<p>I don't necessarily think classes such as Cal I need to be taught be tenured facutly-certainly they can be excellent teachers but really one's teaching style seems more important. Of course, in upper level courses I'd rather have someone who's an expert in the field-for instance I'd rather have the Doctoral Candidate in Latin American history teach the class in the field as opposed to the colonial US historian. At some smaller liberal arts schools, professors that are tenure track could teach outside their field of expertise to fill all the courses.</p>
<p>In science classes the situation is particularly hard to quantify. My d is taking a large lecture that meets twice a week with full professors. She has found them happy to entertain questions, etc., outside of class. The labs are led by grad TAs (which makes perfect sense to me in an intro lab course; more advanced students regularly work in the lab with professors) who are also very available in person and via email outside of class. There are regular review sessions led by a Ph.D/M.D. whom the students adore. In some science classes there are also paid undergrad TAs who are available in the dining halls to offer ongoing support. Ironically, as the ratio of non-profs to profs gets "worse," the students are actually getting more support. When I was in college, going to a lecture course was a little like going to a movie. You showed up, listened, and left afterward. Today the lecture classes offer far more to students.</p>
<p>I think it may be a myth to believe that tenure track professors have necessarily leaned how to teach. In most cases, it is not something they learn or focus on in grad school - in grad school they focus far more on their chosen discipline. I agree with the others that it is wise to suggest your kids check the various publications students put out, where profs are ranked. But they too should be taken with a grain of salt. One disguntled student can exaggerate a problem....</p>
<p>My H, who has won teaching awards and is a prof who is popular with students, does have TAs who assist in large classes. Generally they assist with grading and they may sub for him if he misses a class - which perhaps happens once a year if that. </p>
<p>But while there may be a course like Teaching in the XXX for grad students, there is generally very little effort made towards making sure that young profs know how to teach, in terms of what they learn in grad school and the guidance they get in their new teaching jobs. We frequently see younger faculty who have trouble figuring out how much work is too much work, how to select the best reading assignments for a particular topic, etc. It can take them a term or two to figure it out. And then I guess some never do!</p>
<p>If the OP figures are accurate(that only 23% of their instructional hours were taught by tenure track faculty), then the students are definitely getting short changed regardless of the tuition being charged. However the statement, "it was possible for someone to get a degree without ever having a class taught by a tenure-track person" seems to lack credibility. But that is only my opinion.</p>
<p>Re the use of TA's, the lecture/tutorial or recitation model of instruction is one that has been used for many years at the "best" universities with great success. Certainly there are great TA's and horrible TA's, but that is true for tenured faculty too.</p>
<p>I was talking to a friend whose son who chose a LAC because he wanted all his class contact time to be with a tenured faculty member. However he failed to consider the downside of this matter. At most LAC's the faculty resources of any one department can be quite small. It is not unusual to have science departments with only 3 or 4 faculty. Most are excellent teachers because tenure depend on this, they are not held to the "publish or perish" standard. However small departments result in a very limited number of course electives, particularly in upper level courses. It is not unusual for courses to be offered on alternating years which can be problematical if a scheduling conflict crops up. Sabbaticals can adversely impact a small department. Because teaching loads are far greater, the opportunity to participate in research is far less. And faculty become generalists because they must often teach courses outside there specific area of expertise, a particular issue in upper level courses. As a rule, I believe that LAC's offer better instruction frosh and soph years while universities offer superior instruction junior and senior years. By that time classes are likely to be relatively small and the instructor will have far more academic expertise in the subject matter. Plus the elective offerings will be far greater.</p>
<p>Re TA's(I got off topic), PhD students should be amply qualified to staff lab and recitation sections. And keep in mind that it may be possible for your S or D to finance their grad school because of the availability of TA's. And while those TA's are teaching 15 Calc 1 recitation sections, the lecture prof is not watching Oprah. He/she may be advising students, preparing research proposals, conducting research(sometimes with undergrad assistance), scheduling office hours, working in research groups, peer reviewing journal articles, attending conferences with colleagues around the world, working as a consultant in the private sector, revising syllabi, etc. These activities will benefit the students in the classroom far more that observing lab sessions or answering student questions in a recitation section that a TA is also capable of handling. </p>
