<p>Xiggi, it's funny how you spout off stereotypes without having any actual experience with a large research university.</p>
<p>Here's some Berkeley student survey data:
[quote]
Of the undergraduate respondents ... Even greater numbers declared themselves happy with the quality of their faculty instruction and of teaching by TA's: 85.8 percent and 82.3 percent, respectively.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>UCB, thank you for the illuminating statistics. </p>
<p>Now, does that really contradict my points about ... personal choices and opinions? Does every word posted here HAVE to relate to Berkeley? Didn't I start my sentence about TAs with "It is clear that someone who questions paying the full rate for a class" and end it with "should look somewhere else for his or her best fit."?</p>
<p>Xiggi, opinions are one thing. But making it sound like all TAs are ""slightly" more educated"..."who might or might not have the necessary background, command of English, or aptitude to teach", is not true.</p>
<p>These are the top grad schools in the country. The grad students are the top apprentices of their academic discipline. If TAs were really that horrible, I would expect satisfaction from undergrads to be a lot lower.</p>
<p>Xiggy, when I said TAs teach only 3% of classes at Michigan, I meant it. They teach only 3% of classes. They lead discussion groups and grade papers in another 20% of classes, but that wasn't the point I was trying the make. My point is that whether you are talking about Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Penn, Stanford etc..., TAs will be a reality. Why single out Cal and Michigan when their peers rely just as heavily on TAs. Now if one were comparing Duke or Michigan to say Amherst, I would agree, there is a marked difference. But between any major research university, private or public, TAs are going to play a small but admittedly significant role in undergraduate education. </p>
<p>Of course, I would rather there were no TAs, but that's the price you pay for attending a major research university. One thing I would like to make clear however, is that TAs are generall third or fourth year graduate students and most of them speak English fluently. So they aren't "slightly more educated" than the students they lead. The material they grade and discuss (NOT TEACH) is primarily Freshman and Sophomore level material and they are themselves in in their third year of graduate school. That makes them "much, much, much more educated".</p>
<p>
[quote]
But making it sound like all TAs are ""slightly" more educated"..."who might or might not have the necessary background, command of English, or aptitude to teach", is not true.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>UCB, I did not make it "sound like" all TAs .... blah, blah. You also overlook the use of "might or might not have."</p>
<p>Should I turn the argument on its head and ask YOU to offer proof that ALL TA/GSI who are trusted to provide instruction at Berkeley are BETTER than "slightly" more educated" and that ALL have the necessary background, command of English, or aptitude to teach" </p>
<p>By the way, how does your definition of "slightly" more educated" differ from mine? Is there a difference between a TA who recently obtained a PhD in the field he now leads discussions and another who is recent foreign undergraduate who is expected to be a TA as part of his Master's financial aid. Are you telling me that those students do NOT exist at Berkeley?</p>
<p>Further, have you ever wondered how student/teachers who would NOT be permitted to teach in public elementary, middle, or high schools are deemed capable of teaching their peers? Good enough for the best public university in the country but not for the worst public school in the city of Berkeley?</p>
<p>Would you accept your children who attend 5th or 6th grade to be taught by a high school freshman who just arrived from China or Laos? </p>
<p>Fwiw, you may want to visit the Graduate School forum (right here on CC) and read a few of the accounts of students who were admitted in graduate schools and how they view their required "teaching" assignments and how their previous qualifications stack up. </p>
<p>Inasmuch as I will GLADLY concede that a great number of TA do not deserve the criticisms I hurled at their collective group, I believe that your absolute reluctance to admit the imperfections of the system is uncanny.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Xiggy, when I said TAs teach only 3% of classes at Michigan, I meant it. They teach only 3% of classes. They lead discussion groups and grade papers in another 20% of classes, but that wasn't the point I was trying the make. My point is that whether you are talking about Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Penn, Stanford etc..., TAs will be a reality. Why single out Cal and Michigan when their peers rely just as heavily on TAs.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Why single out Cal and Michigan when their peers rely just as heavily on TAs.? </p>
