<p>@OHMomof2
I know he’ll say I’m oversimplifying things, but, if I understand him correctly, @Jkeil911 is saying, a college of arts and sciences (COAS) within a larger university, is analogous to a liberal arts college (LAC).</p>
<p>I don’t think that’s what @jkeil911 was saying at all. I think what he was saying was that LACs and COAS/COLA at large research universities are quite different from each other, in very general ways.</p>
<p>I also just want to point out that LAC faculty teaching 3 or 4 classes a semester is a mostly accurate generality - at all but a handful of schools, that’s the truth. Only at the very very top schools - and only in the last 5-10 years or so - do LAC professors teach 2 classes a semester. However, whether a professor prefers a lecture style of teaching isn’t really all that dependent on which kind of school they teach at. Sometimes professors at large universities are forced to use a lecture style in their introductory classes because of the size when they would prefer to teach small discussion-based seminars. Some prominent professors manage to teach only small seminars in which they get to interact with students and do activities. And on the flip side, I went to a small LAC and I did have a few professors who preferred lecturing.</p>
<p>thank you, @juillet. I don’t know where I’ve been, but I’ve missed your extended posts the past few weeks it seems.</p>
<p>@juillet
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<p>Well, if by top schools, you and @jkeil911 are referring to NESCAC, the Claremonts, Swarthmore, Haverford, Wellesley, Smith, Barnard, Bryn Mawr, I’m pretty sure the highest teaching loads you will find at any of them are three courses one semester followed by two courses the next. I know for a fact that tenured professors at Wesleyan don’t teach more than two courses a semester - and that’s been true for as long as anyone can remember. </p>
<p>One thing to keep in mind is that there are far fewer true LACs in this country than there are arts and science divisions within large universities, maybe two hundred in all. The top schools therefore represent a bigger portion of the pool than, say, the top twenty-five universities represent their own. Twenty-five COASs out of four thousand represent a pretty tiny minority.</p>
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<p>Well, if Barnard is not roughly analogous to to Columbia College within Columbia University, then,I’m not sure what @jkeil911 is trying to say; he’s the one that gave us the acronym, COAS. In essence, and with the exception of those schools that offer business and engineering under the same roof, we’re still talking about undergraduate colleges (whether with a big C or, a small c), offering baccalaureate degrees in subjects most people would identify as the liberal arts and sciences. Before we can identify the differences, we have to first state what they have in common, or what makes them analogous.</p>
<p>fwiw, I am saying that LACs and COAS’s within universities usually are quite different beasts. One distinguishing characteristic is the course load of tenure-track professors. Another is the politics of each animal and how that drives the institution. A third is the relative importance of active and ongoing research. These areas of difference I can only make generalizations about, just as I can only make a generalization about the LACs and COAS’s. There will be exceptions, obviously, to any of these generalities. Or, I could just be wrong but happy that one of you would go to the trouble to correct me.</p>
<p>@jkeil911
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<p>We seem to have reached a consensus. Not surprisingly, two of the things you mention would be of prime concern to someone on the inside of academia. The third, the amount of research being conducted, could have some bearing on where a seventeen y/o chooses to obtain his or her baccalaureate, depending on the particular case. Other than that, these seem to be pretty superficial differences.</p>