<p>Here's a question to open up some new discussion. At UVa, for the larger classes, are the profs who are the best teachers being assigned to teach them???</p>
<p>I'm particularly talking about classes that are required for pre-meds, pre-commerce students, science majors and similar majors. </p>
<p>The University is planning on hiring many new professors over the next few years because of retirements, increasing enrollments and to make up for past hiring freezes. I would hope that at least a fraction of them are chosen purely for their teaching ability. If I was king, I'd create a category of full time instructors (with benefits) who have no research responsibilities but are chosen purely for their abilities to teach first and second year courses. They would have a heavier teaching load than regular tenure-track assistant professors.</p>
<p>(I'm guessing that some of the less popular majors make more of an effort to place good teachers in intro classes because they feel more of a need to attract students. For other majors, such as Stats and Chemistry, they have a captive audience.)</p>
<p>Per my S: It seems that UVA does put the “great” professors in the large intro classes, even in the sciences, however what you will find is that they only teach them in the proper sequence. For example Bio I is typically taken in the fall, II in the spring. Organic Chem I in the fall; II in the spring etc. You will find that the more well known professors will teach them if you take the courses in the proper sequence. For example S is taking econ 202 before 201 this semester to take the “supposedly” better professor. The econ 201 sections offered were all being taught by graduate students. It has held true for all the science/Math courses he has taken. (He is a STEM major) That is not to say that you cannot take a course with a fantastic grad student, it is just more difficult to get up front opinions or information as to their approach to teaching.</p>
<p>No, I know professors who have been “punished” to teach intro classes because they are not bringing in enough funding. UVa is and always will be a research university, where professors are hired based on their research ability. Some departments even have separate tracks for professors who are good at teaching, and tenure is basically a small scaled version of the real thing for these professors. This is true at the graduate level, for instance a student who is a teaching assistant will usually get overrides from their research advisor when their teaching “gets in the way.” If you want to be taught by professors who love teaching undergrads more than researching, go to a liberal arts college (college, not university, where graduate degrees are not offered). I have had plenty of decent teachers, but their research will always be more important to them. I have had plenty of professors who show up late to class because they were researching, prepare very little, etc. I have had professors who spend hours preparing their lectures and activities… They are usually those non-tenure-track/teaching-track professors. Those are the “good” professors who may be teaching intro classes. HTH</p>
<p>Biol2020 - Mark Kopeny… reads directly from his slides and repeats the book. I must say that David Kittlesen for Biol2010 was one of the best professors I’ve ever had for an intro bio class. It all really depends.</p>