"Only taught by professors"
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Anonymous
I don’t need help from you. I’m telling you my kid’s experience - never had a visiting professor. Maybe it is at your school. If true, why don’t you list the classes and visiting professors. |
Anonymous
| Visiting professors can be filling in for tenured faculty who are on sabbatical or other leaves. Like all professors, they vary in quality. Why does this bug you so much? Is your DD getting a good education? |
Anonymous
Agree, many of the visiting professors are quite good and are renowned in their field. They’ve all been vetted and add a different experience for the students |
Anonymous
This is pretty articulate for a rising Sophomore. How do you know all of this? I am a tenured professor and I guarantee my students do not know these nuances, nor do they care. |
Anonymous
I’ll bite. Two visiting professor pages for every WASP in the same academic department so it doesn’t look like I’m cheating you. Williams: https://math.williams.edu/profile/ba9/ https://math.williams.edu/profile/dc25/ Amherst: https://www.amherst.edu/people/facstaff/celliott https://www.amherst.edu/people/facstaff/kmoore Swarthmore: https://einstein.domains.swarthmore.edu/ https://sites.google.com/view/carolyn-reinhart/home Pomona: https://www.pomona.edu/directory/people/max-hlavacek https://www.pomona.edu/directory/people/taylor-mcadam Any comments? |
Anonymous
Yep, shows that visiting professors make up a small minority of faculty. Why don’t you compare that with National Universities and public flagships |
Anonymous
| I think having visiting professors are a good thing. It adds depth and makes a school less insular. |
Anonymous
| IME as a faculty member, at any given time 0-20% of a department may be out on leave. Visiting professors fill in the gaps. They’re full time and paid fairly as compared to adjuncts. Many of them have just finished their PhD or postdocs and will go on to tenure track positions at other universities. They actually might provide different connections to other universities in the future. |
Anonymous
I’ll also add with the professor titles. I’m a sophomore at a WASP too. Fall: -Full Professor of History -Full Professor of Late Antique Medieval Studies/Classics -Full Professor of Religious Studies/Africana Studies -Full Professor of Physics Spring: -Full Professor of Government -Visiting Assistant Professor of Geology -Full Professor of Physics -Associate Professor of Psychology -Assistant Professor of Math Relatively few, but my college does have a ton of visiting faculty. |
Anonymous
| OP, visiting professors are a good thing. Are you just upset cause you’re paying $90k? |
Anonymous
| Junior at Williams. A majority of my department (Gender, Women and Sexuality studies) are visiting. Doesn’t affect me. |
Anonymous
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Yeah, DC 1 & 2 not at a WASP but at different SLACs. DC 1 is a biology major and has mostly had visiting professors in chemistry, geology, and languages - so their experience in their major has been very impacted. DC 2 is an ambitious Poli Sci/Econ/History major at a different SLAC and has had numerous visiting professors in all three fields. The instructors have been excellent, but the turnover does affect student experiences, especially in terms of detailed rec letters, thesis topics, and research. I just wanted to add that because DC 2 is only a sophomore and has raised the issue a lot this year and discussed it with concerned friends. It does happen. I'm a professor at an R1 institution - in a smaller department with mostly tenured and long-term hires with only 1 or 2 one-year positions - which minimizes turnover but it definitely does happen and I certainly wasn't aware of it prior to having my kids bring it up as part of their experience. That being said, DC 2 is getting an excellent education and is a bit overly ambitious, so this might not matter to other students as much.
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Anonymous
DC1 experience has *not* been very impacted in their major, sorry |
Anonymous
I’m frustrated, because a college that gets 90k per full pay parent and has billions should be able to staff 6-10 faculty per department. My DC having 3 out of her 5 classes with visiting professors is an issue. She wanted to do a fellowship opportunity conducting research with an amazing professor but whoops- they’re visiting and leaving next year. She also needs rec letters from her department but the intro is left to the visiting staff so she has to wait for the appropriate faculty member to start opportunities. That is an issue. |
Anonymous
Thank you!
Google. Also, I come from a family of academics. Visiting assistant professors have three-year terms (if not more; I've seen longer) at my school, so I haven't noticed any continuity disturbances. |