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Originally Posted by lazyreadr
That is true not only in the USA, but likely almost everywhere. It is propelled by the hunt for scientific excellence.
Reason is that the main job of a university professor is research. They are selected on their research qualities, the scientific reputation they have and how much funds they bring in. Some full professors even do not do many lectures any more and hand it off to assistant professors etc. Giving lectures is a side-task for them.
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More established professors (at least in science and engineering) tend to do less lecturing because they can basically "buy" out of their required lecture time due to bringing in more research funds than other professors. This is supposed to be better overall for the university, since it brings in more money and increases the university's prestige.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lazyreadr
To be fair there is also a paradigm change between high school and universities. Students of a university are expected to learn in a different (more self reliant) way as preparation for their future career. The lectures are only meant as an additional help, not to be seen as formal "teaching". A university professor is a lecturer, not a teacher.
And this is even more pronounced in universities outside the USA, to some degree deliberately. I have seen students from the US having problems with it.
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While all this is true, there needs to be some kind of standard. Anyone who's gotten a degree knows that some professors bypass bad, and even abysmal, to get to a new low level that's so bad it's unmeasurable. Those professors do
not need to be lecturing, and perhaps if they can't bring in enough research to buy out of lecturing the university would be better off finding a professor who's better at both. Adjunct professors who lecture that poorly find themselves black-listed (although frequently slower than it should happen), but it should apply to associate, assistant and full professors as well. (And professors that bad should probably not be getting tenure.) Requiring some actual how-to-teach lessons be taken to gain tenure would probably help the problem immensely without overburdening faculty.
I've personally experienced an adjunct professor that not only couldn't teach, he'd call on students in class and make fun of them when they didn't know the answer. People would show up 45 minutes before class time to fight for the seats in the very back of class. That guy ended up black-listed after that semester, thanks in part to his posting the grades with full names and social security numbers on the classroom door. I complained to the dean of students office over that last bit, and they were
not happy, since that's illegal to do in the US.
