This can vary across departments within the same U. Econ undergrads at U of MN, for example, are rarely taught by tenure track faculty while almost all classes in Applied Econ (a different dept) are taught by faculty.
In the CDS there’s a line about % tenured or tenure track faculty. The remainder are either grad students as primary instructors or adjuncts.
My daughter had a class once where the prof didn’t show up due to a sudden emergency. The grad student taught the class with a few minutes notice and my daughter said he did a great job- she really enjoyed the class. Having grad students doesn’t necessarily have to be a negative experience.
I also think that we have to be careful not to generalize. Attending a large public university doesn’t mean you will be taught by grad students…it depends on the school. Look at the CDS as noted above.
@MaineLonghorn I agree that there are amazing teachers at big schools. I have three I can still remember from 30 years ago at Northwestern. BUT I’m guessing a student would have a larger percentage of professors who really care about undergrads at a smaller school. Those professors are basically deciding that undergrads are their priority when they teach at a small school.
Given the academic job market in most subjects (i.e. those where there is not industry or other non-academic demand for those with PhDs), it is likely that most faculty take whatever they can get.
Unfortunately so true.
How does one judge whether professors at LACs are there because they care more (“really care”) about undergraduates than professors at larger universities?
These jobs are hard to get…my guess is that most do not have multiple options.
Because to be hired at a LAC you must demonstrate the “caring about undergrads”. How you teach/how you integrate undergrads in your research plans/practices/grants… Are part of the hiring criteria.
I guess I am naive…or confused…or maybe both LOL.
I assumed that getting hired for these jobs (regardless of school type) was extremely …extremely…tough…and that people get what they can…as noted above.
I still don’t like generalizations. There are large schools where professors do care, where they do integrate undergrads into their research, where they develop relationships with students etc. Of course we don’t see this at all large universities…but it certainly exists.
And I do understand the benefits of smaller schools. One of my kids attended one.
I think you’re right, @twogirls. I doubt many people are choosing between lots of job offers in academia.
At my daughter’s small LAC, she had an amazing teacher (who got her PhD at my alma mater, UT-Austin, coincidentally). The woman definitely cared more about teaching and relationships with students than research. And guess what? When it came time for tenure, she didn’t get it because she hadn’t done enough research! So research matters to LACs, too.
I’ll reformulate: research matters. But to get a job offer at a LAC, you need to be a teacher, not just a researcher. You may have a book contract, if you bomb your sample class, you are completely off the list.
While good teaching is valued at national research universities, their primary factor in hiring (as indicated by their category) is quality of already published research, potential for NSF grants etc.
There are so many excellent candidates in academia that colleges (all colleges, regardless of ranking) can pick and choose the best - according to their criteria.
It means that at a university where research output is #1, service is #2, and teaching is #3, you’re going to get good teachers, but that won’t be the primary hiring factor. At national LACs, #1 is teaching and ability to integrate students in research, #2 is research or service, #3 is research or service (depends if we’re talking 2-2, 2-3, or 3-3 loads, where research will be #2 wth varying expectations ie., book/s&how many articles published; regional LACs with 3+1+3 or 4-4 loads = research is #3). At regional universities, where 4-4 loads are the norm, you have to decipher to figure out the criteria.
All academics are happy to be hired tenure track anywhere - they don’t get to choose, but the colleges can, and do, based on the college’s own priorities.
Then, after ~5 years, evaluation of the new hire will look at all criteria but weighing them differently depending on the type of college: citations in other researchers’ papers, where you published, whether you published a book (or two), teaching reports, teaching observations by peers, pedagogical involvement and innovation, various forms of service in department (both administrative and toward students), on campus overall, and in the community. These factors will be weighted very differently depending on the university and LACs clearly have different factors than research universities.
As a result, you can’t find professors at LACs who find undergrads a nuisance, as you might at large research universities, but that doesn’t mean you won’t find extraordinary researchers who are also extraordinary teachers and mentors at large universities, because you will.