<p>Alexandre, for the nth time, I am NOT singling out Michigan. Stop the paranoia! I was merely following up on one of your previous post which I quoted ... and a discussion between Duke/Michigan which I did not initiate. I also pointed to a past discussion where ** YOU **posted the correct statistics. </p>
<p>I wrote: "Isn't getting overzealous a syndrome that affects both sides? While it is obvious that EAD overplayed his hand when describing the possible differences between Duke and Michigan, it remains that both schools as large research universities do use TA ... extensively." </p>
<p>This is getting silly!</p>
<p>Xiggi, I am not paranoid, nor am I reluctant to admit imperfections in the system. I admit that have TAs isn't a perfect sollution. But my point is that Duke and Michigan use TAs equally. Why punish Michigan and not Duke? </p>
<p>And you single out the publics. Read you post above. </p>
<p>"Further, have you ever wondered how student/teachers who would NOT be permitted to teach in public elementary, middle, or high schools are deemed capable of teaching their peers? Good enough for the best public university in the country but not for the worst public school in the city of Berkeley?"</p>
<p>You only mention Cal and I have often seen you sinde against Michigan. I think it is unintentional on your part because you obviously respect Cal and Michigan, but if you pay close attention to your posts, you will notice how there is a subtle but present anti-publics undertone.</p>
<p>^ Here are Berkeley's standards:
[quote]
A. General GSI Qualifications
1. Academic Standing: GSIs must be in good academic standing (i.e., must not be on academic probation or have had their degree candidacy lapse), have a minimum 3.1 grade-point average, and have no more than two
Incomplete grades in upper division and graduate courses on the transcript.
2. Registration and Enrollment: Appointees must be UC students who are registered and enrolled in a least twelve units of course work, unless already advanced to doctoral candidacy, during the semester in which they
are serving as a GSI.
3. Graduate Standing: Appointees must be UC graduate students. UC Hastings College of the Law students may not be appointed as GSIs.
4. Disciplinary Probation: Appointees must be clear of certain disciplinary probations based on the Code of Student Conduct.
5. Oral English Proficiency: Students who do not speak English as a native language and do not hold a Bachelors degree from an institution in the United States must demonstrate oral English proficiency to be appointed as a GSI. In those countries where the iBT TOEFL has been introduced, English language proficiency is determined by the speaking section score of the iBT TOEFL. In those countries where the new iBT TOEFL has not yet been introduced, students can demonstrate their proficiency by taking and passing the Test of Spoken English (TSE) before enrolling in Berkeley or the SPEAK test offered on the Berkeley campus.
6. New ASE Orientation: All individuals whose GSI appointment is also their first ASE assignment must attend a New ASE Orientation sponsored by the Office of Labor Relations for the semester they have been appointed. If there is a failure to attend, individuals will not be eligible for ASE appointments in subsequent terms until they have attended this orientation.
7. 300-level Seminar: All students appointed as GSIs must enroll in a 300-level seminar on teaching offered by the department in which they are teaching either concurrent with or prior to their first appointment as a GSI at
Berkeley. These courses provide unit credit for preparation for teaching.
8. Teaching Conference: First-time GSIs must attend the Teaching Conference for new GSIs, offered by the GSI Teaching and Resource Center each semester before classes begin. International GSIs appointed for the first
time must also attend the teaching conference for new international GSIs, offered in the fall semester before classes begin. Pedagogy is the focus of the conferences.
9. Online Course: First-time GSIs must successfully complete an online course on professional standards and ethics in teaching by the end of the third week of classes. To enroll in the online course, please go to the GSI Teaching and
Resource Centers website (<a href="http://gsi.berkeley.edu/)%5B/url%5D">http://gsi.berkeley.edu/)</a>. The full text of the Graduate Councils Policy on Appointments and Mentoring of GSIs can be found on the Web (<a href="http://evcp.chance.berkeley.edu/GSIMentoringPolicy.pdf)%5B/url%5D">http://evcp.chance.berkeley.edu/GSIMentoringPolicy.pdf)</a>.
