No, I think you still don’t get it if you think any large research university’s school/dep’t of arts and sciences is a LAC.
The many institutions of higher learning evolved over time to be what they are today, and they exist not in clean categorical boxes, but instead represent points on a spectrum. Bowdoin College on one end, UC Berkeley on the other. Dartmouth is somewhere in between.
That a LAC has a comp. sci. offering doesn’t “disqualify” it from some strict definition. As @circuitrider said: these terms are used idiomatically. At the large research university I attended, the school of A&S was the largest department at the university, by a wide margin. Hard to call it a LAC. You could if you wanted to, but nobody would know what you’re talking about.
Every type of colleges has reasons, and advantages, for its existence. If not, it would have disappeared. Some students are more suited for one type of colleges than another. There isn’t a single type of colleges, or a single college for that matter, that’s better for all students. Some colleges are better in one area or another. For example, for undergraduate research in STEM, no college is better than MIT or Caltech, but that doesn’t mean these two schools are better for all students in STEM.
I think when most people on the site say Liberal Arts College they mean being in USNWR’s category of that name. I believe USNWR uses Carnegie Classifications for their college divisions. The Carnegie Classification of “Bachelorette Colleges: Arts Sciences Focus” is what USNWR calls “Liberal Arts College.” Carnegie classifications define this category as follows. The key components of definition seem to be offering few if any graduate degrees, and at least half of bachelor’s degrees in arts & sciences.
Includes institutions where baccalaureate or higher degrees represent at least 50 percent of all degrees but where fewer than 50 master’s degrees or 20 doctoral degrees were awarded during the update year. (Some institutions above the master’s degree threshold are also included; see Methodology.) Excludes Special Focus Institutions and Tribal Colleges.
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Institutions in which at least half of bachelor’s degree majors in arts and sciences fields were included in the “Arts & Sciences” group, while the remaining institutions were included in the “Diverse Fields” group.
A more literal definition might be a college that focuses on Liberal Arts subjects, which include most humanities, most social sciences, life sciences, physical sciences, math and maybe CS. But offers little focus on more vocationally focused fields like engineering, accounting, nursing/medicine, law, etc. Under this more literal definition Brandeis might be considered a LAC, while Harvey Mudd might not.
And private LACs have some of the largest endowments per student that are out there. Moreover, that endowment is entirely for the benefit of the undergraduate education. Duke’s $13 billion is not only for the 6,500 undergraduates, or even the total 15,600 students. It also supports the research and staff, of which there are 41,000, and more. On the other hand, Amherst’s $2.57 billion is entirely for the education of their 1,900 undergraduates. Just by numbers, Amherst has $1.3 million per undergraduate, while Duke has $0.83 million per student, or 2/3 of that of Amherst, but Amherst is not supporting a medical research and other institutions with thousands of employees. They just have their undergraduates and their faculty and staff.
So tell me, who has more resources for their undergraduates, Duke or Amherst?
You seem to be confused about what people are saying about “research”.
At LACs, there are many more opportunities for research FOR UNDERGRADUATES. That is what people are saying, and that is a fact.
Research universities are focused on research, and the “research” in their title should be a clue to that. However, students do not have much chance to participate in that research in any meaningful way. Nobody is going to give an undergrad access to million dollar equipment for their “research experience”. I know what research opportunities are generally offered to undergraduates at national universities, and personal anecdotes notwithstanding, they are not that many. Adding an undergraduate’s name to a paper is great, but very few undergraduates at national universities are the first name on the paper, i.e., it was their own research, not something that the helped with.
LACs are set up for undergraduate-level research, and have facilities that are geared towards undergraduate level research.
Isn’t that EXACTLY what you are doing here? You are saying that research universities both have faculty who are focusing on their world-class research, but also have small classes and that faculty evidently have time to do high level research, train graduate students and postdocs, AND have lots of individual interactions with undergraduates.
A research university may have 60% of their classes under 20 students, but for students, 50% of the classes they take are over 50 students per class, since all 500 of the 1,600 students in a cohort need to take those 12 required classes, and they are given once a semester. That is why Harvard, for all its resources, has intro required courses of up to 700+ students.
Most of the expensive private research universities with tons of money similar requirements - they have 11-14 required gen-ed intro classes, which are taught once a semester, by s=a small number of faculty. So , if there are 1,600-3,000 students in a cohort, there will be hundreds of students taking those courses. At larger universities, like, say, Berkeley, there are many more students in a cohort.
Moreover, at research universities, professors are not only teaching undergraduate classes, they are teaching graduate classes, and most are not teaching that much, since they get teaching releases for their research. So a proffesor at a LAC will teach 2/2, 2/1/2, or something similar, while an active researcher at a national university will teach 1/0. If they are an adornment hire (famous old Nobel Laureate), they will likely only teach a small seminar class every other semester.
That means that the intro courses are taught by a small number of people, and only one class a semester. So that means large classes.
I’m not even getting into the fact that so many of the intro classes are taught by non-TT faculty. For example, at Duke, most of the intro 200-level bio courses are taught by non-TT faculty.
