Virginia vs. Maryland for Universities

[Anonymous]

Why the fixation on W&M? It is probably a good college, but its small size limits its impacts, and it does not have the same prestige of a small elite school like caltech.

The brand of W&M probably matters to companies that already have lots of its alumnus, but these companies tend to be located in VA or DC. I doubt companies outside of VA or DC cares about W&M.

[Anonymous]

It’s actually hilarious to see the same poster again and again try to downplay the prestige of W&M. It may not be Cal Tech or Harvey Mudd but it is well above any public university in Maryland besides UMCP in terms of reputation and national recognition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s actually hilarious to see the same poster again and again try to downplay the prestige of W&M. It may not be Cal Tech or Harvey Mudd but it is well above any public university in Maryland besides UMCP in terms of reputation and national recognition.

Just because multiple people share an opinion does not make them “the same poster”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s actually hilarious to see the same poster again and again try to downplay the prestige of W&M. It may not be Cal Tech or Harvey Mudd but it is well above any public university in Maryland besides UMCP in terms of reputation and national recognition.

Its really weird how W&M posters say something as a positive or W&M compared to other publics, then get defensive when others post statistics stating that those positives may not be exactly factual.

The whole discussion of W&M in this thread stems from someone who stated that W&M doesn't have adjuncts or TA's teaching courses while other publics have a lot of adjuncts and TA's teaching courses.

That turned out to be statistically incorrect. So no one is downplaying W&M, they are only disproving misconceptions and myths that pro-W&M posters make while downplaying the education in other publics in the first place

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s actually hilarious to see the same poster again and again try to downplay the prestige of W&M. It may not be Cal Tech or Harvey Mudd but it is well above any public university in Maryland besides UMCP in terms of reputation and national recognition.

Its really weird how W&M posters say something as a positive or W&M compared to other publics, then get defensive when others post statistics stating that those positives may not be exactly factual.

The whole discussion of W&M in this thread stems from someone who stated that W&M doesn't have adjuncts or TA's teaching courses while other publics have a lot of adjuncts and TA's teaching courses.

That turned out to be statistically incorrect. So no one is downplaying W&M, they are only disproving misconceptions and myths that pro-W&M posters make while downplaying the education in other publics in the first place

College factual is to facts about college as the Drudge Report is to accurate reporting.

In both cases, the aggregate data from other sources without looking at the quality.

The fact of the matter is faculty at any large research university are judged on research over teaching. They get tenure and promotions based on the publication records and history of research grants. This is great if you are a researcher (e.g., grad student, postdoc or faculty). But, it means that undergrad teaching is hit or miss. My advisor for my PhD was a brilliant scientist. He would regularly get significant amounts of funding, and always treated is grad students well. I was a TA for him; I would sit in the class, then had a review and lab every week. The professor would come in with zero preparation, look at what we was supposed to teach, and start lecturing. They were not good lectures. As a grad student, he was great, though.

At non-reasearch focused schools, faculty get tenure and promotions based on the quality of teaching. They teach more classes, but are not really judged based on the research accomplished. The net result is faculty self-select (as much as they can) to the type of school -- someone who wants to teach focuses on those institutions.

Now, some (few) schools are in the middle. They focus on both teaching and research. The graduate programs are either small or non-existent. William and Mary, for example, has a small grad program; it does research but it is largely undergraduate students that support the activities. This is part of the reason why W & M produces students who go on to grad school: one you try research, you find it fun.

[Anonymous]

PP the pro-W&M poster started posting College Factual statistics to prove how supposedly few adjuncts teach there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP compare the number of courses offered for CS, Physics, or any subject really at UT-Austin vs. W&M, and then come back to complain about course selection.

W&M uses a large number of adjuncts, as does UVA, as do the vast majority of SLACs other than perhaps the very tip top ones.

You simply seem to have very little understanding about how teaching happens at universities.

Actually, W & M is 21% adjunct. GMU, on the other hand, is 50%. Berkeley, the gold standard for State schools is 37%.

40% of professors at W&M are adjuncts, according to College Factual. Where are you getting your information?

University of Michigan is 16% adjunct. University of Maryland is 29% adjunct.

