I was a great TA, if I do say so myself, and was given some instruction time, but I was training to be a researcher not a professor, and those aren’t the same skill sets, nor was I anywhere near the experience of the actual professor of the course. Students are paying for the experience of professor-led, quality instruction and should receive that unless warned ahead of time that their tuition doesn’t cover professors.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know that sounds argumentative, and I don't mean it that way. I went to a SLAC, and having small classes with professors committed to teaching was great. But as a former TA, I know that completing a PhD doesn't make someone better at teaching or better informed about the subjects they're actually teaching, at least for 100- and 200-level classes.

When my kids applied to college, I wanted them to avoid places that used a lot of adjunct labor because I think adjuncts are usually exploited. I don't think that's most parents' concern, though.

A full professor has decades more experience in the field than a TA, who might be teaching a class she took the year before. So they could be like one text/final ahead of the students. Still learning the subject, by definition.

Only a small minority of faculty members achieve tenure and professor rank, so baked into that title are years and years of positive grant reviews, research studies, conference presentations, papers accepted for publication, etc,

It does not mean they are good teachers, but it does mean they gave a deep foundation of understanding the subject matter that they can draw from in trying to explain concepts and answer questions.

It just depends. Many full professors in the sciences haven't worked in a lab since the 1970s or 1980s. You're likely better off learning lab techniques from a TA or post doc lecturer than a full professor. I wouldn't want a full professor teaching a lab course.

I had fantastic professors, along with some fantastic adjuncts who were actual working professionals in the field who just taught a class or two on the side.

So like you, my biggest problem with adjuncts is how underpaid they are.

I work in the administration of a large public university and am a graduate of another large public university. I think most of the points I make below have already been made by others, but I'll repeat them anyway.

Here's the reason why professors are preferred: They tend to have been vetted and approved for their competent teaching abilities. At my current university, an assistant professor seeking tenure is judged by research output and teaching quality, which are weighed equally. Most of our tenured professors needed to get good to great teaching marks to get tenure. There are, of course, exceptions. For instance, some profs may reduce their teaching effort after getting tenure, although it's more likely that they'd reduce their research/publication output. And there are some people who are such productive luminaries in their particular field that that they may get tenure despite their poor teaching. But the general rule at most universities is that most professors had to be good teachers to get tenure. (This is especially true at more teaching-focused colleges and LACs.) Also, as noted above, more often than not, people get better at teaching the longer they do it.

TAs, on the other hand, have not been vetted for their teaching. They may be graduate students who are subsidizing the cost of their education by doing paid work, whether or not they like their job or are interested in teaching. Others may be newly minted PhDs who essentially have four year to prove to the university that they should get tenure. Some do not get tenure on the basis of their sub-par teaching, even if their research output is otherwise strong enough. And sometimes there's just a need for a "warm body" to teach a particular class. That happens more often than one might expect.

In my personal experience, most of my TAs were fine to very good. I can only remember one graduate TA who mailed it in. But I think my actual professors, on the whole, offered better teaching quality and had more time for me. On the other hand, I think it's good for undergraduates to have some exposure to graduate students. I learned a lot from my own exposure to grad students--i.e., as much as I enjoyed the subject I studied, I didn't want to pursue a career in academia, which seemed like an unstable grind.

Anonymous wrote:I know that sounds argumentative, and I don't mean it that way. I went to a SLAC, and having small classes with professors committed to teaching was great. But as a former TA, I know that completing a PhD doesn't make someone better at teaching or better informed about the subjects they're actually teaching, at least for 100- and 200-level classes.

When my kids applied to college, I wanted them to avoid places that used a lot of adjunct labor because I think adjuncts are usually exploited. I don't think that's most parents' concern, though.

A full professor has decades more experience in the field than a TA, who might be teaching a class she took the year before. So they could be like one text/final ahead of the students. Still learning the subject, by definition.

Only a small minority of faculty members achieve tenure and professor rank, so baked into that title are years and years of positive grant reviews, research studies, conference presentations, papers accepted for publication, etc,

It does not mean they are good teachers, but it does mean they gave a deep foundation of understanding the subject matter that they can draw from in trying to explain concepts and answer questions.

Why are you paying $85,000 a year to have a 23 year old grad student who might not even have a Masters yet teaching your child?

Quality control. TAs may or may not be competent teachers. Not interested in having an experiment play out in the classroom on my dime.

Anonymous wrote:My TAs in college (t10) were awful.
Incoherent
Unorganized
Some barely spoke English

Same. (Minus the language issue.) I didn't have many, thankfully. But none were good.

But that was 30 years ago. I truly hope they're better now at my alma mater . . . .

