

Do Professors Matter?  - cwan
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/10/30/katopes

======
bbg
The author embraces a noble and historically justifiable view of the
university. I wish he were right to do so. Academia does have venerable
traditions stretching back to the rituals and prerogatives of medieval guilds
of learned men (and women). However, two key changes have hollowed out that
tradition: education has turned into job training, and many, many teachers,
far from paragons of academic virtue, are overworked wage-slaves.

The first key change is that contemporary students, droves of them, attend
university just to get a job. Job skills, as represented by so many facts, can
be learned from books, worksheets, online tutorials, and prefab curricula. A
good teacher might make it easier to learn the rudiments of compiler design or
marketing principles, but is hardly essential.

Not so long ago, students, fewer of them, attended university to study
rhetoric and philosophy and the other subjects of the trivium and quadrivium,
in order, as they hoped, to become more civilized and humane, or at least to
acquire the intellectual trappings of the elite classes. (At some point, of
course, such students might take up professional studies in medicine, law, or
theology.) Literature and philosophy are not just a set of facts, the way,
say, the keywords or design patterns of C++ are. Appreciating literature or
living a philosophy, at least doing it well, requires a community of
practitioners. There are lone mathematical geniuses (Ramanujan), but rarely a
lone genius of literary criticism (Harold Bloom probably spends many hours
alone with his books, but he has never existed apart from a sophisticated
milieu so far as I know -- not that he's a genius). The acquisition of
independent thought, good taste, and even morality must be learned from those
who are more adept at them. Such intangible goods represent humans' unsteady
and imperfect climb to civilization, and have been handed over from person to
person for ages. Books may have been part of the process, but it is humans who
humanize humans.

But, I can hear you saying, even the most careerist education tries to nurture
independent thought and requires apprenticeship to masters. Nobody can really
become an expert at object oriented design without learning from an
acknowledged expert -- such design takes experience and taste and sensitivity
to nuance, not simple formulas and rote memorization. But really, I would
respond, no employer gives a fuck, because a moderate degree of cleverness,
ample supply of facts, and ability to research more facts, is more than enough
for a new hire. Intellectual sophistication, morality, the dawning of wisdom
-- these things don't make money. Philosophy majors suck at following
directions.

So the first key change, as I have said, is the careerist rather than humanist
emphasis in education.

The second key change is that universities produce way more Ph.D.s than they
can employ. Ph.D.s in some disciplines (statistics, molecular biology) can get
professional jobs in their field outside of the academy, but Ph.D.s in many
other disciplines cannot (Ph.D.s in classics can teach high school or serve
french fries -- noble occupations both, but they don't require graduate
school). By glutting the labor market with their own graduates, universities
can bid down the wages, which they have done and will continue to do.

If students primarily want to learn just the facts (job skillz), and most of
their teachers are wage slaves -- overworked and not fully credentialed (no
tenure) -- why wouldn't a university contract out curriculum design to for-
profit enterprises? If the modern university, heir to hallowed traditions and
one-time crucible of civilization, is going to enter its death throes anyway,
some savvy entrepreneurs should make a few bucks off it. Otherwise it would be
a complete waste.

~~~
lliiffee
It seems like, on the one hand you are criticizing universities for focusing
too much on job skills, and on the other hand for producing graduates that
can't get jobs. Isn't there a contradiction?

~~~
bbg
Yes. In fact my whole rant is overblown. Not altogether wrong, but overblown.

------
tensor
This article is missing one very crucial fact. Universities are not only about
teaching. For professors looking for jobs at traditional universities, they
are looking for a _research_ position. That is the primary purpose for most
faculty. Teaching at these types of institutions is by and large a secondary
concern for professors. That is not to say they all take it lightly of course.

In terms of learning, universities have never been about training people for
careers, at least historically. We have trade schools for that purpose, where
the teachers do not have the same credentials as professors at big
universities, but they also do not necessarily need them, as has been pointed
out by many.

The point of learning at a big university, is that people on the cutting edge
of research in a given field have a moral obligation to pass on their
knowledge, and teach new experts in that field. This is for the betterment of
our culture as a whole. Where else can you get taught by a researcher on the
cutting edge? How many research companies allow such access to their core
research personal? Let alone have these personal spend almost half their time
educating?

This has been the historical purpose of university teaching. It has never been
about teaching students jobs skills, but rather about teaching both _critical
thinking_ skills, as well as insight from experts the public may not otherwise
have access to.

In recent times, universities have been almost forced to accept that they do
train people for jobs, in addition to the theory. This is because of the rush
for university education for its value in getting _any_ job, however
misplaced. Everyone wants the best for their kids, thus the pressure to go for
the top, even though 99% of university students simply want a decent paying
job, and are not there to learn anything other than a way to get that.

