Doug McKee, a thoughtful economist (oxymoron?) at Yale, has published an article regarding the extent to which it is possible to balance teaching and research. When young people tell me about their aspiration to attend a top research universities, such as Harvard, I typically respond with “You say that you’re smart and you tell me that you want to pay $50,000 per year to go to a college where every minute that a professor is talking to an undergraduate he or she is damaging his career?” [A look at this page reveals that I need to update this to $60,000 per year.]
7 thoughts on “Ivy League professor on the priority given to teaching undergrads”
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Good state school is probably better value than a private college. But do not underestimate how much college students learn from their peers, both in the classroom setting and outside the classroom. So if I’m intent on maximizing my child’s learning during college, I would still send him/her to the best school to which he/she is admitted, as measured by the average SATs of its matriculating students. Have met enough Harvard, UVa & UMD students to know where the peer group would be the best & the brightest. UVa comes close to Harvard even though it’s technically a “state school,” but UMD is not in the same league, much as it would have been a far more affordable for our family (we’ve been paying out-of-state tuition at UVa since we live in Maryland). I did enjoy a recent conversation with a confirmed bachelor in my spin classes. He’s a CPA, and told me that he thinks a client of his, a grandmother, is totally crazy to be funding tuition for 2 of her grandchildren to attend Oberlin & Brown whereas she should just tell the parents (who are near-broke from raising the kids before confronting college expenses) to send the 2 kids to UMD. Gf & I, who have sent several kids to college, said to each other afterward that clearly this CPA doesn’t have kids of his own, as he would probably allow his mother (if on offer) to send them to Oberlin & Brown.
But I guess there are arguments in favor of Swarthmore College over Harvard because of this “publish or perish” research issue.
The “damaging your career” aspect mainly applies to junior faculty who have not yet achieved full tenure. There is little that a tenured faculty member can do (short of murder) that would damage his job-for-life. OTOH, since teaching ability is not heavily weighted (if at all) in tenure decisions, there are lots of senior faculty who are not very good teachers anyway. As the article points out, the incentives for non-tenure track lecturers (who teach an increasing % of classes) are fairly well aligned.
Maybe the solution is to completely (or mostly) separate the position of college classroom teacher and researcher into two separate professions, just as lawyers in the UK are separated into barristers and solicitors.
The teaching at elite schools may be a compromise, but look at who you get to learn from and possibly work with.
A few years ago I met with some students & faculty at Paris Telecom, a very highly rated French tech school. It was astonishing to see how closely the faculty worked with their undergraduate students, literally working side by side with them on very high level senior projects.
It contrasted sharply with most of my experiences at a large state university. For the most part, undergrad students there were strictly a nuisance for the faculty, foisted off on the nearest grad student teaching assistant as much as possible. (There was one memorable exception.)
This seems to be the key claim in the article: “Undergraduates may not always get a great teacher in the classroom, but they are always learning from someone at the cutting edge of their discipline, and there is no [substitute] for that.”
If that’s really true, then maybe it does make sense to go to these expensive schools.
As a professor at a liberal arts college, I’d like to agree with you, but the education I got as an MIT undergraduate was phenomenal, such as being taught SICP by the authors.
OTOH, my husband knows just as much as I do, even though he attended community college and a non-elite public university for a fraction of what my parents paid for my education.
The biggest differences I see between my and my husband’s undergraduate backgrounds are the connections I made and the status conferred on me by having gone to MIT. His career involved more luck than mine did. As an MIT grad, I could always get an introduction or an interview. My husband mostly caught up by attending an elite graduate school, but it’s dicey to get into those without an elite undergraduate degree.
I know your comments to young people quoted above is meant to be tongue in cheek, but the “signaling value” of successfully getting into an elite school is probably of much more importance to employers or business contacts than the actual undergraduate education which is delivered to the student. I am not saying the education delivered at elite institutions isn’t high quality, just that this isn’t the only factor to consider, when choosing a school. This signaling value would likely be of more value to some fields than others. Say, getting a job at Goldman Sachs, for example. On a related note, we once had a visiting professor at my state school for an undergraduate organic chemistry class, and he was light years better than our regular professor. He rushed up and down the classroom walkways, and called on students to answer questions. He didn’t embarrass anyone, but it was obvious who had done the prep work for class. His explanations were clear and really memorable. Contrast this with our regular professor, who droned on at the chalkboard for an hour every session. It was like watching a professional tennis player clobber an amateur. No contest. I’d highly recommend students actually visit a classroom during a real class to get some idea what they will receive for their money.