Reply to The rigor of LACs

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "The rigor of LACs"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
When did you last attend an HYPSM, the classes these days are TINY. You were just a generation behind. They also can hire the best teaching faculty because of the prestige.[/quote]
They hire them, then fire them rather than giving them tenure. Not the best way to motivate them to teach.[/quote]
Do you mean non-tenure track faculty? That is how all institutions work. You don’t accept a contract that says you will be at an institution for a short period if you want to be there long term.[/quote]

No, I mean assistant professors on the tenure track:"Tenure at Harvard is very difficult to get, particularly promotion from within. From job offer to tenure offer, scholarship and teaching are intensely scrutinized. For young scholars hired into the tenure track and brought up from within, evaluation occurs in Harvard’s classrooms and among its academic circles. Of the 20 or 30 assistant professors who are hired into that track across the University each year, many will not make it through a full seven years to tenure review.

At the same time as junior faculty are moving up within the University, more senior scholars will be recruited from the outside. Though reputations and their own tenure positions have been earned elsewhere, ultimately these “stars from afar,” as Singer calls them, will compete with those closer to home for the same small number of positions."

Plus they're focusing more on research than teaching:

"Ideally, research and teaching go hand-in-hand—the great professor contributes to the scope of knowledge while at the same time dispensing it. But without a means to measure—and reward— teaching, students are often left with senior professors who conduct their classes with unconcealed distaste, rehashing old overheads compiled a generation ago, stifling the bothersome questions at office hours, and begrudging every minute stolen from the lab. There are, of course, the occasional geniuses whose level of research covers all defects and makes them essential hires even if their lectures are grunted and monotone. But geniuses are rare even among Harvard’s professoriat. The lay-professors ought to be skilled at teaching and research, but the Harvard’s current tenuring process hardly allows it. “I’m told often that teaching really matters but I don’t see a lot of evidence that being an exceptional teacher will result in a real reward here,” says Cox."

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/4/11/scrutiny-tenure-harvard/
[/quote]
Liberal arts college professors still need to do ample research to advance to tenure, especially at WASP.[/quote]
+1, people here really don't know much about the demands by top liberal arts colleges on faculty. Before tenure, 5-6 published articles/a book, high teaching loads, high service all factor into a pretty difficult job. Most top LACs have to give their faculty R1-level teaching loads, because they know how intensive this expectation to balance teaching and research is. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics