"Only taught by professors"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stumbled upon this just now. Rising sophomore at a WASP. My professors in the past year were as follows:

Fall:
- Senior Lecturer (tenured teaching-only faculty), appointed in 2015
- Associate Professor, appointed in 2019
- Assistant Professor, appointed in 2022
- Associate Professor, appointed in 2012

Spring:
- Assistant Professor, appointed in 2023
- Associate Professor, appointed in 2013
- Professor on endowed chair, appointed in 2013
- Senior Lecturer, appointed pre-2009

Just for kicks, here's my schedule for the upcoming semester:

- Visiting Assistant Professor, appointed in 2023
- Assistant Professor, appointed in 2023
- Associate Professor, appointed in 2007
- Professor on endowed chair, appointed in 2004

That's 1 of 12. I am a double major in two departments known for being severely overenrolled. Is this good enough for you?

So just one real professor?

Assistant professors are tenure-track.

Associate professors are tenured.

Senior lecturers are permanent teaching faculty. PP described as tenured, so equivalent of associate.

Endowed are tenured.

So…all “real.”

Visiting could mean anything. At Williams, one of the regular visiting professors in the physics department is a cosmologist who has been instrumental at CERN, directed the Copernicus Astronomical Center in Warsaw, and is part of the permanent astronomy teaching faculty at the university of Warsaw. That’s a pretty good get for a small college in western Mass.

Don’t quite understand the tenor of this thread. Feels like a few people are looking for the worst possible interpretation.

Pretty sure OP is a troll.

You people think everyone is a troll.

Come up with better posts then. These are contrived, topics are dug out from previous discussions and whoever is starting them is trying to keep people engaged in the summer lull for this thread but doing it in a grasping way.

Or, instead of conspiracy, people just have differing opinions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stumbled upon this just now. Rising sophomore at a WASP. My professors in the past year were as follows:

Fall:
- Senior Lecturer (tenured teaching-only faculty), appointed in 2015
- Associate Professor, appointed in 2019
- Assistant Professor, appointed in 2022
- Associate Professor, appointed in 2012

Spring:
- Assistant Professor, appointed in 2023
- Associate Professor, appointed in 2013
- Professor on endowed chair, appointed in 2013
- Senior Lecturer, appointed pre-2009

Just for kicks, here's my schedule for the upcoming semester:

- Visiting Assistant Professor, appointed in 2023
- Assistant Professor, appointed in 2023
- Associate Professor, appointed in 2007
- Professor on endowed chair, appointed in 2004

That's 1 of 12. I am a double major in two departments known for being severely overenrolled. Is this good enough for you?

So just one real professor?

Assistant professors are tenure-track.

Associate professors are tenured.

Senior lecturers are permanent teaching faculty. PP described as tenured, so equivalent of associate.

Endowed are tenured.

So…all “real.”

Visiting could mean anything. At Williams, one of the regular visiting professors in the physics department is a cosmologist who has been instrumental at CERN, directed the Copernicus Astronomical Center in Warsaw, and is part of the permanent astronomy teaching faculty at the university of Warsaw. That’s a pretty good get for a small college in western Mass.

Don’t quite understand the tenor of this thread. Feels like a few people are looking for the worst possible interpretation.

Pretty sure OP is a troll.

You people think everyone is a troll.

Come up with better posts then. These are contrived, topics are dug out from previous discussions and whoever is starting them is trying to keep people engaged in the summer lull for this thread but doing it in a grasping way.

Or, instead of conspiracy, people just have differing opinions.

But opinions about what? That an associate or endowed or visiting professor isn't a "real" professor? That's not a differing opinion, that's just...not understanding academia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you don't already know, lots of top colleges, at least I know at Harvard and Stanford, are using visiting professors, at a pay of $3,000 per course a semester (from data a few years but less than 10 years back, so don't know what's the number now), and non-tenure track professors to teach undergrads. There are also very few tenure-track slots in those universities.

You're describing adjuncts. All universities have adjuncts (some go by other names, and all the naming systems are different depending on the school).

A department of ALL adjuncts is not great. But adjuncts are also essential because they are connected to practice in ways that full time academics are not, are not longer, or never were. In fact, if you're thinking about professors who can help with jobs, adjuncts are often THE best resource.

The experience of adjuncts will vary greatly by field. A CS billionaire choosing to teach a class for fun after early retirement might be a great resource. But in my humanities field, adjuncts can't necessarily help with jobs. Yes, they may be amazing professors, but they're also probably working themselves to the bone, driving back and forth to multiple campuses (with no office at any of them), trying to remain in their field.

Maybe the otherwise employed and independently wealthy adjuncts should have another title (or maybe they should just volunteer?).

I believe the otherwise employed were the original adjuncts. They should come up with a more honest title for the poor PhDs that can’t get full time work.