B. Step-Specific Qualifications
In addition to the general qualifications listed above, each step in the GSI series has a specific set of qualifications as outlined below. Experience associated with teaching through Summer Sessions, either at UC Berkeley
or elsewhere, and at University Extension or its equivalent at other institutions, is not counted for advancement in the GSI series. Experience is counted based on the semester system. Teaching credit accrues on a
semester basis regardless of the number of courses taught during the semester. When credit is requested, by exception, for post-baccalaureate teaching at institutions of higher education operating on the quarter system,
the experience is not counted on a one-for-one basis (i.e., a quarter is not considered equivalent to a semester).
To advance to GSI Steps II, III or IV, a student must have completed a masters degree or the equivalent.
Equivalency is defined as completion of twenty-four units of upper division or graduate work in a doctoral degree program. Students who are currently in masters degree programs are not eligible for advancement. Exceptions to this policy based on special circumstances may be submitted to Associate Dean Duggan for consideration. Advancement in the GSI series is not automatic. Once a student has been approved to advance to a higher step, he or she may not be moved to a lower level when subsequent teaching assignments are made.
This does not, however, apply to step decisions made by Summer Sessions. If Summer Sessions appoints a student at a step higher or lower than the student would be eligible for under Graduate Division rules, the next
appointment during the regular academic year is made at the appropriate level based on the step-specific criteria and other relevant qualifications.
Step I: The student has no post-baccalaureate level experience teaching as a GSI at UC Berkeley or has completed one or more semesters of teaching as a GSI at UC Berkeley.
Step II: If a student has completed at least four semesters of post baccalaureate teaching experience as a GSI at UC Berkeley, a department has the discretion to appoint the GSI at Step II. Earlier advancement to
Step II must be approved in advance by the Graduate Division. Decisions regarding such appointments are at the sole discretion of the Dean. Consideration will be given to a combination of post-baccalaureate teaching experience at UC Berkeley and other institutions of higher education, a combination of extraordinary merit and teaching experience, or exceptional merit alone.
Step III: If a student has completed at least six semesters of post-baccalaureate teaching experience as a GSI or as an AI-GS at UC Berkeley, a department has the discretion to appoint the GSI at Step III. Earlier
advancement to Step III must be approved in advance by the Graduate Division. Decisions regarding such appointments are at the sole discretion of the Dean. Consideration will be given to a combination of postbaccalaureate
teaching experience at UC Berkeley and other institutions of higher education, a combination of extraordinary merit and teaching experience, or exceptional merit alone.
Step IV: Appointments at this level must be approved in advance by Associate Dean Duggan. The student must: 1) be advanced to candidacy at the doctoral level; 2) have additional duties and responsibilities,
beyond those normally assigned to a GSI, during the semester in which the advancement to this step would take place; 3) show exceptional promise as a teacher and scholar; and 4) have completed at least eight semesters of post-baccalaureate teaching as a GSI or Acting Instructor (AI-GS) at UC Berkeley.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I agree there are imperfections...No system is perfect.</p>
<p>Alexandre, this is deja vu all over again!</p>
<p>
[quote]
Why punish Michigan and not Duke?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Is that what I was doing when I wrote "...Duke and Michigan, it remains that both schools as large research universities do use TA ... extensively." </p>
<p>When you previously raised the issue about my "singling" out Michigan, I told you to go search my posts on CC. With more than 15,000 posts on CC in 5 years, I think it would easy to find loads of my Michigan posts ... if they were there. Unfortunately, that is SIMPLY not the case! </p>
<p>Do a search on my posts that contain Michigan and see how OFTEN I have discussed the school. Would it represent .5% or even 1 percent of the times you brought up Michigan? So please, do not accuse someone to SINGLE out Michigan when it is untrue. </p>
<p>As far as subtle undertones, I believe to always make efforts to speak up clearly and forcefully about my positions. I do not need to rely on subtilities to express myself. My positions about Berkeley are very clear, and to a smaller extent, the same applies to Michigan. As I wrote many times, my posts are often in RESPONSE to what I call senseless cheerleading by fanboys. </p>
<p>You do not jump on me for singling out Michigan when I write that Michigan should be ranked higher in the "reputable" THES report and I place Michigan in 12th position! You do not jump on me when I write that Berkeley is among the top five graduate schools in the world! The reality is that a number of posters simply cannot stand the smallest of criticism ... or better stated, cannot stand that some hesitate to drop into a deep genuflection and utter loud ooohs and aaahs when talking about the fanboys' favorite schools. </p>
<p>Enough is enough!</p>
<p>"Of course, I would rather there were no TAs, but that's the price you pay for attending a major research university."</p>
<p>I bet a lot of the TA's are just as good or better than the profs. Yes, this is based on personal experience with major research universities, as well as being a Chemistry Ta for 2 1/2 years.</p>
<p>In my molecular biology lab course, I learned far more from my TA than I did from the professor.</p>
<p>
[quote]
As I wrote many times, my posts are often in RESPONSE to what I call senseless cheerleading by fanboys.
