Reply to Pros and Cons of Top 10 SLAC vs State Flagship Honors Program

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]i have a phd from a top (ivy league) phd program and i nobody i know wanted to be a professor at a slac. this is considered an acceptable option but is nobody's first choice. [b]the best researchers/scientists do not teach at SLACs[/b].[/quote]

This is a true by definition. Researchers will not teach at SLACs simply because SLACs are not research universities. This is not a reflection of the quality of SLACs. [/quote]

I also have a PhD from a top university and in my social science field a person would sell their arm for a tenure track job basically anywhere. SLACs can land excellent faculty.  The disadvantage, for SLACs, is that they have -- by definition -- higher teaching loads than R1s and that is generally seen as a negative.

Having been in/around academia for most of my adult life, you can end up with crap professors everywhere.  At R1s, these are likely to be grad students or completely socially inept people who view teaching as completely beneath them (BUT you are less likely to find those in an honors program), at least for classes where that matters.  At SLACs, your crap professors are likely to be sabbatical replacements -- and depending on how you define "crap" they almost certainly won't be publishing with as much regularity as their R1 counterparts.

If quality of teaching is what you're after, OP, go with a SLAC.  100%, every time.  My husband is on faculty at an Ivy and he was explicitly told that teaching DOES NOT matter for his tenure decision and that he should do as little as possible in that arena so long as he doesn't raise any red flags.  That being said, R1 profs tend to be fairly 'high quality" people anyway and might be good teachers regardless, but at SLACs teaching quality is very important.[/quote]

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