[Anonymous]

I do think LAC claims of "only being taught by professors" is nonsense. Who cares? I'd rather be taught by active, impressive researchers pushing the bounds of their field even if they are grad students. Why would I want some professor who couldn't get a tenure job at an R1 to teach me?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do think LAC claims of "only being taught by professors" is nonsense. Who cares? I'd rather be taught by active, impressive researchers pushing the bounds of their field even if they are grad students. Why would I want some professor who couldn't get a tenure job at an R1 to teach me?

Grad students are learning how to be scientists . They are not scientists yet, and besides circumscribed techniques…cannot train other scientists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do think LAC claims of "only being taught by professors" is nonsense. Who cares? I'd rather be taught by active, impressive researchers pushing the bounds of their field even if they are grad students. Why would I want some professor who couldn't get a tenure job at an R1 to teach me?

Because many of those r1 instructors either don't want to be teaching undergrads or, in the case of grad students, have never done it. It’s not that undergrads are the second priority to an actual university professor, they are the third, behind both research and grad students.

Most LACs have profs who are well published, usually with undergrads. Educating the undergrads inside and out of the classroom is their #1 priority.

If the LAC model didn’t work better for so many students for research preparation, they wouldn’t outnumber universities in those schools with highest rates of PhD matriculation despite there being far fewer LACs. There are even some studies showing they are better prepared (need less time to complete those programs.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What's a wasp in this context?

Not OP but Williams/Amherst/Swathmore/Pomona

And OP is missing the point, which is that students aren’t being taught by 25-year-old grad students.

Never heard of that acronym

Umm. It’s pretty universally know in college admissions.

You were ignorant. You learnt something new. Move on.

I had also never heard of it. Guess it’s not universally known.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, visiting professors are a good thing. Are you just upset cause you’re paying $90k?

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.

I went to two state flagships that are acceptable to DCUM.

As far as I can recall, I did have two 3 credit classes taught by TAs in undergrad. One just as good as any other professor (Accounting 101) and the other only ok but friendly (Business Statistics 101). Those two classes aren't the kind where it matters whether the teacher does cool independent research, is a celebrity, or anything. The Accounting 101 TA was one of the only teachers I had in college who talked about anything related to working/career advice/getting a job. So I appreciated her.

I had only two visiting professors across undergrad and MBA. Both were experienced senior professors on sabbatical from their home institutions. Their classes were kind of meh, actually.

All my other profs were some literal type of professor. There was no correlation between teaching quality and title.

Not a single person here has complained about the teaching quality of visiting profs, the concern is with the inability to develop long term relationships and perform research.

[Anonymous]

I'm kind of amazed ar the tone of authority with which people on here describe the structure of the academic workplace when they clearly know nothing about it. Having been a student doesn't help you understand the tenure process or the HR department, folks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stumbled upon this just now. Rising sophomore at a WASP. My professors in the past year were as follows:

Fall:
- Senior Lecturer (tenured teaching-only faculty), appointed in 2015
- Associate Professor, appointed in 2019
- Assistant Professor, appointed in 2022
- Associate Professor, appointed in 2012

Spring:
- Assistant Professor, appointed in 2023
- Associate Professor, appointed in 2013
- Professor on endowed chair, appointed in 2013
- Senior Lecturer, appointed pre-2009

Just for kicks, here's my schedule for the upcoming semester:

- Visiting Assistant Professor, appointed in 2023
- Assistant Professor, appointed in 2023
- Associate Professor, appointed in 2007
- Professor on endowed chair, appointed in 2004

That's 1 of 12. I am a double major in two departments known for being severely overenrolled. Is this good enough for you?

So just one real professor?

Assistant professors are tenure-track.

Associate professors are tenured.

Senior lecturers are permanent teaching faculty. PP described as tenured, so equivalent of associate.

Endowed are tenured.

So…all “real.”

Visiting could mean anything. At Williams, one of the regular visiting professors in the physics department is a cosmologist who has been instrumental at CERN, directed the Copernicus Astronomical Center in Warsaw, and is part of the permanent astronomy teaching faculty at the university of Warsaw. That’s a pretty good get for a small college in western Mass.

Don’t quite understand the tenor of this thread. Feels like a few people are looking for the worst possible interpretation.

Pretty sure OP is a troll.

You people think everyone is a troll.

Come up with better posts then. These are contrived, topics are dug out from previous discussions and whoever is starting them is trying to keep people engaged in the summer lull for this thread but doing it in a grasping way.

Or, instead of conspiracy, people just have differing opinions.