[/quote]
As our posts are often in RESPONSE to what I consider senseless put downs by the private school/LAC, small class-size, SAT is everything crowd.</p>
<p>
[quote]
You do not jump on me when I write that Berkeley is among the top five graduate schools in the world!
[/quote]
Because it's true. :D We don't have anything to argue about, so we don't post. </p>
<p>
[quote]
The reality is that a number of posters simply cannot stand the smallest of criticism ... or better stated, a lack of ooohs and aaahs about their favorite schools.
[/quote]
LOL! I agree sort of...but if you search my posts, I don't recommend Berkeley blindly and do readily admit its flaws. </p>
<p>
[quote]
My positions about Berkeley are very clear
[/quote]
Hmmm...I don't think I've ever seen a full listing of your grievances with Berkeley...I'm curious to know. What is it that applies to Berkeley that exists "to a smaller extent" at Michigan?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Hmmm...I don't think I've ever seen a full listing of your grievances with Berkeley...I'm curious to know.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, am I not known has one the meanest critics? Or could it be that my "grievances" are quite generic and trivial in nature? </p>
<p>What is it exactly that I write that so annoys the Cal fans and Alexandre? I know I could summarize my so-called negative positions on Cal in 2-3 lines; Michigan would take one line.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I know I could summarize my so-called negative positions on Cal in 2-3 lines; Michigan would take one line.
[/quote]
Could you make the effort to answer that for me, please?</p>
<p>Xiggi, I am not a "senseless cheerleading fanboy" when it comes to Michigan. In fact, I usually take it down a notch when it comes to Michigan. I am more likely to defend other universities and colleges than I am to defend my own. Sometimes, I get carried away because I do not like the lies that are spread about Cal and Michigan, but by and large, I tone it down as much as possible.</p>
<p>"You do not jump on me for singling out Michigan when I write that Michigan should be ranked higher in the "reputable" THES report and I place Michigan in 12th position! You do not jump on me when I write that Berkeley is among the top five graduate schools in the world!"</p>
<p>That is why I said that your singling out Cal and Michigan is unintentional. I know you respect those two schools.</p>
<p>"The reality is that a number of posters simply cannot stand the smallest of criticism ... or better stated, cannot stand that some hesitate to drop into a deep genuflection and utter loud ooohs and aaahs when talking about the fanboys' favorite schools."</p>
<p>That's because some schools get way, way, WAY more criticism than they deserve in this website. Cal and Michigan are two such schools.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Could you make the effort to answer that for me, please?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, here is my personal and highly subjective list:</p>
<p>** Berkeley's USNews PA and selectivity indexes are inflated
** Dedication to teaching UG is overstated
** Overall political environment (historical and contemporary)
** Future funding problems that will further deteriorate
** Distribution of student body that results from a clueless UC system of admission. Not directly Cal's fault! </p>
<p>That is about it! Not much of a grievance list!</p>
<p>
[quote]
Xiggi, I am not a "senseless cheerleading fanboy" when it comes to Michigan. In fact, I usually take it down a notch when it comes to Michigan. I am more likely to defend other universities and colleges than I am to defend my own. Sometimes, I get carried away because I do not like the lies that are spread about Cal and Michigan.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Alexandre, while I wrote that my "negative" posts were often in response to senseless cheerleading, I have not written that you were in that category. Inasmuch as your support and praise for schools such as Cal or Michigan has been persistent and .. voluminous, I think your approach has been balanced.</p>