One of you is probably citing percentage of classes taught by adjuncts and the other is citing a source for percentage of faculty of record that are adjuncts.

I do not know where the other person is getting data. College factual is my source, and he claims it is his source.

From:https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/college-of-william-and-mary/academic-life/faculty-composition/#secComposition

"At College of William and Mary, only 21.0% of the teaching staff are part-time non-faculty or non-tenure track faculty. This use of adjuncts is far below the national average of 52.4%, which could be indicative of College of William and Mary's commitment to building a strong, long-term instructional team."


That is what what makes schools like W & M special. Most of the faculty are not adjuncts.

This is entirely incorrect and you are conflating adjuncts with part-time. Adjuncts can be full-time as well. College of W&M has 51% non-tenure track, meaning non-PhD, instructors according to CollegeFactual. That's much higher than other universities.

Non tenure-track does NOT mean non-PhD! You have to have the terminal degree to teach. It means they have full-time term appointments and their primary focus is on teaching undergraduates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP compare the number of courses offered for CS, Physics, or any subject really at UT-Austin vs. W&M, and then come back to complain about course selection.

W&M uses a large number of adjuncts, as does UVA, as do the vast majority of SLACs other than perhaps the very tip top ones.

You simply seem to have very little understanding about how teaching happens at universities.

Actually, W & M is 21% adjunct. GMU, on the other hand, is 50%. Berkeley, the gold standard for State schools is 37%.

40% of professors at W&M are adjuncts, according to College Factual. Where are you getting your information?

University of Michigan is 16% adjunct. University of Maryland is 29% adjunct.

One of you is probably citing percentage of classes taught by adjuncts and the other is citing a source for percentage of faculty of record that are adjuncts.

I do not know where the other person is getting data. College factual is my source, and he claims it is his source.

From:https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/college-of-william-and-mary/academic-life/faculty-composition/#secComposition

"At College of William and Mary, only 21.0% of the teaching staff are part-time non-faculty or non-tenure track faculty. This use of adjuncts is far below the national average of 52.4%, which could be indicative of College of William and Mary's commitment to building a strong, long-term instructional team."


That is what what makes schools like W & M special. Most of the faculty are not adjuncts.

This is entirely incorrect and you are conflating adjuncts with part-time. Adjuncts can be full-time as well. College of W&M has 51% non-tenure track, meaning non-PhD, instructors according to CollegeFactual. That's much higher than other universities.

Non tenure-track does NOT mean non-PhD! You have to have the terminal degree to teach. It means they have full-time term appointments and their primary focus is on teaching undergraduates.

Either you didn’t type this correctly or you have no idea what you’re talking about. You absolutely do not need a PhD to teach. But you definitely need a PhD to be tenure track at any non-trash university.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP compare the number of courses offered for CS, Physics, or any subject really at UT-Austin vs. W&M, and then come back to complain about course selection.

W&M uses a large number of adjuncts, as does UVA, as do the vast majority of SLACs other than perhaps the very tip top ones.

You simply seem to have very little understanding about how teaching happens at universities.

Actually, W & M is 21% adjunct. GMU, on the other hand, is 50%. Berkeley, the gold standard for State schools is 37%.

40% of professors at W&M are adjuncts, according to College Factual. Where are you getting your information?

University of Michigan is 16% adjunct. University of Maryland is 29% adjunct.

One of you is probably citing percentage of classes taught by adjuncts and the other is citing a source for percentage of faculty of record that are adjuncts.

I do not know where the other person is getting data. College factual is my source, and he claims it is his source.

From:https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/college-of-william-and-mary/academic-life/faculty-composition/#secComposition

"At College of William and Mary, only 21.0% of the teaching staff are part-time non-faculty or non-tenure track faculty. This use of adjuncts is far below the national average of 52.4%, which could be indicative of College of William and Mary's commitment to building a strong, long-term instructional team."


That is what what makes schools like W & M special. Most of the faculty are not adjuncts.

This is entirely incorrect and you are conflating adjuncts with part-time. Adjuncts can be full-time as well. College of W&M has 51% non-tenure track, meaning non-PhD, instructors according to CollegeFactual. That's much higher than other universities.

