<p>I am not saying the Barnard model is good, and in fact I was disappointed to learn via this thread that it is more university-like than LAC-like. I am just saying that parents who have learned enough about a university to allow their student to enroll in it should know what they are getting. Part of the reason many of us prefer LACs is precisely because our kids will have neither TAs nor large lecture classes.</p>
<p>In answer to your question, though–yes, I think a lot of people are paying for the name on the diploma. As xiggi said, Barnard is apparently viewed as a back-door entrance to the Ivies. If parents have $50-60K a year and want to spend it that way, fine. It is not a choice I would make for my kids.</p>
<p>TAs get training? My d. at Princeton never did. And she was called upon in her very first year not only to grade papers, but to teach new material, for which she received no instruction. AND assigned the final grade. Supervision? Nada.</p>
<p>Maybe at some second-tier state university?</p>
<p>Consolation, that works in theory. How many TAs are there who plan to be … professors? Are they a dissertation away from earning a PhD? Or are they merely advanced UGs or part of the boatload of graduate students who trade academic freedom for a bout of indentured servitude, and hate every bit of it? </p>
<p>I understand why some like the model, especially when their loved ones happen to be part of the TA group. I understand that some view the gig as a honor. But that does not stop anyone who is on the receiving end of this model of lowered standards and subpar education to have the right to expose it for the fraud it is, when actual teaching and especially grading is involved, safe and except for the courses that could be graded by a scantron.</p>
<p>I have been blessed to experience both models of education, and it only reinforced my negative view of the research university TA model.</p>
<p>Well, my d. loved it. But it was an absurdity. She was six years from dissertation, and a year away from even taking her generals. There was NO supervision, no meeting with the professor on a regular basis, no TA advisor, no training, no grading rubrics. The professor lectured once a week; she taught new material twice a week. The professor knew no student’s names (and it was a second-year course). </p>
<p>The next term she was appointed a “head preceptor” (TA). Now, she happens to be smart, and very knowledgeable. But for $60k and a Princeton degree? Perhaps it is no wonder that in six years, they hadn’t accepted a single Ivy applicant (they had scores of them) into her graduate program.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, what a massive cash cow for Columbia/Barnard. Over the course of 20 years, if my numbers are anywhere near correct, this non-professor senior lecturer (who may be truly excellent) has netted them more than $10 million in cold, hard cash.</p>
<p>A class with 120 students and a single teacher is abominable. Either it needs to be split into multiple sections or TAs need to be assigned.</p>
<p>This class in particular sounds like a second level English course. I would think anybody in graduate school should be able to grade a quiz as opposed to trying out in class grading by other students when the grade actually seems to matter.</p>
<p>If only people with PhDs are considered to be worthy enough to grade some simple quizzes, I would wonder if those with those undergraduate degrees should be doing anything at all. Their degrees are worthless?</p>
<p>Interesting how two people who argue about everything find common grounds on an issue. And the other interesting part is that I probably would have enjoyed being in MiniMini’s class, and learn more about Hell. </p>
<p>And, this is not about Princeton. Had I gone to Brown, I might have had my papers graded by MiniSoozie despite being in the same class. As great and smart as she is, that would still not correspond to the expectation placed upon a school such as Brown.</p>
<p>I’m a TA, and I love it, but I tend to agree that making TAs a significant part of the teaching structure is unfair to the undergrads paying a lot of money to study with top professors. Despite having virtually no training before being asked to teach, I think I’m giving my students a valuable educational experience. But I’m not as good as the professor would have been, and even if I were, someone going to a top school has a right to expect meaningful interaction with the renowned professors that may have been part of the attraction of the school. </p>
<p>To be fair, there are a number of opportunities for students to take smaller seminars that won’t have a TA, and even in the big lectures, the professor is the one doing the lecturing. I also understand that it probably isn’t practical to totally eliminate large lectures, and that it also isn’t reasonable to have professors grading 100 essays at the end of the semester. Actually, it would be counterproductive, because if professors did all their own grading, they’d have to shorten assignments and limit their feedback in order to meet deadlines, which wouldn’t be good for the students either. But if I’m honest, I think the compromise would be to have TAs who were basically there to do the grading and act as a writing tutor. We could lead review sessions and maybe get a chance to lead one or two lectures and discussion sections, but otherwise be pretty much in the background.</p>
<p>Would I like that? No. As I said, I love teaching, and grading is my least favorite part of that. But I think it would be better for the undergrads.</p>
<p>Well, you’d learn about Hell, except the course was about the 19th Century. (Oh, wait, to her, 19th Century IS Hell! ;)) (I was totally amazed that they thought her qualified to teach that class at all.)</p>
<p>As to grading, perhaps the multiple-choice quizzes. But the papers? The final exam? Oh, wait! There were no papers! And, it seemed, no plan for a final exam either! Grading “class participation” - what is this? Columbia/Barnard or junior high?</p>
<p>“Lecturer” is often code for adjunct. Given that the professor seems kind of old, my read on this would be that she is earning some sort of minimum salary (Let’s do the math: She gets paid 5000 or so for the course and Barnard nets 360,000 in tuition for the same course – assuming 120 students at 3,000 per course). Adjuncts are often encouraged not to work too hard, considering the return they’re getting. Therefore it’s not surprising that she gave multiple choice quizzes. She probably also didn’t have the seniority to stand up and demand smaller classes.
