<p>So I've been reading about some state universities. I've read some state universities write about 2 million dollar grants and all, but I don't quite comprehend this.</p>
<p>By 'research university', does it mean all we will be doing is trying to analyze things like a recent development in the human fungus in class? Will we have normal classes where 50 people sit in a class and the professor teaches calculus?</p>
<p>What exactly does this mean? How does a 'research university' differ from a 'non-research university'?</p>
<p>Oh, and what kind of research is there for Mechanical Engineering?</p>
<p>In a research university, professors are required to teach and research. About 1/3 of their time is teaching and 1/2 is research (the rest is administration and service). At a teaching university, the professors are paid just to teach, so almost all of their time is dedicated to teaching (but they teach more classes - usually three times as many). </p>
<p>Now, you might think “why would anyone want to study at a research university?” Several reasons. First, research universities are typically ranked much higher than non-research universities. Second, since companies are the ones that usually need (and pay for) research, they usually have stronger relationships (and thus recruit more) at research universities. Third, research universities pay professors much more than teaching schools, so the higher quality PhD students tend to go to research universities after graduation. Fourth, research professors have to stay on the cutting edge of the field, whereas a teaching professor doesn’t. As a result, at a teaching school, you might be receiving old information rather than more modern information. And last, but not least, at research universities, there’s opportunity for undergraduate research. If you intend to pursue a graduate degree, having research experience is very important.</p>
<p>You can see a school’s classification here: </p>
<p>In research (read: technical departments) universities under grads are seen as, and treated as aggravating and unavoidable nuisances. Hence the term “Research University” instead of “Teaching University”. Research Universities focus on RESEARCH and grad students serve as their poorly paid worker-bees. (An old educational tradition BTW). Under grads are only tolerated because they are disproportionally charged and thus defer costs. Professors at research universities are expected to do research that will result in lucrative grants and patents that will enrich both the prof and the school. Some research schools market advertise themselves as exceptions, but there is always a demonstrable conflict of interest that their smart marketing seeks to obscure.</p>
<p>toblin, your point is well taken. However, there are some very good teaching professors at research institutions. There are some people that are excellent researchers and poor teachers. I won’t dispute this but there are also professors that are exceptional teachers as well as researchers. Even at research institutions, there are also professors that are maybe not heavy hitters in the research realm and thus focus more on teaching.</p>
<p>That was an incredibly cynical response. Both schools I have attended (UIUC and TAMU) are large research institutions, and the number of great teachers far outweighs the number of bad teachers at both places for classes I have taken. I have admittedly limited experience here at TAMU, but I did the full 4 years at UIUC.</p>
<p>If your cynicism was 100% true, then why would demonstrated teaching ability and experience be a strict requirement for tenure-track positions at most if not all research institutions? The fact is that those institutions attract top minds not only through their reputation earned through research, but also through reputations earned through graduating quality engineers. You can’t train quality engineers without good teachers. Now, at research universities, you are definitely more likely to get a bad professor for a class, and there is definitely a lean in emphasis towards graduate programs rather than undergraduate programs, but your cynical overgeneralizing just takes it a bit too far.</p>
<p>Wow, what an off-base post! I had amazing professors at the University of Texas. Some of them were world-renowned researchers in their fields. They were also wonderful teachers who loved teaching undergrads. My dad is one of those profs, so I’m biased, but I know personally that the students are the reason he’s still at Texas at age 72. He still teaches a freshman introductory class, just because he loves his field and wants to share his enthusiasm with the kids. It’s not the research that keeps him going!</p>
<p>My cynicism is warranted because teaching ability is not required of senior professors at any RU fancy of fancies. Maybe you are citing a characteristic of a non-fancy that is a pretender to the emblem?</p>
<p>What a sophomoric comment. My only possible reply is that it is completely untrue.</p>
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<p>Even at public schools, tuition usually accounts for less than 20% of the school’s revenue but over 50% of the cost. Schools like Georgia Tech would actually make a profit every year if they stopped admitting students and sold off the academic buildings. </p>
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<p>Teaching performance is part of the tenure requirement at every college I’ve ever visited.</p>
<p>I have stated an opinion that is shared by many. I also realize it goes against the orthodoxy, (read: mandated thought) of elitists and the defenders of the status quo. If the thought of under grads maximizing their educational dollars by choosing to attend institutions that hold their educational interests as the first and only priority upsets the old guard, so be it. The Great Recession we are experiencing has the affect of an infrequent yet powerful low tide. It uncovers forgotten skeletons and renders suspect long held beliefs. Across the board the lazy man, go-with-the-flow educational ROI analysis is being questioned. I am happy to give research funded Universities (as far as under grads go) their fair turn in the barrel. </p>
<p>And I too have attended many a University dog and pony show.</p>
<p>Making your posts more verbose does not make you look more intelligent. In fact, it detracts from the overall content of your posts, which, for the most part, have included at least some very valuable insight.</p>
