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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][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 i[b]n my social science field a person would sell their arm for a tenure track job basically anywhere.[/b] 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]

academia is a winner takes all place. quantitatively speaking, majority of phds would take tenure track job anywhere, but top grads are almost never going to teach at slacs. those on the top get multiple offers from the best schools and slacs are really not on their radar. [/quote]

Mmmm, not what I've seen at all. There are so many reasons why someone awesome might take a job at Amherst over Yale, including factors completely unrelated to the school.

There's also a self-selection bias.  Those people who want Ivy jobs are going to apply to Ivys and their ilk, but that's sort of a special group.  The kind of person who will land at Michigan is, indeed, the same kind of person who might land at Williams, at least from what I've seen.  There's also a fair amount of shuffling around. [/quote]

honestly you have no clue. i mean sure someone who can get the bed job will on occasion will take an inferior job to be close to family, illness etc, but overall this is not the case at all. people who to slacs to do research are considered losers.[/quote]

Maybe this is a question of  field or even subfield.  My sense is that the last poster is a scientist and that the poster s/he is responding to is a social scientist.  People in the humanities and social sciences typically don't have the capital/equipment/overhead needs that most scientists do.  Also, some of us are in subfields where even research institutions might only have 1-3 faculty.  This means that the number of jobs available nationwide in any given year may be very small and it’s unpredictable which category (public, private, MRU, SLAC) the most desirable or prestigious one will be in any given year.  Since many of us are do-it-yourself researchers whose colleagues will mostly be elsewhere, it’s not a huge sacrifice to be outside an MRU.  So the trade offs can look different, especially if there’s a partner in the mix and/or strong regional preferences.  And people do move around and across institutional divides all the times.  Sometimes colleagues influence choices, sometimes family circumstances, sometimes amazing offers (start a program for us).  And even though my preference structure is such that having grad students is highly desirable, that’s only true if the grad students I’d have would be employable (and thatks true only for a handful of schools in my subfield).  So top LAC might even trump a very good MRU is the strength of the grad program jst wasn’t there.

Bottom line:  I agree that there are good (and bad) teachers everywhere and that faculty move around and don’t typically self-select along the public flagship vs SLAC divide.  But that also makes me skeptical of the claim that teaching is better at SLACs.  You may have to be a reasonably well-liked teacher to get tenure at a SLAC, but there are lots of ways to be well-liked (easy, entertaining, flattering, sociable) and I’ve seen smart faculty burn out, lose interest, start phoning it in after spending a decade talking shop primarily with undergrads
[/quote]

you have this theory that might make sense but things just don't look that way. most fresh  phd graduates are young people (mid-twenties) whose priorities are not families, quality of life etc but doing the very best research they, if at all possible. they are not choosing slacs; in fact a good chunk would give preference to a very prestigious postdoc than a safer tenure track position at a slac.

and while i am not familiar with the dynamics of every single field, obviously, i can tell you right off the bat that your theory does not apply to philosophy. this is a field of study requiring basically zero resources. i happen to be very familiar with it and nobody who can choose (which, admittedly, is a very small number of only the very best) teaches at slacs. there are basically no top philosophers at slacs. i am very doubtful that it applies to history or english, either. i also don't understand what is your obsession with minor subfields of 3 people - few demand to work with people doing their exact same thing. smaller departments would often prevent more than one person from a subfield getting hired because they won't have appropriate range of people to teach classes.[/quote]

I remember in 90's, my philosophy classmates took jobs wherever they could, slacs or research unis. When a single opening attracted 300-500 applicants, philosophy phd students didn't care where. Tenure-track positions at 7-sister colleges were highly coveted.  And true, virtually no famous philosophers are teaching at SLACs. But research is not the primary mission of SLACs. [b]Rarely do undergrad philosophy students access world-famous philosophers (or novel prize winners in physics, chemistry, etc.) at research unis.[/b] You may not have hotshot philosophers teaching at SLACs; however, students form close relationship with their profs there. [b]It's not unheard of students to get to know their profs by baby sitting young prof's baby or by being invited to dinners at their homes. [/b][/quote]

this is absolutely not true. they are absolutely accessible. as an undergrad i formed relationships with my philosophy professors which last to this day (i was at R1 but not state school). and i didn't even have to babysits their babies to get there (what? how is that a good thing? who wants this for their child?); we bonded at an intellectual level.[/quote]

Oh brother, how is it that you never went to a slac or have a kid who goes there and you are dissing them?  And you were talking as if world famous philosophers and Nobel physics and chem winners hobnob with their students at research unis. They don't. [/quote]

[b]i would never go to a slac or work there or send my child there. I know what they are[/b] (you haven't said a single thing about them
I was not aware of); I just see no appeal.

and yes famous philosophers and nobel prize winning scientists are in fact accessible. Not to all undergrads but to the tiny fraction that can benefit from it. professors who write nyt bestsellers and have hundreds of thousands of twitter followers knew me (and know me) and talked to me. the idea that you need to be at a slac to have a meaningful relationship with faculty is laughable.[/quote]

You never went to a slac or worked there.  You don't have a child there.  Yet, you are saying "I know what they are."  How is this even possible?  How is it possible that you know nothing of slacs personally, yet you "know what they are"? And since you have no interest in slacs, why are you so interested in dissing them?  You make no sense.

[/quote]

[b]Don't feed the troll.[/b][/quote]

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