<p>At the university my son attends many intro science and engineering classes are taught using the "studio" concept, teaming a tenured faculty member and a TA in the classroom together. The professor handles the lecture during the first hour of the session, while the prof and TA work together during the second hour of lab and recitation. The classes are a bit larger(30-48 students) but they work in 3 person teams and there are 2 instructors in the classroom during the session. There is an optional course wide Q&A(at least for the Physics 1&2 studios) for students who need additional assistance. Its a different concept which my son thinks is fairly good, though he is fine with his lecture/recitation courses too.</p>
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<p>I think there's a lot to this comment--I know several mid-thirtyish PhD profs bouncing around at some top colleges. They typically are offered a 1, 2, or 3 year contract to either fill a spot for someone on sabbatical (or otherwise on leave), or to teach a new or experimental course. There's a big difference in being taught by a young PhD with teaching experience and a TA. And, from what I hear, it's tougher and tougher for these young PhDs to get on a tenure track. That Ward Churchill character was tenured, so perhaps tenure shouldn't be the controlling factor in the evaluation posed in the OP</p>
<p>You have all raised some excellent points. I teach at a public institution that is no longer hiring faculty on tenure track due to both budget and legal constraints. While that is certainly an issue, another issue to consider that I didn't see (apologize if I missed it in this long thread) is the issue of foreign professors who posess competency in their discipline, but lack adequate English language skills to effectively communicate with students. Son has had two classes that presented challenges in three years of education and both have been due to this problem. The Dean of his college told me that it is becoming increasingly difficult to attract PhDs in certain disciplines and that means more foreign hires. S had one of these freshman year and the prof was removed from the class and placed in a program to develop improved language skills. The university responded to both parent/student complaints and to the prof's weaknesses in a prompt, compassionate way that allowed all to make the best of a bad situation, but it was still a bad situation. I would be more concerned about this kind of problem than a faculty comprised largely of non-tenure track full-time lecturers.</p>
<p>None of the colleges and universities that I know of publish easily accessible data on the percentage of courses taught or sections directed (or grades given) by TAs or adjunct faculty or full-time lecturers, and certainly not in any of their promotional literature. THEY must think that, on the whole, and independent of any individual evaluation or anecdote related to any specific situation or course, this is not something to be proud of, and I think we should be willing to accept their assessment. </p>
<p>It is, however, not the only factor that should be involved in making a college decision, and perhaps not close to being the most important one.</p>
<p>I mostly agree with Mini.</p>
<p>I would also add the following observation. The schools where the tour guides talk the most about not "being taught by TAs" seem to be the schools where TAs are the most prevalent!</p>
<p>This is clearly an hot-button issue in admissions and the schools are very much on the defensive.</p>
<p>A related issue is the lack of information about the number of professors in a university actually teaching undergrad courses. As far as I can tell, the Common Data Set information on student/faculty ratios includes all professors, including those who never teach an undergrad class or never teach a class at all.</p>
<p>Where I disagree with Mini: I think that looking at the actual focus on undergrad teaching is one of the more important considerations when selecting an undergrad school. There are several components to undergrad focus: Who teaches the classes? Is teaching a significant part of the tenure evaluation? What are the real-world class sizes of a real-world student? And so on and so forth.</p>
<p>"I would also add the following observation. The schools where the tour guides talk the most about not "being taught by TAs" seem to be the schools where TAs are the most prevalent!" </p>
<p>That was our experience as well. (We also "discovered" that the tour guides are "less than truthful"?) At our common alma mater, the current pres. is on a mission to lower class size. He is not particularly concerned about the intro. classes, but the fact that too many of the other classes have as many as 20 students in them. Perish the thought!</p>