<p>However, you completely failed to address the whole point of this debate, which is whether or not the “RU fancy of fancies” require teaching experience and excellence from their professors. You quite bluntly claimed that those very top ranked institutions had no such requirements, a claim about which I subsequently offered several counterexamples.</p>
<p>It is certainly true that you can sometimes run into a seeming conflict of interest with the faculty at large research institutions, I will not argue with you there. However, your claim that this is always the case and that these universities don’t even expect their faculty to teach well or care at all about undergrads is absolutely baseless and can potentially misinform people coming to these boards for objective information.</p>
<p>I will not discourage prospective engineers from considering smaller, teaching universities. I may be young, but I have been around enough to know that you can certainly get a wonderful education from seemingly unknown places, and I know that at small schools such as those in question, a student can get personal attention at a level that, in many cases, simply isn’t logistically possible at a large university. I have several friends and colleagues who graduated from places such as Rose-Hulman and they are just as capable as anyone who came from Purdue or other big names. However, it is absolutely untrue that those big schools don’t care about you and absolutely untrue that they are full of universally terrible teachers. You can get a fair amount of personal attention at larger schools, you just have to make more of an effort to do it.</p>
<p>Toblin… I think you missed the point completely. He’s simply saying that your extremely cynical statement is misguided. You may be right in some regard, but you can’t say that this happens the majority of the time. Many people can testify to this… that is the rebuttal in a nutshell.</p>
<p>I fail to see the part of my post that insults you. I said you ought to stop writing like Shakespeare so that your posts aren’t so wordy, but that isn’t insulting you, it is giving you constructive criticism. I am sure a lot of us on here could construct complex sentences with varying, unusual structure, but that just makes things harder to read for everyone.</p>
<p>Also, ad hominem attacks and constructing straw men are not good debate strategies for you, either. You still haven’t addressed my actual point in this debate, and instead have attacked my credentials and various other points on which I am not even arguing.</p>
<p>Let me add some details that are rarely addressed in the ‘research vs. teaching’ school. Just to add some further provocation. Apologies in advance if this is offensive to some but I think it is largely true. </p>
<p>The world of academia evolves around research. Professors at both types of schools typically possess a PhD. A PhD is almost universally a research degree: you do research for some many years, you see publications, you get rewarded for your research, you are not taught how to teach. Most people pursuing a PhD do so in order to have research careers. </p>
<p>The most competitive applicants go into the top PhD programs (in terms of reputation in their field, and where the best and most influential research is produced). Those best PhD programs lead to the best chances of ANY faculty position later on, as well as the quality of university one will be hired at, one’s future salary and so forth. More research oriented schools typically provide more status, higher salaries, and more flexible time (since less classroom hours are required).</p>
<p>Not sure if you see where this is going but what it typically means is the following. It is not the case that the fabulous teachers go to teaching schools by choice. It is the case that professors that end up at teaching schools are there because that is where they could get a job- either because they did not graduate from a great PhD program or they were not particular successful in research (the core of what they set out to do in their PhD program). </p>
<p>Of course I can think of exceptions. Some people love and are good at teaching and discover this in graduate school for example. But the reality is that even those who love and are good at teaching can do fabulous research and be at a top notch, highly regarded school in our field (which is always invariably a research one). Some of the most award winning professors in our field of 20,000- who write the books on teaching, are superstars- come from prestigious research universities. High achievers are just often high achievers. And why would they not be at a top research school? Why would they pass up a much higher salary, prestige, and a HUGE deal of more flexibility post tenure even if they love and are good at teaching? Even people that LOVE teaching would choose a 2-3 course load over a 6-8 course post-tenure load.</p>
<p>Both of my parents are professors at a large research university, so I feel that I should put my two cents in.
As far as I understand it, the large majority of professors at research universities are focused on research rather than teaching. The more funding a professor gets for their research, the less teaching they are required to do by the university. Most professors try to minimize the hours of teaching, because they aren’t professors because they want to teach, but because they want to do research. The professors who can’t get funding are required to teach more hours. So it would seem that most professors aren’t teaching a lot of classes because they love teaching, but rather that they are required to by the university to make up for the lack of funding that they are bringing in. Most professors who love teaching and don’t care about research very much go to teaching colleges. My parents are both biology professors, but I would hazard a guess that the same system would apply to engineering professors.</p>
<p>This is just what I’ve gathered from talking to my parents about how the system works.</p>
<p>See, you are right that most (read: all) professors at a research university are there because they want to do research. However, there are quite a few who also enjoy teaching at least on a limited basis (like a class or two a semester). Believe it or not, there are people who have a passion for building the engineers of tomorrow. That can help advance the science just as much as hard research can.</p>