Reply to References on this board to colleges that focus on "Undergraduate" programs. Versus what?

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[quote=Anonymous]Having taught at Hopkins and been an undergrad at Harvard, I think that the claim that faculty don’t care about undergrads at these schools is BS.  At both schools, there are some profs who are excellent teachers and while advanced grad students lead small group discussion sections at both, they don’t teach intro classes.  Actually, I had the same role as a first year grad student at “undergrad-focused” Princeton as (and in my second and third years had an even larger role than) any of my Harvard or Hopkins TAs.  FWIW, all three schools grant tenure based primarily on research accomplishments.

The basic problem with college level instruction is that PhDs aren’t taught how to teach.  So whether a prof is a good teacher is pretty much a function of individual talent or interest.  The mere absence of grad students hardly makes someone a better undergrad teacher.  And institutional incentives for good teaching typically involve popularity rather than any attempt at objective or expert assessment of the quality of instruction.

And, having been on, and watched peers navigate) the academic job market, there was little or no thought among candidates about whether various jobs valued undergrad teaching or not.  You looked for a good school, with a reasonable teaching load, in an area you wouldn’t mind living and where your partner was employable (or you thought you might meet a future partner).  It wasn't a process that funneled the good teachers to some schools and the good researchers to others.

At any rate, I think this distinction is a marketing ploy/branding strategy rather than an accurate reflection of reality on the ground, at least among well-funded private universities.  [/quote]

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