<p>This is also why I am mystified by your analysis on my posts regarding Michigan.</p>
<p>FWIW,
Below I list research universities roughly in order of how their various departmental faculties ranked in the 1995 NRC faculty quality surveys (41 core disciplines in humanities, social sciences, biosciences, math/physical sciences, and engineering), and compare that to US News PA ratings. As I expected, PA ratings correlate quite closely, although not perfectly, with the number of distinguished (#1, top 5, top 10, top 25) faculties at the school:</p>
<p>School (#1, top 5, top 10, top 25 faculties) PA
1. Berkeley (2, 23, 35, 36) 4.8
2. Stanford (5, 16, 31, 40) 4.9
3. Harvard (5, 20, 26, 30) 4.9
4. MIT (6, 18, 20, 22) 4.9
5. Princeton (2, 13, 22, 28) 4.9
6. Yale (5, 12, 18, 25) 4.8
7. Michigan (1, 7, 14, 35) 4.5
8. Cornell (0, 6, 19, 31) 4.6
9. Chicago (1, 7, 17, 29) 4.6
10. UCLA (0, 4, 15, 34) 4.2
11. Columbia (1, 7, 13, 29) 4.6
12. Wisconsin (0, 2, 14, 33) 4.1
13. Penn (0, 3, 15, 31) 4.5
14. Caltech (3, 8, 12, 18) 4.7
15. UIUC (0, 4, 10, 23) 4.0
16. Texas (0, 1, 7, 28) 4.1
17. Duke (0, 5, 7, 19) 4.4
18. Minnesota (1, 2, 5, 22) 3.7
19. JHU (0, 0, 8, 22) 4.6
20. Northwestern (0, 1, 6, 18) 4.3
21. UNC (0, 0, 3, 19) 4.2
22. UVA (0, 1, 5, 16) 4.3
23. NYU (1, 1, 2, 15) 3.8
24. Brown (0, 0, 2, 17) 4.4
25. WUSTL (0, 0, 3, 11) 4.1</p>
<p>Not in top 25:
Emory (0, 1, 1, 5) 4.0
Vanderbilt (0, 0, 2, 4) 4.0
Georgetown (0, 0, 0, 1) 4.0
Notre Dame (0, 0, 0, 4) 3.9
Rice (0, 0, 1, 6) 4.0
CMU (0, 1, 1, 8) 4.2</p>
<p>Some caveats: First, I did this late at night and could have made some clerical or transcription errors; I welcome you to check and correct the data, especially at the lower end of my ranking where it's possible I missed a school, say a a Rutgers or a Pitt, that should have slipped into the top 25. Second, the NRC rankings are now quite old; new ones are due out in the fall, and are eagerly anticipated. Third, this survey represented 41 disciplines; schools could have outstanding strengths in other fields that go unrecorded here. Fourth, the sheer counting exercise obviously disadvantages universities that don't have engineering, for example (8 disciplines), as well as science-and-engineering schools like Caltech that would not be expected to have strengths in the humanities (10 disciplines) or social sciences (7 disciplines); note, however, that MIT did extremely well overall with some strengths in humanities and social sciences.</p>
<p>Despite these caveats, I do think the data are quite revealing. They show a pretty close but imperfect correlation between PA scores and the more detailed, discipline-by-discipline peer assessments of faculty strength done in the NRC rankings. Both are ultimately subjective measures, though of the two I much prefer the NRC ranking because it asks knowledgeable people in the discipline to rank faculties in their own discipline. That the correlation with PA is as close as it is confirms my intuition that PA is at least a rough proxy for how a school's faculties are seen by their peers in the academic community.</p>
<p>A second observation is that faculty strength as measured in the NRC rankings is highly concentrated at the top: CHYMPS (with "C" here for "Cal") utterly dominate the #1 and top 5-in-their-field positions, followed by a second tier led by Michigan and Cornell and extending down through the Penn-Caltech range with most programs in the top 10 or top 25, but far fewer #1 or top 5. From there it's a pretty steep drop to third tier consisting of Illinois-Texas-Duke-Minnesota-JHU with a respectable number of top 10 and top 25 programs, then quickly downward after that. </p>
