<p>I'll just give you the bottom line on TAs at Brown though I haven't read the entire thread.</p>
<p>There are only three places at Brown where TAs lead classes. Over 95% of our classes are faculty taught. The exceptions are:
Introductory and Intermediate Literary Arts courses. Mind you, the course I took in Fiction taught by a TA was the best course I've taken to improve my writing ever.</p>
<p>Math-- Calculus through Linear Algebra. There are a couple reasons for this-- large teaching load on the math department, disinterest in higher level mathematicians in teaching lower level courses, and finally, as part of their graduate school training Brown mathematicians are expected to prepare to become professors themselves and therefore have teaching requirements. That being said, there is always at least one section of the course led by a full time faculty member (and it's often the least popular section because it's often the worse taught section). If you want a faculty member here, you'll get one.</p>
<p>The last exception is language courses which are often taught by native speakers, though they do require a significant amount of knowledge about both languages. For instance, last year a Korean professor went on sabbatical and we did not offer Korean though we have more Korean students then from any other foreign country other than Canada here at Brown (maybe it's 3rd to Singapore... but I doubt it). No one had what Brown considered to be necessary mastery of both languages that they were able to teach effectively so we didn't offer the course.</p>
<p>As far as class size, as a current junior I've never had a semester where I did not have a course with less than 10 students in it even as a science concentrator. I've had two courses where there were 2 professors in the room, at once, teaching less than 20 students. I've had courses where the professor also taught my lab, with a TA, with only 11 students.</p>
<p>Classes at Brown (other than unavoidable things like Intro to Econ, Intro to Chem) are largely quite small, and any course with over 40 students must provide a break out discussion section, often led by a TA, to provide more personal attention to students.</p>
<p>Cloverdale, I find your criticism to be interesting, but absurd. Brown's program in LA has been structured this way for quite some time and is still considered to be one of hte best departments to study in in the country. Not only that, but we don't hide the fact that many LA courses are taught by TAs. It would have been easy to disregard the program on that fact with a little research when applying, but your assertion that he's not learning what he should be seems odd since he is coming out of one of the top dept in the country for that work. Your expectation, as an expert, is considerably higher, it would seem, than any department is really offering, if one is to expect Brown's status in this area to be legitimate.</p>