Anonymous wrote:Profs develop the courses, read widely, are active researchers, have deep expertise from both PhD and time spent working in the field. If they are active researchers, they need to keep up with current practice. They have a network and will likely be working at the school and in the field for a long time and thus can be tapped for future references/advice/network support.

I had plenty of professors whose "active research" in the field stopped the exact year they got tenure.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just because you have a Ph.D. doesn't make you a good teacher, especially at research institutions. The focus is on research and research dollars, teaching is just a requirement. They have zero training in developing or delivery curriculum - they have zero incentive to do it well. Some will but many have to ensure they are bringing in the funds for the department. For my kids I want to make sure they being taught the topic by someone who is knowledgeable and committed to education. That is easier said than done.

This has been changing--there is more emphasis on evidence that you are a decent teacher in hiring now, even at research institutions, and even at research institutions about 30-40% of your evaluation is based on your teaching.

This is BS. I am a tenured prof at an R1 who has sat on many promotion and tenure committees. A brilliant tenure-line assistant professor, well published/funded is going to get tenure despite mediocre teaching, whereas as fantastic, knock-it-out-of-the-ballpark teacher who is a tenure-line assistant professor with few publications will not get tenure.
The unfortunate reality is that students' best bet at a strong letter of recommendation for an internship, work or graduate school is going to come from a full-time professor, even if the professor is not the best teacher simply because the professor will likely still be at that institution for a while. Adjuncts come and go.
And by the way, adjuncts are not guaranteed to be great teachers either. They have zero incentive to be demanding because they'll get burned by low evals. Students might like them because they are easy graders (and this is why Rate My Professor is junk - the scores correlate highly to grades), but in the end, adjuncts are cheap labor.
If a student is going to take a class with an adjunct, it should ideally be for a special "adjunct" who is often invited by a university to teach for a semester or a year as a teaching fellow of some sort because they have some unusual work experience or very high profile position. That can be a really unique experience for a student and is worth it.

I understand not necessarily wanting a TA teaching the class, but I don't care so much about a PhD when it comes to practical classes.

I took a finance class in college on M&A taught by a principal at a Private Equity fund. He didn't have a PhD...but he brought incredible real-world experience, and every year his firm hired 1 or 2 kids from the class as interns.

Now, I took his class in like the 10th year he was teaching it. Perhaps he was terrible at the beginning...but I still think he was pretty good.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just because you have a Ph.D. doesn't make you a good teacher, especially at research institutions. The focus is on research and research dollars, teaching is just a requirement. They have zero training in developing or delivery curriculum - they have zero incentive to do it well. Some will but many have to ensure they are bringing in the funds for the department. For my kids I want to make sure they being taught the topic by someone who is knowledgeable and committed to education. That is easier said than done.

This has been changing--there is more emphasis on evidence that you are a decent teacher in hiring now, even at research institutions, and even at research institutions about 30-40% of your evaluation is based on your teaching.

I think you're correct for junior faculty who are trying for tenure, but the senior folks can still do as they please if they are famous enough. Most of the time they are exempted from teaching if they bring in enough research money, but heaven forbid they end up teaching a class.

Anonymous wrote:Just because you have a Ph.D. doesn't make you a good teacher, especially at research institutions. The focus is on research and research dollars, teaching is just a requirement. They have zero training in developing or delivery curriculum - they have zero incentive to do it well. Some will but many have to ensure they are bringing in the funds for the department. For my kids I want to make sure they being taught the topic by someone who is knowledgeable and committed to education. That is easier said than done.

This has been changing--there is more emphasis on evidence that you are a decent teacher in hiring now, even at research institutions, and even at research institutions about 30-40% of your evaluation is based on your teaching.

Just because you have a Ph.D. doesn't make you a good teacher, especially at research institutions. The focus is on research and research dollars, teaching is just a requirement. They have zero training in developing or delivery curriculum - they have zero incentive to do it well. Some will but many have to ensure they are bringing in the funds for the department. For my kids I want to make sure they being taught the topic by someone who is knowledgeable and committed to education. That is easier said than done.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Profs develop the courses, read widely, are active researchers, have deep expertise from both PhD and time spent working in the field. If they are active researchers, they need to keep up with current practice. They have a network and will likely be working at the school and in the field for a long time and thus can be tapped for future references/advice/network support.

+1 to me this is one of the most important reasons to value the opportunity to build relationships with full professors

This is only relevant though if you're going into academia in that field. If you want connections in your actual professional field, adjuncts would be more likely to have those.

Which is why my DD who is interested in a STEM research career prioritized this and is at a LAC. It wasn't really a consideration for my son who is majoring in data science and plans to just go to work, probably get a professionally-oriented master's degree. He goes to a big state U. However, he does TA for a math professor (grading papers, not teaching classes) and has appreciated getting to know that professor and says he's provided advice on career and future education.