagree that students' assessments of their teachers necessarily correlates with performance in their class. Not a single class, tutorial or lecture I took as an undergraduate or Master's student had a direct effect on my results because my degrees were assessed entirely on the basis of blind-marked exams or a blind-marked thesis. But I was still capable of telling if they were good teachers or not!superdinosaurboynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-61751133267673074332010-07-08T14:10:30.909-05:002010-07-08T14:10:30.909-05:00I agree that "Universities are like that"...I agree that "Universities are like that". Unfortunately, some people are just not the best teachers or public speakers. However, I did have a further frustration with my undergraduate university. I attended a purely undergraduate Canadian Institution that generally has great professors and is a fantastic learning environment. My issue was that because the institution could not fund more tenure track faculty positions, a few of my classes were being taught by sessional instructors which meant being staffed by individuals who had only recently completed their degree themselves. There were a few times where I felt the class was not taught by the most qualified individual.<br />Furthermore, at my current institution some introductory classes are taught by video lectures - no professor at all. Instead, students attend weekly labs where a graduate student is present to answer questions. This practise of charging full tuition for these types of courses makes me furious.Canuckhttp://checkyourtension.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-69508536315327591212010-07-08T13:44:45.017-05:002010-07-08T13:44:45.017-05:00I've been watching this debate the past couple...I've been watching this debate the past couple of days without commenting, mostly because I have pretty mixed feelings. I generally fall into the "life and universities are just like that" category. Some researchers start out mediocre teachers but get better, some stay mediocre, and some are terrific...your job as a student is to make the university life your own and take from it what you can. And many profs that are mediocre in the classroom are wonderful one-on-one, so taking advantage of office hours can be priceless.<br /><br />But I know of some large universities, through conversations with friends and colleagues, where the undergraduate experience is placed well below the research portfolio: lectures are a joke, exams aren't graded for weeks, profs aren't available when they say they will be, and nobody "higher up" seems to notice. This is a mistake and, IMO, requires a university-wide rethinking of the teaching standards for being awarded tenure. As a student, if a few of your classes are mediocre, it's livable. If all or most of your classes are mediocre to miserable (which does happen at some places) there's a definite problem.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-22576495001338475502010-07-08T13:38:58.234-05:002010-07-08T13:38:58.234-05:00Most in my department take pride in their teaching...Most in my department take pride in their teaching and work hard at it. I know that I do. I switched back to academia after years at a National Lab because I wanted to work with students. I myself had a mix of teachers--some great, some OK, some awful. I also found that some profs I loved, my classmates hated and vice versa.<br /><br />Something to keep in mind is that at a University, the majority of the learning should be going on OUTSIDE the classroom. When I was an undergrad, we were told we should be spending 3 hours at home per hour in class (i.e. 3 hours of lectures a week means 9 hours a week working at home) to master the material (but very few actually do--I know I didn't, at least not regularly). I learned a TON from my peers, working together on problem sets, discussing assigned reading, and proofing each others' papers. Access to that peer group is also part of what you are paying for.<br /><br />It is unrealistic (at an MRU) to have separate teaching and research staff. As has been said in previous threads on this subject, student tuition ALREADY pays only a fraction of the cost of education. I know it is already very expensive, but without research overhead to "subsidize" the costs of keeping an MRU going, tuition would be even higher. To keep costs down, I know many people who have taken their first 2 years at a Community College and then transferred for the last 2 to an MRU to get the best of both worlds.prodigal academichttp://theprodigalacademic.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-50327288216365531142010-07-08T13:31:47.335-05:002010-07-08T13:31:47.335-05:00I think that a certain amount of the responsibilit...I think that a certain amount of the responsibility lies with the student. By the time one is at university, it seems that active participation in learning is not too much to ask. I have seen some professors make obvious attempts to engage a classroom (playing music, anecdotes/stories to help remember information, jokes, etc) only to be met with a sea of blank faces. Said professor was then devastated when feedback was mostly negative at the end of the semester. In my own limited teaching experience, I've also noticed a big difference from year to year. Some will actively engage, ask questions, respond to questions and that really brings an lively energy to the class. Other years, same class, same professor, same material, it seems to be a dreaded "dud" year - the students just stare blankly and complain about how "boring" the material is. (Now doubt I was guilty of this during my undergrad...) Certainly teaching is give and take and students can help encourage their professors by making them feel like someone is actually listening! It's true, students are paying a lot of money...so perhaps they should make some effort to ensure they get the most out of it!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-42469608001098603282010-07-08T13:10:46.924-05:002010-07-08T13:10:46.924-05:00"Of course, there are the very few who are br..."Of course, there are the very few who are brilliant at both."<br /><br />Really, I know a number of faculty who excel at both. I don't know many who don't care about students or teaching. I'm at an R1 public university in a science department.