Non tenure-track does NOT mean non-PhD! You have to have the terminal degree to teach. It means they have full-time term appointments and their primary focus is on teaching undergraduates.

No, you don't need a terminal degree to teach at W&M or UVA or most colleges. You can literally Google the instructors/lecturers at W&M and figure out that they don't have Ph.D.'s

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP compare the number of courses offered for CS, Physics, or any subject really at UT-Austin vs. W&M, and then come back to complain about course selection.

W&M uses a large number of adjuncts, as does UVA, as do the vast majority of SLACs other than perhaps the very tip top ones.

You simply seem to have very little understanding about how teaching happens at universities.

Actually, W & M is 21% adjunct. GMU, on the other hand, is 50%. Berkeley, the gold standard for State schools is 37%.

40% of professors at W&M are adjuncts, according to College Factual. Where are you getting your information?

University of Michigan is 16% adjunct. University of Maryland is 29% adjunct.

One of you is probably citing percentage of classes taught by adjuncts and the other is citing a source for percentage of faculty of record that are adjuncts.

I do not know where the other person is getting data. College factual is my source, and he claims it is his source.

From:https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/college-of-william-and-mary/academic-life/faculty-composition/#secComposition

"At College of William and Mary, only 21.0% of the teaching staff are part-time non-faculty or non-tenure track faculty. This use of adjuncts is far below the national average of 52.4%, which could be indicative of College of William and Mary's commitment to building a strong, long-term instructional team."


That is what what makes schools like W & M special. Most of the faculty are not adjuncts.

This is entirely incorrect and you are conflating adjuncts with part-time. Adjuncts can be full-time as well. College of W&M has 51% non-tenure track, meaning non-PhD, instructors according to CollegeFactual. That's much higher than other universities.

Non tenure-track does NOT mean non-PhD! You have to have the terminal degree to teach. It means they have full-time term appointments and their primary focus is on teaching undergraduates.

No, you don't need a terminal degree to teach at W&M or UVA or most colleges. You can literally Google the instructors/lecturers at W&M and figure out that they don't have Ph.D.'s

Or any other university...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP compare the number of courses offered for CS, Physics, or any subject really at UT-Austin vs. W&M, and then come back to complain about course selection.

W&M uses a large number of adjuncts, as does UVA, as do the vast majority of SLACs other than perhaps the very tip top ones.

You simply seem to have very little understanding about how teaching happens at universities.

Actually, W & M is 21% adjunct. GMU, on the other hand, is 50%. Berkeley, the gold standard for State schools is 37%.

40% of professors at W&M are adjuncts, according to College Factual. Where are you getting your information?

University of Michigan is 16% adjunct. University of Maryland is 29% adjunct.

One of you is probably citing percentage of classes taught by adjuncts and the other is citing a source for percentage of faculty of record that are adjuncts.

I do not know where the other person is getting data. College factual is my source, and he claims it is his source.

From:https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/college-of-william-and-mary/academic-life/faculty-composition/#secComposition

"At College of William and Mary, only 21.0% of the teaching staff are part-time non-faculty or non-tenure track faculty. This use of adjuncts is far below the national average of 52.4%, which could be indicative of College of William and Mary's commitment to building a strong, long-term instructional team."


That is what what makes schools like W & M special. Most of the faculty are not adjuncts.

This is entirely incorrect and you are conflating adjuncts with part-time. Adjuncts can be full-time as well. College of W&M has 51% non-tenure track, meaning non-PhD, instructors according to CollegeFactual. That's much higher than other universities.

Non tenure-track does NOT mean non-PhD! You have to have the terminal degree to teach. It means they have full-time term appointments and their primary focus is on teaching undergraduates.

No, you don't need a terminal degree to teach at W&M or UVA or most colleges. You can literally Google the instructors/lecturers at W&M and figure out that they don't have Ph.D.'s

Or any other university...

You can see the number and percentage of faculty without the terminal degree in their field on the Common Data Set for each university.

[Anonymous]

I have a PhD from Stanford and I have been a part time adjunct, so bite me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, every professor at Berkeley is going to be among the 99.9% in there field. No school has much quality in faculty as Berkeley in STEM other than MIT, or social sciences other than possibly Harvard, or humanities other than possibly Yale.

