| | I was struck by the part of Professor Moglen's lecture yesterday on our education system, and I wish to address some particularly troublesome thoughts that I've had regarding our higher education system (university level and beyond).
Prof. Moglen said that in general, professors don't care about their students very much. Instead of learning about their students, they would rather sit around in a faculty lunch and discuss how intelligent they are. While as an undergraduate, I had sinking suspicions of this sentiment, it was only until I worked as a graduate student TA that I realized the pervasiveness of this truth. I pursued a PhD? in engineering in part because of my love for teaching, and I was shocked to realize how few professors truly care about it. As a TA, I have worked for professors who rehash each year's lecture on dull powerpoint presentations despite repeated critical evaluations of their ineffectiveness, delegating almost all aspects of evaluation (including all test writing, grading, and office hours) to me and almost all aspects of actual learning to the student himself. In fact, while conversing with fellow graduate students, I have heard of certain professors openly declaring that they cared nothing about their undergraduates, that they were a pain in the ass, and that they would rather do research. And this was at a university which was consistently ranked in the top 5 in the nation and liked to boast of the success of their graduates in that particular field. | | | -- WilliamKing - 09 Mar 2009
There are valid points here, but I think this discussion has strayed a little off-course. Addressing the problem is the first step. Determining how to step outside the system (rather than suggesting it invokes depression and seems it will not change) comes next. My impression is that the whole point of this class was to step beyond characterization and find a way out. Alex, why does it make you depressed? Why do you think it will never change? Perhaps too much of the conversation has centered on "choice." If one disagrees with Alex's characterization of the system as a con, feel free to say so, but upon accepting his initial characterization, the language of real "choice" must disappear. Merely stepping into a role does not equate to making a conscious, individualized decision. Rather than asking why we are coerced into looking at prestige in deciding what school to attend, why our schools remain prestigious or further discussing why teachers don't teach, maybe we should be asking ourselves, as students, how to escape complacency, break out of our roles and help our professors break out of their own. Revolt? Maybe. In the meantime, perhaps good can come out of student-led initiatives that recognize excellent teaching at the graduate level. To start, how about a system that allows students to recommend visiting professors from lower ranked schools or pushes for greater emphasis on student evaluations? How about a system that eliminates tenure altogether? | |
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> | --Main. UchechiAmadi? - 10 Mar 2009
I think that we are all being too cynical about the motivation behind teaching at the collegiate level. I have found, overwhelmingly, that my professors at Columbia Law (including, of course, but not limited to Professor Moglen) are interested in taking to me about my professional and academic goals, and helping me however they can. I also found this helpful atmosphere among professors at my undergraduate institution, and I went to a school with an enormous population of undergraduates. I had professors that not only counseled me on my post-baccalaureate decisions, but that cared deeply about my personal life and my goals. As Will was saying, without mentoring from these professors, I wouldn't be here today. I have always found professors to be incredibly open and willing to talk with students, perhaps they tend to give their own work more importance than it deserves, but isn't that something we all do?
I do agree however, that something should be done about the "prestige" issue, because Alex and everyone else are right that it is too pervasive in our decision making process and it really only detracts from our ability to make good choices about the future. I think we need to start by asking: what does "prestige" really measure? What does "prestige" mean? So that we can extract any base level of value and disregard the superfluous remains.
I'm not sure eliminating tenure is the way to go to fix this, because I think tenure has a value in intellectual freedom that far exceeds its cost in terms of keeping "bad teachers" around. I also don't think that getting professors from lower ranked schools is the way to go because I disagree that there is a correlation between prestigious schools and bad teachers, and less prestigious schools and good teachers. I think it depends on the individual professors, which is why I think more emphasis on student evaluations would be a good idea, particularly in making hiring decisions. Additionally, since we all look to US News to tell us which schools are prestigious/good, and we would like "good" to include some measure of how much professors care about us, why not get US News to include "student satisfaction" in their measure of prestige? |
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