<p>Now of course, the anti-PA people will say this only proves what they're been saying all along: PA rating is a proxy for GRADUATE program quality. After all, the NRC ranking a ranking of graduate programs. But I've tried to isolate here the NRC measure of "faculty quality," believing as I do that a strong faculty in a field is a strong faculty in that field, whether you're at an undergraduate or a graduate level. Things like student-faculty ratio, class size, and percentage of classes taught by non-tenured/tenure-track faculty do obviously matter for the quality of undergraduate education, but those things are measured elsewhere in the U.S. News rankings---measured poorly, perhaps, but they're there. But I maintain if you really want to do philosophy (for example) at a high level as an undergraduate, you need to work with the top philosophers; it's always been that way, and always will. To some extent they're spread around, but by and large they're concentrated on the strongest philosophy faculties. Knowing where they are matters in evaluating an undergraduate institution's strength; it's only one factor among many, but it's an important one.</p>
<p>Notice, however, that the correlation between NRC faculty strength and PA is not perfect. By and large, the big public universities have US News PA ratings slightly below their NRC faculty strength rankings. And many privates, including some of the non-HYP Ivies, have PA ratings a little higher than their NRC faculty strength rankings. I take it this suggests there's some discounting of the publics' PA ratings to account for large class sizes, student-faculty ratios, etc ; and some PA "bonus points" awarded to schools like Brown for their alleged high teaching standards, even though on a peer assessment of faculty quality by discipline their faculties do not excel. So I'd conclude the PA rating probably reflects administrators' summary assessments of overall faculty strength (largely research and scholarship-driven), subjectively adjusted upward or downward a bit based on factors like class size, student-faculty-ratio, and reputation for teaching excellence, all factors that go into the "teaching" component of PA but are notoriously difficult to measure.</p>
<p>Bottom line, I'd like to see the current PA score replaced by a more straightforward "faculty excellence" score much like the current NRC rankings, discipline-by-discipline. To my mind, this is valuable information, especially at the level of research universities, and even for undergraduates. Perhaps it's because I'm an academic and my own kids have a distinctly academic bent, but I want my kids studying with top scholars in their fields and being exposed to, and engaging in, the current, cutting edge research and intellectual debates in those fields; and if they're focused and motivated, they can certainly do that as undergrads, at least by the time they're upperclassmen. Teaching excellence is more difficult to measure; things like s-f ratios and class sizes get at it only imperfectly. Perhaps the best we could do is a survey of student satisfaction with the teaching (like ther one Hawkette introduced above), which in my judgment is a poor proxy for the actual quality of the teaching because it's often the best entertainers who get the best student evaluations; but at least it would tell us how satisfied the students are, and that's something.</p>
<p>But in the meantime, PA does tell us something.</p>
<p>Thanks for posting that...
[quote]
Overall political environment
[/quote]
I'll agree with you there...but the City of Berkeley is 100x worse than the University.</p>
<p>There was a recent article that talked about Cal's student body and city residents displeasure that students aren't liberal/activist enough...the high Asian student population is a lot more conservative.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Future funding problems that will further deteriorate
[/quote]
UC is very aware of this issue and is working to address it. I've pledged my contribution...;)</p>
<p>
[quote]
Berkeley's USNews PA and selectivity indexes are inflated
[/quote]
I disagree...as my posts have shown.</p>
<p>
[quote]
clueless UC system of admission
[/quote]
Admissions officers are campus specific. Is your criticism of UC admissions due to the fact that they don't seem to hold the SAT in as high esteem as you seem to do?</p>
<p>Great post, bclintonk!</p>
<p>I agree with your analysis, especially the slight discounting for publics due to other factors that affect undergrads, and are more favorable at smaller privates.</p>
<p>Bottom line: PA measures "distinguished academic programs"...not other factors like class size and resources...the PA does this pretty well.</p>