<p>I don't think college courses with fewer than 20 students are necessarily better. While I don't like having to wait in a lab class to share equipment, and while I think that perhaps some people may be intimidated by sharing in a group of larger than 20 people, I also think that not every class needs to be seminar, that seminars are not always run well...sometimes profs allow students to ramble and waste others time, and that profs are the ones who should do most of the talking inside the classroom. Isn't that why we are paying the big bucks? Certainly not to listen to some self important 19 yr old spout the latest opinion she read off of a blog.</p>
<p>Well, having been in large classes and having been in even more where there were as few as eight students even as an undergraduate, I definitely prefer smaller. While any class can be poorly run, I suspect the larger ones are more likely to simply because they're more complicated to run and you have more chance to overcome that in a smaller setting where you can get to the professor and try to understand what's going on.</p>
<p>I have seen good big classes and lousy little ones. But has anyone ever seen an institution - whether large or small -- put out a press release advertising the fact that, for reasons related to educational quality, they were freely choosing to increase class size? Ever see that in any college or university promotional material? Is it something they tell prospective students with pride? </p>
<p>Our opinions might vary. Their opinions seem to be unanimous.</p>
<p>Strick11, actually a small class os more complicated to run. In a large lecture class the prof only needs to prepare a good syllabus and a set of good lecture notes. The unknown factors are few. A small class is more likely to have discussion and in fact most of the class is likely to revolve around discussion. It is not possble for the prof to totally prepare for such a class because discussion may take off on unsuspected tangents. The prof must think up appropriate questions on the fly. Because students are encouraged to participate, the prof must be able to reign in students who dominate the class while drawing out those more reticent. Questions may be posed for which the prof may not have a ready answer.</p>
<p>No, the small discussion class is much more difficult to instruct.</p>
<p>At the university where I was in graduate school, my department (the math department) actually employed pretty many UNDERGRADUATE teaching assistants in addition to the graduate teaching assistants. Some of them really did not have sufficient grasp of the material. This was all in violation of the university's contract with the graduate student employees' union, which stated among other things that undergraduates were not to be in positions where they were responsible for grading. But it went on because it was such a money-saver. Instead of paying these students for their work, the university gave them course credits for their first semester of being a teaching assistant, as if they were taking a class. I'm not sure whether the students actually had to PAY for the credits, but, man, what a scam. </p>
<p>Also, at least at universities and especially in the sciences and related fields, postdocs are a significant category of people who are neither adjuncts nor ladder faculty. For example, my husband is on his second 3-year postdoc now and is expecting to apply for tenure-track jobs after this ends. Postdocs are hired for a limited period of time, but they are treated better than adjuncts and they definitely have to do research because most of them are hoping to get a tenure-track position afterwards.</p>
<p>My apologies, charlesives, perhaps I mistated my point slightly. I do think that there are mechanical issues that make a larger class difficult to run, but perhaps the issue is that it's harder to make ensure students have the opportunity to learn in monster classes. Too easy to get lost in the crowd. </p>
<p>I've taught in limited ways in both situtations. I admit it's a nice illusion when things are structured well in the large environment and you assume everying's going to go by plan and there's really little or no need for an actually human at the front of the room (just kidding ;)). The smaller setting is just as easy to manage, in my experience, perhaps easier. You can have as much structure as you want and dealing with questions (or in my case, planning to provoke them) or managing over/under quiet students is just a skill like any other skill. I agree small can take different skills, but I found the ones required well within the norm of what effective teachers in any environment can command and much more rewarding for both students and teachers.</p>
<p>Strick11- I agree with your clarification.</p>
<p>It depends on the students. A student with solid skills and interest can learn from an expert who possesses little or no teaching skills. As you move away from talented motivated students the need for a teacher with greater teaching skills gets greater. A mixed talent class as found in most public schools needs a teacher with a balance between knowledge of subject and metacognition.</p>
<p>The Common Data Set requests the specfic number of classes with undergrads enrolled in each of the following size categories:</p>
<p>2 - 9 students
10 - 19 students
20 - 29 students
30 - 39 students
40 - 49 students
50 - 99 students
100+ students</p>
<p>This would be the kind of information I would definitely look at when comparing schools.</p>