But opinions about what? That an associate or endowed or visiting professor isn't a "real" professor? That's not a differing opinion, that's just...not understanding academia.[/quote]


OP, I think you are thinking about this wrong. Even when I went to college we had associate and assistant professors. My better profs were, in fact, the younger, more energetic ones. Often the tenured ones were off in their own research lands and no longer interested in helping the students learn. That is the system. You aren't entitled to 100% full professors anywhere. I've never heard of such a thing. They come up through the ranks at every school just like lawyers come up through the ranks in big law firms. That you are paying 90K+ has nothing to do with the rankings of the professors. That is being driven by the fact that when one school like USC, crosses over to $90K a year, all of the "lesser" schools think they can do it to . . . with the result that my so-so SLAC has gone from 86K to $95K is less than three years. That is supply and demand and totally unrelated to your complaint about receiving "lesser" professors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stumbled upon this just now. Rising sophomore at a WASP. My professors in the past year were as follows:

Fall:
- Senior Lecturer (tenured teaching-only faculty), appointed in 2015
- Associate Professor, appointed in 2019
- Assistant Professor, appointed in 2022
- Associate Professor, appointed in 2012

Spring:
- Assistant Professor, appointed in 2023
- Associate Professor, appointed in 2013
- Professor on endowed chair, appointed in 2013
- Senior Lecturer, appointed pre-2009

Just for kicks, here's my schedule for the upcoming semester:

- Visiting Assistant Professor, appointed in 2023
- Assistant Professor, appointed in 2023
- Associate Professor, appointed in 2007
- Professor on endowed chair, appointed in 2004

That's 1 of 12. I am a double major in two departments known for being severely overenrolled. Is this good enough for you?

So just one real professor?

Assistant professors are tenure-track.

Associate professors are tenured.

Senior lecturers are permanent teaching faculty. PP described as tenured, so equivalent of associate.

Endowed are tenured.

So…all “real.”

Visiting could mean anything. At Williams, one of the regular visiting professors in the physics department is a cosmologist who has been instrumental at CERN, directed the Copernicus Astronomical Center in Warsaw, and is part of the permanent astronomy teaching faculty at the university of Warsaw. That’s a pretty good get for a small college in western Mass.

Don’t quite understand the tenor of this thread. Feels like a few people are looking for the worst possible interpretation.

Pretty sure OP is a troll.

You people think everyone is a troll.

Come up with better posts then. These are contrived, topics are dug out from previous discussions and whoever is starting them is trying to keep people engaged in the summer lull for this thread but doing it in a grasping way.

Or, instead of conspiracy, people just have differing opinions.

But opinions about what? That an associate or endowed or visiting professor isn't a "real" professor? That's not a differing opinion, that's just...not understanding academia.[/quote]


OP, I think you are thinking about this wrong. Even when I went to college we had associate and assistant professors. My better profs were, in fact, the younger, more energetic ones. Often the tenured ones were off in their own research lands and no longer interested in helping the students learn. That is the system. You aren't entitled to 100% full professors anywhere. I've never heard of such a thing. They come up through the ranks at every school just like lawyers come up through the ranks in big law firms. That you are paying 90K+ has nothing to do with the rankings of the professors. That is being driven by the fact that when one school like USC, crosses over to $90K a year, all of the "lesser" schools think they can do it to . . . with the result that my so-so SLAC has gone from 86K to $95K is less than three years. That is supply and demand and totally unrelated to your complaint about receiving "lesser" professors.

OP never said anything about associate and assistant professors at all. They're complaining about the abundance of Visiting Professors who are not long-term hires, something that is very reasonable to complain about if you're looking for grad school recommenders or just stable departments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A WASP? Really? You’re insufferable.

It’s an acronym that’s been deployed for decades. No one calls HPYSM parents snobs. It’s just a classification.

Sounds like s BACKronym, a random collection of schools thrown together to make up a clever sounding word.

Yes... a random collection of schools....Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Pomona. Never been put together or discussed before, just random. Not like they could possibly be the liberal arts colleges with the most money, resources, and lowest acceptance rates or anything...No that's silly!

Still random. Why not throw in Wesleyan, Bowdoin, Carleton and Middlebury?

If I had to hazard a guess, none of them are the top 4 liberal arts colleges in recent memory. It seems like a pretty obvious association, not sure what the hubbub is about.

It is just clearly contrived, and pretentious.

But if it makes you feel important, keep saying it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think LAC claims of "only being taught by professors" is nonsense. Who cares? I'd rather be taught by active, impressive researchers pushing the bounds of their field even if they are grad students. Why would I want some professor who couldn't get a tenure job at an R1 to teach me?

Grad students are learning how to be scientists . They are not scientists yet, and besides circumscribed techniques…cannot train other scientists.