One charm of small colleges is this sort of thing:
One night this week, the final week of the semester before the reading period and final exams, one of my son’s classes will be taught at the professor’s house. The professor and his wife will be preparing a dinner for the students based on the cuisine of part of the region they are studying. This professor also has replied to students’ emails on weekends, sponsored my sophomore for a special opportunity, etc. This is a renowned professor, well known for his research/writing in his area of expertise. Pretty cool!
I imagine that close relationships among professors and students may grow in many different types and sizes of colleges. At a college with a higher percentage of classes of larger size, this may be less common for freshmen and sophomores in particular, and maybe require more initiative on a student’s part, but it is still possible. Certainly, there may be excellent, student-centered professors at large research-oriented universities as well as at small colleges.
The nice thing about a college with very few large lecture classes (you can view each college’s Common Data Set for this information- scan down to near the bottom of the Common Data Set), is that these opportunities are more likely to happen without as much effort on the student’s part and are more likely to begin earlier in a student’s college career.
This has been my experience as someone who has gone through the academic job market twice in the last couple of years. Newly minted PhDs apply everywhere and take whatever they can get.
Most academic jobs these days attract hundreds of applicants. I was short-listed for a TT position at one university that had 600 (!) applicants. Universities and LACs alike have the luxury of selecting applicants with excellent track records in both teaching and research. The service aspect is increasingly important as well, for that matter, and many colleges take diversity statements seriously and expect a history of participation in activities or organizations that promote diversity and inclusivity in academia.
It is worth noting that colleges of all types are moving away from tenure and increasingly rely on visiting professors and non-tenured lecturers. To pick Chicago as an example, ~40% of classes are taught by non-tenured faculty. A good teaching background is key for snagging one of those jobs, whether it’s at a LAC or a university. Research is noticeably less important in the hiring process since these instructors are often replaced every 2-3 years.
Graduate programs are well aware of the importance of teaching, and many require pedagogical training. It is rare for graduate students to be thrown into the classroom without preparation. I was required to take three courses in pedagogy while TAing as a PhD student (a general college teaching course, a discipline-specific teaching course, and a writing-in-the-disciplines teaching course). Additionally, as a new postdoc at a university, I was assigned a faculty mentor to supervise my teaching, and all new postdocs and lecturers in my department here are required to meet weekly to discuss teaching techniques and classroom issues.
Teaching experience is less important for universities outside the US, though. When I applied for postdocs in the UK, Germany, and Australia, not a single university cared one whit about my teaching background. They asked only for a research statement.
I think it would be really interesting to see who is really teaching the undrgraduate classes, particularly in the case of underclassmen.
D1 attended an LAC, my recollection was she had what I considered a large number of “Visiting Professors”, who sort of cycled through. These were mostly people right out of school IIRC. She couldn’t take a course she had expected to take in the upperclassman years, because the one visiting prof. who had that interest had left by then.
D2’s LAC was located in a big city, it seemed to me that she had a number of adjuncts.
One of the classes I remember the most from in college was researching genealogy (long before the days of 23 + me). I believe it was taught by a local woman without a college degree. Should all of my classes have been taught by people without degrees? Of course not, but for this one class, she was perfect. At the time, I’m not sure anyone could have done a better job telling us how to dig through old birth records, the value of the Mormon library, the fun she had looking through graveyards in Ireland.
I had a lot of grad students teaching classes, mostly in the lower division courses. As you move up in your department, the 100+ class size courses and the grad asst courses disappear. I think the only ones I had to take were Econ 101 and 102. Every other requirement could have been met by taking more advanced classes which were usually taught by professors and usually had about 40 students in them.
It would have been more convenient to take chem lectures online than in a classroom with 300 coughing, talking, slurping classmates. I could have watched, rewound, taken a break when needed and all from the comfort of my room. It wasn’t a class where you needed to be in a classroom because there were no questions and no discussions. It was a lecture. My daughter took one online class while at her college and one during a summer session. In both cases, I think the professors were elsewhere. It’s convenient. It allows schools to offer more variety of classes as they can’t all offer a full catalog every semester because there aren’t enough classrooms and aren’t enough professors on campus. At my other daughter’s school, students took online classes during their co-ops or interships away from campus. It was part of the co-op program to take 1-2 classes while you were away from school to graduate on time.
Not every one of your 120+ credits needs to be with a professor you are bonding with.