<p>My father (the grandfather in the college selection picture) asked me a question last night that I had no idea about. He wondered how a school like RH attracts a top faculty of engineering profs without a grad program and big research projects (that's an assumption).</p>
<p>I guess he doesn't picture top notch engineers being satisfied with just teaching and not DOING something.</p>
<p>Does anybody have any thoughts on that?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>Surprisingly there are some teachers who like teaching for teaching. It goes along with the whole helping people thing I think. I think I would like to be a teacher someday (who knows though). Teaching people younger than yourself can be a very satisfying experience.</p>
<p>Also Rose has a strong reputation in the academic world. I'm not a huge fan of looking too deep into USNWR rankings, but those are based on peer evaluations from other professors, so it's got to mean something that they recognize Rose-Hulman as being one of the top engineering schools in the nation.</p>
<p>And many professors do work on projects, just not on as big a scale as at big universities. I know many of my professors who do some kind of project for an outside entity, often through Rose-Hulman Ventures.</p>
<p>Rose profs are here to teach, that's their number 1 priority and it's a very difficult spot to get. I was talking to a math professor here about his grad school experience and the application and hiring process. Apparently it's quite common for PhD graduates to take the shotgun approach. He said he applied to ninety something schools, and he knows many others who applied to more. He said that he was lucky to get selected by Rose because once he got here he felt like he was under qualified because so many of the professors here have received some kind of award or recognition for their teaching while at grad school. I know once professors here get hired, they go through sort of a trial period of a couple of years, after which they have to apply to get a tenured slot, and I know it's very competitive. We are highly encouraged to do electronic, anonymous class evaluations for each class we take and we're asked to be very frank in them. Most professors will set aside 15 minutes in a class period near the end of the quarter in which they'll leave you alone to fill out the class evals.</p>
<p>Hope that helps.</p>
<p>We actually asked that question when we went to visit Rose. Admissions answered very similar to what Nic said above. </p>
<p>The faculty comes here because they love to teach and are paid well. The professors at research universities spend their time with research which amounts to 85% of their job...that leaves about 15% to teach. </p>
<p>Thats what we were told when we asked that question.</p>
<p>Thanks! It's sort of what I was thinking.</p>