<p>The kind of classes where 50% ish is the norm are classes where you aren’t taught how to do every problem. You are presented a problem on the test you have never seen before and are expected to create the solution on the fly. A prof can make this challenge as great as he/she wishes and shoot for 90%=A, 50%=A, 25%=A.</p>
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… nor teaching for that matter. That’s why they have TA’s. While it is possible to continue to be an excellent teacher once you have tenure, it is human nature to slack off when permanent job security is in the picture.</p>
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<p>That’s the nub of the issue. Because it’s debatable. In this country, I would suggest that elite research universities, at least, do NOT exist for the benefit of students. They are effectively a hybrid of faculty collectives and self-sustaining real estate businesses. Undergraduate students are customers, and get catered to somewhat, but the primary goal of the institution is to support and to amuse the faculty.</p>
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Unfortunately, many students also have this mindset. They tend to be whiners.</p>
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<p>This is an excellent point to ponder. Who DO these organizations really serve. I would add that they also serve a category of legacy families and those who can buy their way in. This in turn serves the faculty as you mentioned above. Throw in a good smattering of ‘politically correct’ URM’'s for PR and it becomes a rather closed and self sustaining machine.</p>
<p>There is probably enough material here for a new thread ‘:)’</p>
<p>"The kind of classes where 50% ish is the norm are classes where you aren’t taught how to do every problem. You are presented a problem on the test you have never seen before and are expected to create the solution on the fly. A prof can make this challenge as great as he/she wishes and shoot for 90%=A, 50%=A, 25%=A. "</p>
<p>I understand this concept but just dont know how it benifits students if the class fails.</p>
<p>I did look up professor and he does not appear on rate my professor. In a seach of the college website it shows all his other classes are graduate level. This is his only undergrad class. Maybe what works for his Grad. students is not working for his Freshman students?</p>
<p>Haha. This sounds like a great professor. Don’t get it twisted. His goal is not to fail all of his students. If every student in the class failed, he would not be a professor at the university anymore, since the grades of his students are more of a reflection on him than the actual students.</p>
<p>His goal with this speech is to get students that have no self confidence to leave the class so that he is only left with the best and the brightest. Just tell your daughter to hang tough and do the best she can. She will be fine as long as she is confident in her abilities. Besides, it’s only, what, the first week of class? Let her figure out what he is all about.</p>
<p>Actually, she just finished week 5 of classes. Add/drop period ends today. We will see what happens.</p>
<p>Wow. That’s different. Is she doing ok in the class?</p>
<p>"His goal with this speech is to get students that have no self confidence to leave the class so that he is only left with the best and the brightest. "</p>
<p>See this is what I meant when I made an oblique reference to Type I & Type II error.</p>
<p>On the one hand, it could be exactly what you say, and the class could be great.
On the other hand, he could mean exactly what he said, and you could wind up with a bad grade from an ******e simply because he wants to operate that way. Or have to do more work than you would prefer to expend in this subject to avoid such fate.</p>
<p>You don’t know which of these is actually the case, but which risk would you rather take? The risk that you may miss out on a great class? Or the risk that you wind up treated harshly by an ogre, as promised, or have to commit rather more time that you would prefer to this class?</p>
<p>I’m not dictating an answer for everyone, just laying it out.
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<p>The fact that he had positive reviews from previous students is a great sign! Some of those crusty, tough professors are great teachers and can really inspire a class.</p>
<p>From JHS:
“…I would suggest that elite research universities, at least, do NOT exist for the benefit of students … Undergraduate students are customers, and get catered to somewhat, but the primary goal of the institution is to support and to amuse the faculty.”</p>
<p>While I agree with the overall sentiment, I haven’t seen too many faculty members, especially junior faculty, at major research universities who felt “amused.” The job of such faculty is to bring grant money, with the attendant overhead charges, into the university. Prior to obtaining tenure, and usually afterwards, the life of such a faculty member (in the sciences at least) is a gerbil wheel of:</p>
<p>1) Use your start-up funds to get computers, lab equipment, graduate students and postdocs. Get them started doing research while you write numerous grant proposals.