I agree with you – who’s the real cheater here? Maybe the school that’s making 350,000 dollars a semester and offering the students this?</p>
<p>At JHU my graduate-school husband and his friends taught undergraduate Physics. Not one of them cared a bit about their students. They were over-stressed with their own work. The undergrads were the last priority. What a joke. He said he would never send his kids to an undergraduate school like that. Two of his friends were in the US for the first time from China and could barely speak English, yet their TA assignments were no different from his own.</p>
<p>As a side note, he also taught CTY classes in the summer, as did others. I mean, he liked the kids ok, but he was just doing it for some $ for the summer. And parents pay, what, over $3000 a pop for those courses?</p>
<p>I don’t think this is at all unusual. At some schools “lecturers” and “senior lecturers” are essentially teaching specialists. They’re not expected to publish scholarly work, and because they don’t publish scholarly work they’re not on the tenure track. Some people are happy to make a career of that. Some prefer to be part-time teachers, either because they have other professional interests (writing fiction, or writing or directing plays would be not uncommon for lecturers in English departments especially in a place like NYC) or because of other commitments in their personal lives (e.g., being the primary caregiver of an ailing or disabled family member, or of young children). Some are writing instructors. Some would love to be tenure-track, but just never are given the chance given the glut of extremely well-qualified people out there.</p>
<p>I just did a quick count on the Barnard English Department’s faculty pages and came up with about 2 dozen “lecturers” and “senior lecturers,” as well as probably at least that many “adjunct assistant professors” and “adjunct associate professors”; I assume the “adjunct” signals they’re not tenured or tenure-track either. Then there’s another category called simply “associate”: I have no idea what that designation means, but I assume these are people with some level of teaching duties but not tenured or tenure-track faculty.</p>
<p>Based on those numbers, I think it’s fair to conclude a substantial fraction of the teaching load in Barnard’s English Department is being carried by people who are not tenured or tenure-track faculty. And that’s certainly not unique to Barnard. That’s the way the academic world is going these days. Granting someone tenure is essentially a commitment to carry their salary for multiple decades. Facing a financial squeeze, college and university administrations are increasingly offloading teaching duties onto lower-paid, short-term contract employees, which is not only cheaper but affords the school more flexibility to adjust payrolls as needed.</p>
<p>Nor am I surprised that there would be a 120-person literature class at Barnard. English is a very popular major at Barnard, and students tend to flock to popular teachers; there’s at least one other English class there this semester that’s in the 100-student range, though most are small and many are capped at 10 or 14 students. The course doesn’t appear to be required, even for English majors, so this is not a case of Barnard forcing students into a large class so much as students choosing to go there voluntarily, notwithstanding the size. One would hope they’re making that choice for the content of the course or for the quality of instruction, though in this case one has to wonder if some of the attraction might have been the opportunity to get an easy A, and for some, the apparently widely known opportunity to cheat.</p>
<p>I am surprised, however, that an instructor at Barnard would be giving multiple-choice quizzes in a literature course.</p>
<p>However, there are differences as well. Before looking, I would have assumed that the English Departments at Barnard (which has an excellent reputation) and Smith would be similar, but it turns out they aren’t. At the latter, there are 20 tenure track profs, and 14 “lecturers”. However, included in those lecturers are three writers-in-residence, five people who work in the writing counseling center, and of the remaining six, only two teach things other than introductory writing.</p>
<p>Williams, it seems, only has three lecturers, though that may mask the fact that they have five “visiting assistant professors”. Didn’t check what they teach. Of course, ending up in Williamstown pretty much means you aren’t there for other reasons.</p>