At LACs, classes are set up differently, course requirements are different, with almost no specific required courses, just courses in different fields and there are rarely which generally results in not generally having these single courses that are required by 700 students.
Based on what fact, please? You have provided a lot of opinion, but no facts to back them up.
You are consistently confusing the research mission of National Universities and their education mission, and are making the mistaken assumption that the resources that are available for research are being made available for undergraduate education.
They are not.
LACs specialize in providing educational opportunities, and national universities do not.
For the record, I have taught at four research universities, I have dozens of colleagues who teach at everything from community colleges, to elite LACs, to large publics, and “elite” privates. I am pretty familiar with how undergraduate teaching and research looks at a large range of colleges and universities, and the number of people who are, very authoritatively asserting things that are factually incorrect is amazing.
Fact - percentagewise, LACs are highly overrepresented among people with PhDs (three to four times), USA presidents (close to 10x), Nobel Laureates (4x)*, etc, etc, etc.
Only in Turing awards are LACs sadly deficient, likely because engineering is not really a thing at LACs, and they are relative newcomers to CS.
Somehow LACs keep on producing world class scientists, writers, politicians, etc, at rates far higher than National Universities, yet some people are claiming that they aren’t doing a good job at education or at training them in research. I dunno, facts seem to say the exact opposite.
Sorry, people facts are facts, no matter how “ridiculous” they may “seem” to you.
PS. For example, 5 Nobel Laureates did their undergraduates at Swarthmore, while, say, Stanford only has 2.
I will say, though, that the university which has every other one beat down for things like PhDs and awards per student is Caltech.
I don’t know what University you attended, so I can’t comment specifically.
Suppose I said to someone that there is a University College within Washinton University that only offers Liberal Arts Programs. This college is the Liberal Arts College within Washington University; they would have no idea what I was talking about? Or if I said to someone that the Tulane School of Liberal Arts within Tulane University only offers Liberal Arts Programs. This school is the Liberal Arts College within Tulane University; they would have no idea what I was talking about. Or
What is the difference between Harvard College and Harvard University?
Harvard College founded in 1636, is the oldest institution of higher education in the United States. Harvard College offers a four-year undergraduate, liberal arts program for students seeking their first degree. There are about 6,600 undergraduates at the College, with nearly equal numbers of men and women. In addition to Harvard College, Harvard University includes 10 graduate and professional schools, all of which offer programs for students who already hold their first degrees and seek advanced training in their fields through master’s or doctoral programs. All 10 graduate and professional schools maintain their own admissions offices and teaching faculties, and they are run independently of Harvard College. For information about Harvard’s graduate programs, please contact these schools’ admissions offices directly.
Since this describes the University of Richmond, it probably should be noted that not very long ago UR was ranked by U.S. News as a Regional University (South), where it placed first in this category. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that it manifests hybrid characteristics.
No. You’d be guilty of over-thinking. When people refer to WUSTL or they refer to Tulane without further specifying a school, the default assumption is that they are talking about the arts and science divisions of those universities. That’s just a fact. The liberal arts have always held a place of primacy within the average university organizational chart. Your example of Harvard illustrates this perfectly. Every so often you will hear someone say the went to “The College”. But, they’re just being coy. It’s their way of appearing modest (i.e., not saying the word, “Harvard” out loud.)
I mean, it’s an interesting question: Why don’t more people bracket out the college of arts and science when they refer to Yale or Georgetown or Northwestern? IMHO, it’s because as @cquin85 posted - it would come across as either confusing or just plain pompous.
I’m sure you are also aware that a LOT of professors and higher ed professionals often send their own kids to LACs. That’s not a coincidence.
I like the comment earlier, can’t remember who said it, that with an LAC, you’ll know one when you see one. Before my D and I started thinking about college, I had literally never heard of Bates, where she ended up.
The only LAC I had heard of was Whittier College because I lived 20 minutes away. I knew from movies and such that there were red brick small colleges covered with ivy. They all had idyllic campuses and it was perpetually Fall. Lol.
Anyway, yes, if the dictionary definition of an LAC was just pictures, when most people think of an LAC, they think of this:
I have not read your lengthy post. I understand your position (as I have read it several times in other threads) & the positions of two other posters on this thread who repeatedly make the same or similar arguments & assertions.
No, I am not confused about research or any of the topics discussed in this thread.
Arguing that LACs are the best at every aspect of education & research holds little weight with me, but, if it comforts you, then that is your privilege.
I do not view this thread as a debate or as an argument. I have already posted my position as have others. I am not going to participate in a “war of attrition” debate. For some, LACs are an excellent option, for others National Universities are superior, and, yet, for some both types of schools are fine.
It doesn’t matter. One that has historically been among the top in research $$ and production and that supports a campus environment better described as a small city with close to 40,000 student - a flagship national research university.
Arts & Science there, and at most others, is everything that isn’t engineering, comp. sci, business, architecture, etc. So from English to Math.
