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Originally posted by nostatic
As far as faculty teaching their own classes, this is a mixed bag. As I noted on another thread, the primary function of faculty at a large university is to run a research program...teaching is an afterthought. Unless you change the criteria for promotion and tenure, you have the problem of selecting for one set of skills (research and getting funded), then requiring them to teach. Some are great at both. But most are not.
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Hiring and paying professors to eschew some research in favor of teaching is not financially viable for most institutions. One of the reasons I paid private tuition rates was for the advantage of learning from people who were on the edge of certain disciplines. Maybe not on the very bleeding edge, since their primary duties were teaching, but how many 21-year-olds get to work one on one with a full prof for 6 hours a week and leave undergrad with a peer-reviewed publication to his name?
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Originally posted by nostatic
The english requirement is interesting. I understand what is behind it, but the fact of the matter is in many disciplines there are not enough native english speakers available either as students or faculty (if you want the best and brightest). So do you lower entrance standards to favor native english speakers? Do you hire a lesser qualified faculty candidate because their english is better? I can say that in searches I served on we did take language skills into account, but that was at a liberal arts college. At a reserach institution, it would receive less weight as, again, its about who can get research funded, not who can teach the best.
So if we add the english requirement and require all this teaching, how will basic research get done in this country? Companies don't do it.
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I don't know the solution either. However, when you hire a TEACHing assistant, you want to make sure they have some aptitude for TEACHing. For undergrads, college is a place of directed learning. More independant than secondary school, but still a place where an instructor imparts knowledge, helps when necessary, and evaluates the students at the end of the semester. If a student can't understand what the prof or TA are saying, if the TAs aren't available for help or just plain aren't helpful, the college is not living up to its end of the bargain. I think the only reason this is allowed to continue is that, like Moses said, undergrads are the only consumer group that wants the least for its money. If a university isn't teaching the students, they become a diploma generator and that's all.