Probably LACs and small (<5000 students?) universities could be grouped together in that comparison, but to confirm we’d have to do some research. Class size (averages, range distribution, etc.) might not just be a function of student body size – maybe S:F ratio also plays a part. And the physical size of classrooms – at UW, for instance, there are several 500±seat classrooms that really could be described as auditoriums. Well if a school does not have classrooms of that size, that limits the number of kids who can attend a lecture. There may be other factors as well.
WRT who teaches non-lecture gatherings, I think generally (and you touched on this) we could say that the fewer the grad students, the less likely it is that grad students will be leading discussions or labs.
Is this thread about how to define a liberal arts university/college, as the title suggests? Or is it just another one of those discussions about LACs vs other universities?
That’s a good question, and it’s something – some schools using adjuncts to lead lectures – for applicants to research when forming college application lists or comparing schools that admit them.
Having PhD students teach classes has an extremely negative reputation, but I’d be more concerned with who is an effective teacher than who is a PhD student vs adjunct professor vs tenured professor. A college could get some clues about teaching effectiveness by having both students and teacher take a survey about about teaching experiences at some points during class, occasionally sending in an observer, comparing outcomes (grades in future courses, how many drop the major, …), etc.
For example, I took multi-variable calculus at a SUNY, where a PhD student taught my class. Among all the math classes I have taken at SUNY and Stanford, I had the best teaching experience in this class. He explained the material in a clear way, the students appeared to learn the material, and he appeared to be truly passionate about teaching. He knew the students in the class by name and make real connections with students. He seemed very enthusiastic about supporting me by writing LORs. This may partially relate to being less burnt out. I didn’t need a well known professor in the field to teach a basic calculus class. Instead I needed a good teacher.
The next semester, I took Linear Algebra with a tenured professor. This was the worst teaching experience I have every had in a math class and among the top few worst experiences in a college course. He’d scribble on the blackboard while quickly mumbling some things that I didn’t hear well (in fairness, I have hearing loss), then immediately leave without taking questions. Students in the class used to regularly mimic and make fun of his teaching style before/after he left. The class had an odd grading system where you needed to do satisfactorily (not fail) the 2 previous tests to take the final. I was one of only ~3 kids in the class who took the final. Hardly anyone seemed to be learning the material. He may have been a tenured professor, but he seemed to be awful at teaching. Maybe he just didn’t care and wanted to focus on his research or something else.
However, at most universities, grad students rarely teach classes. Grad students are far more likely to serve as teaching assistants. They may grade papers, lead sections or labs, offer support hours, etc. This leads to different comparisons. For example, compare the following 2 intro CS class models:
LAC – 50 person class taught by professor, no sections ( I realize some LACs have mcuh smaller intro to CS class size)
Stanford CS 106a; Fall 2022/23 – 549 students, 113 sections, average ~5 students per section
The Stanford CS class is 11x larger with an auditorium of hundreds of students, yet I wouldn’t assume there is less personal interaction and opportunity to ask questions because there are 113 sections with ~5 students per section. Stanford’s large number of graduate students in CS makes this possible. If they did not have a grad program in CS, they might be forced to reduce class size, more like a typical LAC. The grad students are not well known experts in the field of CS, like the professor; but do you really need a well known expert in CS to answer questions about an intro to CS lecture?
I don’t think either model is inherently better or worse. Instead it depends on other factors like teaching quality, size of sections, whether the class is something that grad students can explain well, and perhaps most of all individual student preferences.
You make a couple of good points: not every course needs to be led by a prof with the terminal degree in the field, especially in entry-level courses; their subject knowledge is sufficient to teach introductory topics. And of course – teaching passion and effectiveness can really heighten the classroom and learning experience.
However, if a student has a difficult question about the subject at hand, something not covered in the book or in that particular course – maybe that is where it is advantageous to have a PhD teaching the class. There may also be more impactful letters of recommendation, if the prof is well-known in the field.
Of course, PhD students also grow up and graduate, and may end up becoming well-known professors themselves, or may hold important jobs in industry, even long after the original professor of the class has retired. So these relationships can be important, too. And it’s easier to make a close connection in a 5 student section, rather than a 50 student class.
At least in my case, after I graduated from college, some of the connections I had made with my PhD student teaching assistants ended up being very valuable to me in grad school and my career after that.
It’s always interesting to me. Colleges push that they have Professors teaching or X % have terminal degrees.
It sounds great on paper but many profs stink. I think having a strong teacher, without regard to educational level or status would matter most…once you are actually in the class.
It’s not always the colleges. Percent of terminal degrees are how the USNews rankins once (and maybe still do) measure Faculty Strength. The colleges have had almost no choice in how they’ve been measured over the space of the last forty years.
I confess to not reading this whole thread. But…the above description applies to many Jesuit colleges, and a lot of them are “universities” not liberal arts colleges.
When my younger kid was looking for colleges, she didn’t care what “name” the college was…she cared about what the college had to offer. She really loved the very strong required core curriculum at her Jesuit school. She also liked the size of the undergrad populations a lot. Really, the school “felt” like a liberal arts college. But since it had masters and one professional program, it wasn’t. It’s now listed under “universities” but when our kid was there is was a “masters university”.
Anyway…whether LAC or university, students should focus on what they want and whether colleges fulfill those wants.
I should add, my kid was an engineering major with a second major in biology. So really…she wanted both, although as long time posters know…she will never be an engineer. She loved the coursework and what it gave her in terms of knowledge, but she decided she never wanted to work in that field.
Both of these are more relevant for upper level courses, as opposed to frosh English composition, frosh/soph math, etc. where graduate students are more likely to be found in teaching roles.
While most may be classified as Universities, most also strive to provide, to some degree, a liberal arts education with an emphasis on cura personalis— the education of the whole person. (I just had this discussion with a Professor at a Jesuit University.)
Then, you didn’t read what I wrote before you replied to it. I wrote that the terminal degree metric started with USNews. The colleges are much more likely to be responding to the adults who constructed that poll.
.