To summarize, yes, university professors matter. They are not simply teachers,
but researchers at the forefront of their respective fields. Access to
teachers of this sort is extremely important and cannot be replaced by trade
schools.

The question being posed by the original article is more a question of how do
we teach trade skills, and what is the level of expertise required for _that_
purpose. Should universities operate trade schools on the side? It is perhaps
a necessity, if only because of the social stigma associated with actual trade
schools. Many universities already employ non-research faculty, i.e. trade
school professors, to teach lower level courses, leaving the specialized
courses to those who work in those areas. On the other hand, actual trade
schools are seemingly on the rise again. That is not a bad thing.

------
gbookman
_Fort Hays State University, in Kansas, apparently without consulting its
faculty, “sanctions” courses in composition, economics, algebra and accounting
offered by a company called StraighterLine which sells the courses for $99!
One encouraging outcome of all of this, however, is that students at Fort
Hays, apparently showing more sense than the people administering the college,
have been questioning the legitimacy of this partnership and wondering how it
will impact the value of their degrees._

I can't believe how much irrational hatred has been directed at
StraighterLine, a company working so hard to make education more affordable.

Basically what this gentleman and other StraighterLine-bashers are saying is
that no one should even try to offer the same educational content at a more
affordable price because it would potentially make richer peoples' degree less
valuable.

This kind of protectionism is one of many factors stifling innovation in
Higher Ed today.

------
kakooljay
Professors certainly matter to students. I had one [award-winning] Art History
professor who was very accessible despite teaching popular 1st year classes
with hundreds of students. I also had a stats prof from China who could barely
speak English...

~~~
kylemathews
Great professors still matter sure. The problem is that there are so many more
resources for learning thanks to the internet. 50 years ago, a bad economics
professor was still somewhat acceptable because the alternative was learning
nothing about econ. But now, there are dozens of great economics books
available for next to nothing on Amazon and dozens of really good econ blogs
to follow. A decently motivated student can learn quite a bit from these
resources.

A great professor will still raise above the competition and make an impact on
their students but the poorer professors are a joke.

~~~
unalone
The Internet's changed the world of education. I can tell, in some of my
classes, which of my fellow students were "raised" on the Internet and which
weren't. There's a surprisingly large group of people that's stunning
professors by understanding the subject matter on a very deep level.

There's also a professor who I doubt knows as much about her subjects as some
of her students, or at least isn't teaching like she knows what she's talking
about. I think it's very possible nowadays for students to know more about
part of a subject than the person that's being paid to teach them.

------
symptic
I think the question shouldn't be "do professors matter?" as much as it should
be "do universities matter?"

IF you choose to pursue a university career, then YES, the professor makes a
HUGE difference. One of my best professors this semester had to step out for a
week to tend to personal issues, and the week he was gone feels like a void in
my mind. The content we discussed in lecture went in one ear and out the
other. He is what makes that class fun and engaging for me. The same applies
to any great professor. Remove them from their classrooms and you'll probably
see the students exiting the class at the end of the semester not knowing the
material as well as that professor could have helped them to.

On the other hand, self-paced learners who choose to teach themselves and to
learn form experience are learning in a different way, and you could argue
still that this method benefits greatly from a mentor; someone who can guide
them through their learning. In essence, what a professor does. Albeit in a
different fashion.

------
TomOfTTB
This article belongs in the dictionary under the term FUD. It's basically
designed to scare people away from any option other than the traditional
system iby saying only old school institutions possesses the wisdom to
determine what is and is not worth teaching.

Two problems here...

1\. The whole point of accreditation is to make sure every school teaches the
basics that students need to earn a degree.

2\. If an institution does a poor job of training students their degree will
become devalued. This happened at ITT Tech at one point and it led to them
reforming their curriculum and becoming accredited (and honestly there degree
still isn't exactly well respected). So we really don't need a council of
professors to deliver edicts from on high.

In the end I think this line of thinking is just Higher Education realizing
they can't fend the fair market off anymore and doing everything in their
power to avoid having to compete.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Quite right.

What we should be doing is measuring the output of colleges. This article
argues for measuring the inputs, and says anyone with different inputs is
inadequate.

It doesn't matter who is responsible for what, as long as the outputs are
adequate.

------
sown
I'm wondering if this is one of those situations where people are expected to
take responsibility for these duties but aren't given the power or recognition
to do so.

>Over time, the aggregated actions and values of an institution’s faculty
establish and define the institution’s values. Rather than being mere
"information delivery systems," as some contemporary observers of higher
education seem to think, faculty provide the soul, spirit, character and
ethical texture of an institution.