<p>they are cheating themselves. I’m shocked, actually, that anyone would say “the structure was conducive to cheating.” Life is conducive to cheating. We’re supposed to do what’s right anyway.</p>
<p>Where dh is tenure track goes from assistant to associate to full professor. Adjunct though is probably a signal that they aren’t tenure track. And lecturers never are. I’d say from my recollection that every lecturer I had in college was stellar - precisely because they were more interested in teaching than publishing. Back in those days I don’t think they were used as much as a way of getting cheap labor.</p>
<p>These comparisons aren’t entirely fair. Williams has an endowment of around $1.8 billion, Smith’s is a little over $1.4 billion. At last count (2012), Barnard’s endowment stood at $216 million. Of the three, Williams has the fewest students (about 2100), then Barnard (2400), then Smith (3200). That means Williams’ endowment per capita of $857,000 is more than 8 times the size of Barnard’s ($102,000), while Smith’s at $438,000 is barely more than half the size of Williams’ yet 4 times the size of Barnard’s. At a standard 5% payout rate, Williams’ endowment would produce about $43,000 per student per year, Smith’s a little over $21,000, and Barnard’s about $5,100 per student per year. In short, Barnard is not a rich institution. It’s essentially operating on a tuition-driven budget model, and these are financially perilous times for schools living that close to the edge.</p>
<p>And don’t assume Barnard gets financial help from Columbia. They don’t. Barnard is financially independent of Columbia and has its own board of trustees. Columbia wanted to completely merge Barnard into Columbia back in the 1970s, similar to what Harvard did with Radcliffe, but Barnard refused because it wanted to retain its autonomy and separate identity. Columbia kept wooing and Barnard kept rebuffing until Columbia finally gave up and started admitting women on its own in 1983. Barnard is an “affiliate college” of Columbia University, but not a financially dependent one. In fact, my understanding is the money flows in the opposite direction: Barnard pays Columbia an annual fee as part of the arrangement, which is beneficial to Barnard in many ways as Columbia provides many facilities and services that Barnard couldn’t afford to replicate on its own, and the relationship with Columbia makes Barnard far more attractive to prospective students and faculty than it would be as a stand-alone college.</p>
<p>But the point is, Barnard is not a particularly rich school–it has by far the smallest endowment of the 6 surviving members of the Seven Sisters (Wellesley is tops at just under $1.5B, followed by Smith, Vassar $800mm, Bryn Mawr $650mm, and Mount Holyoke just under $600mm). As a consequence, Barnard needs to run on a shoestring, and greater use of adjuncts and lecturers is one of the ways it economizes. It’s also in a market where it’s particularly easy to find well qualified adjuncts and lecturers, and its own academic reputation, burnished by Columbia’s, makes it the kind of place adjuncts and lecturers want to be, in part for the ego-gratification (probably more that than for the paychecks, which I’d imagine tend to be somewhat meager).</p>
<p>I’m not saying this is a good thing, but I do understand the strategy and the financial imperatives that drive them to it.</p>
<p>I don’t doubt that many of the adjuncts and lecturers Barnard uses are outstanding teachers. I suspect that is also true of the lecturer who taught this class: Barnard wouldn’t keep her around for 20 years unless they thought she was doing something right, nor would the class have had the large enrollment it did unless she had a positive reputation among the students–and not only for creating opportunities to cheat, which arose in part because the class was so large and poorly supervised, but something else must have made it large in the first place. For a class like this that is neither required for any major nor as a prerequisite for other classes, that almost certainly means students thought highly of the teaching.</p>
<p>“For a class like this that is neither required for any major nor as a prerequisite for other classes, that almost certainly means students thought highly of the teaching.”</p>
<p>Or it attracted lots of athletes (more than 40% of students were from Columbia), and helped burnish the GPA with very little work. (And Barnard probably loved it - with funds flowing from Columbia to its coffers.) </p>
<p>I understand the draw of the famous professor with the big class. This one could just simply be a big anomaly.</p>