2) Hopefully one of your proposals is funded. Use it to hire more graduate students and postdocs to do research.
3) Use the results of that research to support more grant proposals. Go back to step 2 and repeat until you get tenure, burn out, retire, or die.</p>
<p>Where are the undergraduates in all of this? In the hard sciences, they’re pretty much in the background. They aren’t as productive as graduate students or postdocs in terms of research, and so they don’t figure as prominently. As for teaching, well, as a faculty member at a research university, your teaching ability doesn’t factor into your promotion or tenure decisions. So you really have no motivation to spend much time on it, and a lot of motivation not to.</p>
<p>I think LostCoast is right: At major research universities, in the sciences, faculty members generally have more time and effort to invest in teaching after they have tenure, rather than before. Unless a person is doing a really poor job of teaching–in all honesty–the quality of teaching will very rarely figure into a tenure or promotion decision, at such a university. </p>
<p>The “gerbil-wheel” aspect doesn’t really end once a faculty member is tenured. A significant problem is that the Ph.D. completion time-scale is longer than the typical grant cycle (with some exceptions). So a faculty member has to take on students, with no pre-set guarantee that he/she can continue to support them as research assistants, a few years down the road.</p>
<p>“Each divisional executive committee shall establish written criteria and standards it will employ in recommending the granting of tenure. These criteria and standards shall assure that the granting of tenure is based on evidence of (1) teaching excellence; (2) a record of professional creativity, such as research or other accomplishments appropriate to the discipline; and (3) service to the university, to the faculty member’s profession, or professional service to the public.”</p>
<p>UW Madison tenure guideline policy.</p>
<p>barrons, the policy is quite similar in most universities that are comparable to UW Madison. I think very highly of my own colleagues there, as teachers as well as researchers. However, listing research in category (2) is purely for public consumption. A really bad teacher could lose tenure because of poor teaching. However, that would be “really bad” as judged by colleagues, and not by CC standards. </p>
<p>Generally, policies like this are more honored in the breach than in the observance, at least if you are thinking that items (1) and (2) are weighted equally.</p>
<p>Out in the real world, one is not isolated by the ivory towers of academia, or buffered from reality by having a 'government job. Out here, ones continued ability to support ones self very often requires that one respond to those who pay ones salary (the customer). I agree, teaching in a public school does not require this type of interaction. Whether this has led to good or bad results is obviously a matter of opinion.</p>
<p>Oh sorry–didn’t realize I didn’t live in the real world. Thank goodness I have been buffered from reality all these years. I’ll try to remember to “respond” to my customers in the future. tank ya fo offering tat lil nugget o advise. I stop doin whetever I been doing all this yeers and git right down to it!</p>
<p>I think what Monydad said is exactly what my DD would be thinking about every day. Was he BSing and will curve the test or will he not and I might fail. DD by nature is a worrier. Advisor must have seen this because she advised DD that it “might not be worth the stress this man will cause you” to stay in the class. She dropped back to Calc 1</p>
<p>mtmmomma
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<p>I find it curious that even though none of my posts were directed at you, and addressed areas under general discussion by people of good will, you had such a visceral and personal reaction to them. Anyway, glad I could provide you some insight ‘;)’</p>
<p>dietz 199–usually when one quotes another and then makes a derogatory remark as to the worthiness of their government job, one might think it was directed at them. So I find it curious that you didn’t mean for the reply to be personal. Maybe you could use some insight on how you come across, hope you get it!</p>
<p>It is a very common tactic for professors to give everyone a “C” or “D” on the first paper. Sometimes this is a ploy to get the students to go and meet with the professor. If this happens to your daughter, she SHOULD ask for a meeting, and then, very non-defensively, ask what she should do to improve. If she does this, she will learn and her writing will improve. Chances are she will look back in retrospect, very grateful for everything she learned in this class. Good luck!</p>