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-5211397707698423422010-07-08T13:06:48.123-05:002010-07-08T13:06:48.123-05:00It's funny how your opinion changes when your ...It's funny how your opinion changes when your perspective changes. When I did College Part I I was studying liberal arts, working part time, but mostly my parents were paying. Also the skills you learn in a liberal arts discipline are more the "skills for life" rather than specific skills for a specific job. So when I had a crappy instructor who didn't teach me the topic, it wasn't any big deal. It wasn't like a bad calculus instructor who might poorly affect your performance in your next calculus class. Also I wasn't directly paying for it so didn't think in those terms either. I had a lot more time to devote to a class and a bad instructor usually meant I'd get a C instead of a B so I wasn't in danger of failing needed classes.<br /><br />Now in engineering, and as someone who works full time, I take an instructor's performance a lot more seriously. If they are crappy, but otherwise seem nice and seem to care about students learning I am okay with it. I don't know how I'd be as a teacher so I won't hold them to higher standards than I'd hold myself. <br /><br />The worst I've had seem to be the deadwood tenured guys who (I've verified) aren't running a lab or doing as much research as they used to. You'd think all this extra time would make them better teachers but it doesn't. Some of my best teachers have been those whose salaries are paid partially with grants they are working when they are not teaching. I respect the research and I like that I'm going to a school that has that kind of prestige. It just seems like when these guys get too old to effectively research the administration assigns them to even more classes and that's bad for the undergrads. I can think of only one "bad" instructor, he was the deadwood type and in addition seemed to have a healthy dose of bitterness and contempt for his students. You want to teach poorly, fine. You want to hate your students, fine. But you don't need to go out of your way to insult them or show that you have no respect for them. As someone paying for tuition out of pocket every single time (and it's getting more expensive than College Part I was), AND paying property taxes and income taxes that fund the public school, I do get a little irritated and feel more "ownership" about the problems at my institution than I did before. I try to accept responsibility for where I as a student fail (I honestly don't have the time a "normal" full time student has, working isn't equal to partying but it certainly affects me similarly) but I also despise how the administration handles things.<br /><br />I read on these academic blogs about post docs and grad students trying to get tenured jobs, I've looked up professors and seen how poorly they are paid given their qualifications and excellent teaching skills, and seen similarly deadwood awful teachers still hanging around and making six figures. I don't think tenure should be controlled by student opinion but I do think the great teachers I've had should be rewarded and that even if you can't de-tenure the deadwood (for now) you should margianalize these people or give them the less desirable committee and service work. So one "bad" teacher out of 30 or so for engineering is no big deal, but I don't blame the teachers so much as I blame the administration and the system itself.FrauTechhttp://frautech.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-69983041099118859842010-07-08T13:00:43.440-05:002010-07-08T13:00:43.440-05:00Complaints about professors correlate so well with...<i>Complaints about professors correlate so well with poor student performance that it's really not hard to justify ignoring the vast majority of them.</i><br /><br />I disagree. I've seen all of the teaching evaluations for my department for years. There's a good correlation between student comments and teaching quality. Many students have legitimate complaints that they can clearly articulate (and my department does take such comments seriously, fortunately). Also, the comments correlate well with my own classroom observations, when I've had occasion to observe my peers. In general I find it's not hard to tell which students are being whiny and which students have genuine complaints. (Even the best teachers get a few whiners, but then it's really obvious that the majority of the class disagrees.)a physicisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16795655141660959996noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-38636856752307534722010-07-08T12:50:03.269-05:002010-07-08T12:50:03.269-05:00Life is like that. (Read Dilbert or the letters S...Life is like that. (Read Dilbert or the letters Scott Adams gets that trigger some of his cartoons!) One thing you have to learn to do while in college is how to work with (learn from and/or teach yourself) people whose communication skills are less than ideal. <br /><br />But you might also learn, as I did, how to find the office where you can change sections when you are in that rare instance of spectacularly (and, I later learned, deliberately) bad teaching by a full Prof who was angry at his department. I was happy to end up in the classroom of someone who was merely mediocre, although that one day did provide multiple amusing stories.Doctor Pionhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12513786840852469648noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-8023046399421973162010-07-08T12:25:01.314-05:002010-07-08T12:25:01.314-05:00I think this is a situation where students often c...I think this is a situation where students often complain to much and feel entitled. As an undergrad I had friends who thought it should be all about undergrads....whats funny is some of those same people, when moving on to grad school changed their opinion to "it should all be about grad students". Some people are just selfish. A university education is about a lot more than learning facts. Its about learning how to learn independently from all the resources available. The instructors, the textbooks, the lab bench, your fellow students. A good teacher is great, but if you are committed to learning the material, a good teacher is only going to cut a small amount of time out of the work you need to do on your own.<br /><br />With all that being said, as a student, I could tolerate poor teachers who were enthusiastic and tried. I had no patience for teachers who clearly didn't care, and were disrespectful to students.