You also keep jumping around in your use of nomenclature. Yes, if you said, “the school of arts & sciences at X State University,” of course they’d know what you’re talking about.
If, instead, you said, “Hi there. I’m here to attend the Liberal Arts College,” I’m pretty sure they would initially pause with confusion and maybe be able to clarify on their own that you mean the school of arts & sciences.
If by this point in the thread you haven’t figured out that there is no clear-cut answer to your question, there’s probably not much more I can do to help. Wesleyan UNIVERSITY, where one of my kids attended, has a famous film school (so, not traditional LAC) and a tiny, tiny graduate program in STEM, and yet nobody anywhere ever is confused about whether 2,900 student Wes is a LAC or a major research university. Nobody. Ever. Anywhere.
Like the man said: you’ll know it when you see it, unless of course you don’t want to see it. But by all means, if you want to call UCLA’s school/department of arts & sciences a Liberal Arts Collegelocated at UCLA, then have it. You’re not going to get any resistance from me, but you will get confused looks in Westwood.
Now since I’ve answered your questions, why don’t you answer one of mine, which btw goes unanswered every single time I ask it in these threads: why do many national research universities offer an honors college? What is it that they’re trying to do there? Based on your rational, it would appear that their efforts are completely redundant.
For the same reason that a bunch of colleges offered a degree in “e-commerce” back in 2000, or a bunch of colleges have added degrees in finance and Game Design and eliminated departments in German Literature or Classics.
Give the people what they want. Some “honors colleges” are about as far away from the LAC experience as one can get- it’s basically the same huge university with a designated honors dorm and preferential sign-ups for classes which have a waiting list. Period. You can still major in Sports Management, have TA’s correct your exams, and never take a seminar which requires you to read Plato or Proust.
Pointing to the “honors colleges” as evidence of the strength of the LAC experience is a very weak argument!!!
Then that’s just not fair. I read all the posts, and I’m sure @MWolf has as well. What’s the point of going on?
This is another strawman. I and others have responded to this mischaracterization of what has been said several times.
These threads are like clockwork. They almost invariably get going with someone on a rant about LACs, and when others point out the benefits of a LAC education, the other side mischaracterizes what has been said and then the threads end with “no one size fits all.”
Huh? Alright, well that was quite the gloss-over. OK, I’ll play. Let’s go with the honors colleges that are a little more substantive than your skeptical description, shall we? The ones with separate application processes, much different admissions criteria and a promised “separate experience” that ensures more small classes, intensive, writing, etc. etc. Like the one at my alma mater and the one which everyone describes as “getting the golden ticket,” in my neck of the woods.
As for the weakness in my “argument”, I think you have missed the point; in your reply to me, you have basically substantiated my entire response to the other guy!!! He’s here saying, “hey, what’s up with this liberal arts college thing? Isn’t majoring in Philosophy at Michigan the same thing as going to Williams?” You just set him straight better than I could, but you didn’t answer my question at all. And I suspect neither will he.
I think a big, big part of the problem with this thread is nobody really knows what’s being discussed because the premise is so murky. Are we comparing Bowdoin to the University of Texas? Or are we comparing Middlebury to Brown or Dartmouth? The latter is a much, much more interesting discussion. The former has been beaten to death over the years and never goes anywhere.
It seems as though some are hypersensitive in their defense of one type of school. That is fine. I am not interested in arguing or debating beyond stating initial positions & a follow-up post.
I understand that many parents & students love their experiences with or at LACs. That is fine.
In America, students have a wide variety of educational choices. What is best for one may not be for another. And, for some, it doesn’t matter much.
I didn’t miss your point at all- I was pointing out that in the absence of any clear definitions, folks post based on their own experiences (which seems to frustrate you). The fact that YOUR flagship may have a well defined, highly functioning Honors college within a large university doesn’t negate the fact that mine does not. Ours was created because that’s what the citizens of my state wanted (presumably)- a chance to compete with the “big boys”. Nobody (certainly nobody in higher ed, and a large fraction of the college educated population) conflates the “honors” program with Amherst or Bard or Williams or Beloit. Nobody. It was created in response to “Hey, other states have honors programs, what’s up with us?” Period full stop.
I’m not sure why comparing Middlebury to Brown strikes you as an interesting discussion though. Neither of them have a law school. Brown has a med school, Middlebury does not, but since undergrads at Brown don’t have much spillover with the Med school it’s not that relevant to the experience. Don’t go to either to major in nursing. Brown has better public transportation.
What do you find interesting about the comparison??? I was a Classics major at Brown and had classes ranging from 5 (yes, five students) to 30 (a “huge” lecture) in my department. Once seminar had 12 students and two full professors who in the nether world of CC should have no interest in teaching undergrads, and yet they were passionate about teaching undergrads. I never had a TA. But then again- neither did my kid at MIT where apparently the CC view is that classes are taught by TA’s because the professors are too busy with grad students and with research. Even the class he took with a Nobel prize winner was taught by the professor who did allow the custodial staff to help bring in extra chairs when the room was full… so not entirely a “do it yourselfer”.