You're right that students won't get as much attention as they would at LACs. That's why I said top students - students that can both excel in the classes no their own and are able to standout to their professors enough to get research positions. Unfortunately, academia is very much like the other facets of life, and having a standout recommendation from a well-known researcher can hold a lot of water in getting into grad school, compared to a less-known professor. But its also true that students can more easily get better recommendation letters at LACs.

Michigan is heavily loved because its Michigan, there's a large amount of school spirit and it's not as cutthroat of an environment as Berkeley. UVa is probably has an even higher student enjoyability rating than Michigan, and its for the same reason - easier academics and less cutthroat. The median student will probably enjoy UVa/Michigan over Berkeley. But that's not saying much about Berkeley's academic prowess.

I agree with your assessment of Berkeley, although I think Harvard in STEM other than engineering is certainly worth mentioning, and Stanford should also get mentioned. In professional schools like business and law, Berkeley isn't quite there with Harvard. The closest public university to being as solid at a graduate and research level across the board is Michigan.

I only included Berkeley in some stats on faculty composition because someone mentioned they are the "Gold Standard". But your post brings up what I think is an interesting point based on some data I saw (the data source is online on the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics website and it is updated annually). Berkeley and W&M are two of the top public undergraduate institutions for producing graduates that go on to earn doctorates, both overall and in STEM, on a per capita basis. I think in STEM Berkeley was 2 and W&M was 3 (and some school like New Mexico Institute of Mining was #1). Overall, I think W&M was #1 and Berkeley was #2. Since the schools are so different, I think it shows that more than one type of approach can work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s actually hilarious to see the same poster again and again try to downplay the prestige of W&M. It may not be Cal Tech or Harvey Mudd but it is well above any public university in Maryland besides UMCP in terms of reputation and national recognition.

Its really weird how W&M posters say something as a positive or W&M compared to other publics, then get defensive when others post statistics stating that those positives may not be exactly factual.

The whole discussion of W&M in this thread stems from someone who stated that W&M doesn't have adjuncts or TA's teaching courses while other publics have a lot of adjuncts and TA's teaching courses.

That turned out to be statistically incorrect. So no one is downplaying W&M, they are only disproving misconceptions and myths that pro-W&M posters make while downplaying the education in other publics in the first place

What is statistically incorrect? Where did anyone say W&M didn't have any adjuncts? My claim was W&M has a higher percentage of undergraduate classes taught by tenure/tenure track faculty than most public research universities. This was correct for Virginia research universities in the most recent data I've seen. I also said TAs weren't primary instructors in courses at W&M, and that again was correct based on the most recent data. UVA, VT, GMU, VCU, and ODU all have all reported a percentage of their credit hours being taught by "Teaching Assistants" in the same report. W&M was 0%.

Other posters went on to say that TAs are never primary instructors, and they may be technically correct on nomenclature (e.g. teaching fellows), but this is not the way it is reported in anything I have seen:

USNWR: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/the-short-list-college/articles/2017-02-21/10-universities-where-tas-teach-the-most-classes . "10 Universities Where TAs Teach the Most Classes". "PERCENTAGE OF GRADUATE TAS LISTED AS A PRIMARY INSTRUCTOR (FALL 2015)" Note that UNC-CH had 20% of courses with TAs as a primary instructor in that report.

State of Maryland / University System of Maryland: https://www.usmd.edu/usm/adminfinance/IR/reports/USM_Faculty_Instructional_Workload_Report_2018_11_19_2018.pdf
"Other faculty (including department chairs, non-tenure track research or public service faculty, and teaching assistants) account for 6% of the credit hours produced. "

State of Virginia: "Percentage of Total Student Credit Hours Taught Institution-Wide by Faculty Type: Teaching Assistants" http://jlarc.virginia.gov/ report 450..

[Anonymous]

If you put aside UVA, UMD , W&M, VT, how would you rate the rest of the public options in Maryland and Virginia top to bottom in a combined list?

Not in rank order from the top of my head below:

UMBC, Towson, Salisbury, Frostburg, St. Mary's, etc.

George Mason, James Madison, VCU, Old Dominion, Mary Washington, Christopher Newport, Radford, Longwood, VMI, etc.