<p>paying3tuitions: There are professors at both LACs and research universities who will not spend time with students and in both types of schools there are profs that do. It is incorrect to assume that because a school is research oriented that profs don't have time for undergraduates. My daughter, a freshman has been in a huge classes at Harvard - life sciences 1a and b where the professors had regular office hours, gladly met with the students (assuming that the students took the time to go) and almost instantaneously responded to emails. As a matter of fact, she has become closest to the professor in the largest class and found it a lot more stimulating than a seminar which had only 4 students. She had no problems receiving multiple letters of recommendation that allowed her to receive research grants during the school year and this summer.</p>
<p>Usually, research duties for faculty involve talking with their employees (i.e. postdocs, graduate students, lab technecians), interacting with other faculties and writing grants. That takes way more than 40 hours a week can handle. Most of the professors I know no longer have time for doing bench works or actual research works. The actual works that contribute to the rankings of the universities are all done by professors' employees. Maybe what really matters is how much money the professors can attract for their research. Well,.. what I've seen are great scientists metamorphosing into money magnets in the name of college professors. </p>
<p>How do they hire professors (at Ivy schools)? They look at people who have good publications from postdoc or grad school first, then glance at some teaching records before hiring them. If we really want someone to teach, then why look for people with superb research experiences? I've had classes where TA's know better than the professors and/or I know better than either of them. I chuckle at how my school is criticized for not having a certain percent of instructors on tenure track. Tenure track does not matter with how well the instructor teaches at all. It might be just some people are born with better speaking ability- an intangible issue. </p>
<p>I've sneaked into some of MIT's classes and they are great (at least much better than classes at Penn). And we all know MIT's research are just terrific. Some people told me MIT train professors for teaching, both for undergrad and grad classes. </p>
<p>Then why would this thread be so controversial? Undergrads are a money source for schools. The schools want to get them happy and such, while maintaining financial stability. I have no clue why the notion of the association between great research and great teachings should exist at all. If Harvard really wants to be decent at teaching, it should just pay a little more attention in training prof's and TA's in teaching... just as MIT do. Well, but if it really wants to be perfect at teaching, all instructors should get an education degree next to their Ph.D and be trained like high school teachers. 99% of my friends claim that their high school teachers are way better than college teachers.</p>
<p>Funny, the usual Yale troll, but not the usual Harvard bashers....</p>