<br /><br />I think from the faculty side that it needs to be reminded that they are also lucky to have their job. A job with much more security than most jobs, and one that they love. Society pays for them to do curiosity driven research.....something very nice for those lucky enough to land a faculty job. Teaching is in general a professional responsibility that comes along with the good fortune of being on the faculty at a university. Most professors I know are well aware of this, or just love sharing knowledge. But some professors have the same feeling of entitlement that is complained about in students.Steveohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09981426128784811203noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-51240734972713700932010-07-08T12:00:13.262-05:002010-07-08T12:00:13.262-05:00I think it is unacceptable for a university to imp...I think it is unacceptable for a university to imply to parts of the public that teaching undergraduates is a high priority when it is not.<br /><br />If your institution views undergraduate education as a secondary priority, then your institution should be clear about it to everyone that is giving money to the institution, whether it is students (and their parents) paying tuition, voters (through their representatives) providing government funding, or private donors.<br /><br />If you look at a research university's admissions brochures and testimony to legislatures, you will see that it is full of code phrases which might make it clear to us that education is a secondary priority, but hide this fact from those who don't understand the code, which is most of the public.quasihumanistnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-13169468311241706702010-07-08T11:55:21.684-05:002010-07-08T11:55:21.684-05:00Yes, FSP, but when you went to college, I'm gu...Yes, FSP, but when you went to college, I'm guessing it was a little bit cheaper. These days, as someone mentioned, tuition is going up WAY faster than inflation, especially in the cash strapped states. I paid my way (with scholarships and work and loans) through a UC (CA) school and graduated in 2003 and it was hard to make ends meet at the time, even with my scholarship covering tuition. I don't think I could go to college today, except maybe a CC. And if I were eating rice and beans at all my meals in order to pay my way through college these days, I would be even more annoyed with the profs who don't care. <br /><br />I guess for me OTHER is that, profs who care about and want to teach and are either great teachers or trying to be are great. Yes, great is in the eye of the beholder, but to me, it is the effort and desire, coupled with some knowledge. (For example, don't insult your student when they ask a question in class...one of my grad profs always did that).<br /><br />I think I mostly agree with you, with your new wording, but I do not agree when you call prof #2 mediocre=Moderate to inferior in quality. If prof 2 is good and trying to improve, that is fine. Not everyone can be a superstar teacher. But I am of the opinion that there should also be solely research and solely teaching professors at MRU's, so that the people in front of the class are there because they want to be there. That is my main beef with the tenure system and MRU's.<br /><br />Yes, undergrads are usually to blame for their lack of learning, because you can't force someone to learn, and, honestly, at the end of college I was able to teach myself the material when my profs were bad. But that doesn't mean we should assume they are ALL like that. But I guess that is also a test of your cynicism. If you do assume they are all like that, you probably should be teaching...Stephanienoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-69286228599508668372010-07-08T11:43:08.956-05:002010-07-08T11:43:08.956-05:00Two thoughts.
1. As an undergrad, I think that mu...Two thoughts.<br /><br />1. As an undergrad, I think that much of my discontent stemmed from the fact that the evil, erratic, truly bad professors had (seemingly) no consequences for their lack of teaching ability. They taught the same courses every year and students failed to learn. Every. Year. I might have been more forgiving had it been acknowledged by someone at the university that they were awful or that they were trying to improve the situation. <br /><br />2. I've often thought that teaching and research should be done by different people. They aren't the same skill set. It would require a major culture change as most universities, but I think that separating "teaching professorships" from "research professorships" might alleviate most of the problems. (Of course, there are the very few who are brilliant at both. For them, exceptions can be made.)Beckyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14842385952467958087noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29059245.post-44797954103098122392010-07-08T11:30:35.741-05:002010-07-08T11:30:35.741-05:00As a college professor at an R1 top notch State Un...As a college professor at an R1 top notch State University, a graduate of a top 50 liberal arts college where I paid 25% of my own tuition from summer and part time jobs, and a parent of 2 grade school age daughters, I agree with your point of view. <br /><br />While I had issues with the college I attended, I thought it was a privilege to be there and I loved most of my classes. I had a mix of great, good, poor and bad teachers but thought overall things were good. I also think the average quality of the instruction at my current institution is significantly better than at my liberal arts college, both because the instructors are, on average, more excited and more knowledgeable about science, and because they are, on average, simply better teachers (in my Department no classes are taught by grad students--they do teach lab and recitation sections). Of course my colleagues vary in their teaching ability, though very few if any are poor because they don't care. I do NOT think we put less effort into improving our teaching than those at SLACs. I definitely had professors at my SLAC who used 20 year old notes.<br /><br />I am also, in general, quite happy with the education my daughters are getting in the public schools (they are now rising 7th and 12th graders). You could argue we don't pay tuition, but that argument would only be sensible to some one who is not yet paying taxes--more than 2/3rds of my county taxes go to the schools, as well as a big percentage of my state taxes. My daughters have also had a mix of great, good, mediocre and poor teachers, though most were OK to good. However, I would once again state categorically that my colleagues here are, ON AVERAGE, significantly better teachers than those in the public grade schools. They know their subjects inside and out, and are generally available for helping students who are bold/smart enough to come for help.<br /><br />No school is perfect. I suggest we apply the same standards to each school, and not hold one to a standard not used for the others.<br /><br />Mark PAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com