This is a very narrow minded view of academia and it is clear you do not have a degree in the sciences and likely have not spent years interacting and working with grad students and PIs. For grad school in the sciences as well as med school, the see one-do one- teach one method of teaching younger students is the central theme of learning, and works . Grad students and post docs play a pivotal and important role in labs not only with actual techniques in the lab but also with helping how to focus research questions and have discussions that may help the undergrad focus their research question. PIs can work with undergrads directly as well, and they typically do. Science teaching has worked this way for generations, and is successful. Visiting professors also work well, and the top schools bring in guest lecturers from the top of industry, including humanities areas(head of the Met, etc), then the full professor integrates the knowledge shared into the themes of the course. Incidentally at St Andrews the lectures are all by different experts in the field who teach one class then do not come back. The US way of having a main professor(and sometimes grad TAs running recitations, depending on course), plus guest or visiting lecturers on occasion, gives a more cohesive education and the chance for students to go to office hours for more detail or review, with the main professor well aware of the details of all topics covered. At St Andrews there is not a main professor bringing it all together, nor often a grad student. I am not stating it is bad or wrong, just different, I much prefer the collaborative and layered US way of teaching, at least the way it was done at my elite schools, incorporating each level teaching the "younger" level, therefore enriching their own education as they step into higher roles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stumbled upon this just now. Rising sophomore at a WASP. My professors in the past year were as follows:

Fall:
- Senior Lecturer (tenured teaching-only faculty), appointed in 2015
- Associate Professor, appointed in 2019
- Assistant Professor, appointed in 2022
- Associate Professor, appointed in 2012

Spring:
- Assistant Professor, appointed in 2023
- Associate Professor, appointed in 2013
- Professor on endowed chair, appointed in 2013
- Senior Lecturer, appointed pre-2009

Just for kicks, here's my schedule for the upcoming semester:

- Visiting Assistant Professor, appointed in 2023
- Assistant Professor, appointed in 2023
- Associate Professor, appointed in 2007
- Professor on endowed chair, appointed in 2004

That's 1 of 12. I am a double major in two departments known for being severely overenrolled. Is this good enough for you?

So just one real professor?

Assistant professors are tenure-track.

Associate professors are tenured.

Senior lecturers are permanent teaching faculty. PP described as tenured, so equivalent of associate.

Endowed are tenured.

So…all “real.”

Visiting could mean anything. At Williams, one of the regular visiting professors in the physics department is a cosmologist who has been instrumental at CERN, directed the Copernicus Astronomical Center in Warsaw, and is part of the permanent astronomy teaching faculty at the university of Warsaw. That’s a pretty good get for a small college in western Mass.

Don’t quite understand the tenor of this thread. Feels like a few people are looking for the worst possible interpretation.

Pretty sure OP is a troll.

You people think everyone is a troll.

Come up with better posts then. These are contrived, topics are dug out from previous discussions and whoever is starting them is trying to keep people engaged in the summer lull for this thread but doing it in a grasping way.

Or, instead of conspiracy, people just have differing opinions.

But opinions about what? That an associate or endowed or visiting professor isn't a "real" professor? That's not a differing opinion, that's just...not understanding academia.[/quote]


OP, I think you are thinking about this wrong. Even when I went to college we had associate and assistant professors. My better profs were, in fact, the younger, more energetic ones. Often the tenured ones were off in their own research lands and no longer interested in helping the students learn. That is the system. You aren't entitled to 100% full professors anywhere. I've never heard of such a thing. They come up through the ranks at every school just like lawyers come up through the ranks in big law firms. That you are paying 90K+ has nothing to do with the rankings of the professors. That is being driven by the fact that when one school like USC, crosses over to $90K a year, all of the "lesser" schools think they can do it to . . . with the result that my so-so SLAC has gone from 86K to $95K is less than three years. That is supply and demand and totally unrelated to your complaint about receiving "lesser" professors.

OP never said anything about associate and assistant professors at all. They're complaining about the abundance of Visiting Professors who are not long-term hires, something that is very reasonable to complain about if you're looking for grad school recommenders or just stable departments.

I agree, if there are only rotating visiting professors and no main professor to build a connection, that is a problem for undergrad education if it is the common way the majority of the college works. Adjuncts/assistants who hold office hours and are available to interact with undergrads is not a problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think LAC claims of "only being taught by professors" is nonsense. Who cares? I'd rather be taught by active, impressive researchers pushing the bounds of their field even if they are grad students. Why would I want some professor who couldn't get a tenure job at an R1 to teach me?

Grad students are learning how to be scientists . They are not scientists yet, and besides circumscribed techniques…cannot train other scientists.

You can get a teaching assistant position at my DC's undergrad your second semester of freshman year. Many students then move on and continue holding their own office hours and lectures independent of the professor after that. This is a recognized job at the college, and you need these experiences to get into a grad program. Many students teach before entering a PhD program, and, honestly, if you can get into Berkeley PhD in Physics, you can teach an undergrad intro to e&m.