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US News Best Colleges rankings

Complacent Deac said:
As a Wake administrator, I am spending my weekend as follows:

Friday - leave early of course, find a reason to drink craft beer

Saturday - do some yard work real early, hop in car with the SO and ride up to Pilot Mountain and do some hiking, eat barbecue.

Sunday, church, lunch, football.

Even though Admissions and International programs have all sorts of stuff going on, on campus, and we have a LARGE football game, I am not working - no chance - and certainly not checking work email or going into campus for any reason.

Amiright? Way off?
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You do recognize that probably at least 30% of Wake's staff are WFU alumni, right? Do you think those people are actively trying to ruin the school? Are intentionally negligent to their job duties for the sake of their personal lives?
 
DeaconJoe said:
You do recognize that probably at least 30% of Wake's staff are WFU alumni, right? Do you think those people are actively trying to ruin the school? Are intentionally negligent to their job duties for the sake of their personal lives?
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Not actively trying, but I think most assume all the admin bloat isn't actively helping either
 
Rafi said:
Of the P5 schools, the rankings for undergraduate teaching are as follows:

1. Wake Forest
2. Michigan
2. Notre Dame
4. Stanford
4. Vanderbilt
6. Duke
6. Wisconsin
8. Cal
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Nice.
This plus Wake's high party school ranking should equal more applications.
 
TownieDeac said:
ehh i'd put our liberal arts faculty CVs up against of the "smaller selective lib arts colleges with small classes"
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While I don't disagree with your premise, CVs do not = pedagogical skill, knowledge and training.
 
ChicdeaC said:
While I don't disagree with your premise, CVs do not = pedagogical skill, knowledge and training.
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Agreed. Further to my premise, I wouldn't use "CV" as a placeholder for teaching ability either.
 
ChicdeaC said:
While I don't disagree with your premise, CVs do not = pedagogical skill, knowledge and training.
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TownieDeac said:
Agreed. Further to my premise, I wouldn't use "CV" as a placeholder for teaching ability either.
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While both of you are absolutely correct that the CV shouldn't necessarily be taken as an indicator of pedagogical skill or predictor of teaching effectiveness, the entire philosophy of higher education as an enterprise is founded on the idea that academics at the cutting edge of research are best suited to teach.
 
That presupposes a lot about pedagogical style and subject matter, doesn't it? Why would you have to be an elite researcher to practice Socratic methodology? Or teach Stats 101? etc. etc.
 
TownieDeac said:
That presupposes a lot about pedagogical style and subject matter, doesn't it? Why would you have to be an elite researcher to practice Socratic methodology? Or teach Stats 101? etc. etc.
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anecdotally speaking, the best researchers I've interacted with were pretty meh teachers outside of their small, specific high level courses/grad courses and as mentors, and even they weren't great.

the two skill sets are not really inclusive and it's a rare gem for the school to find a person with both
 
wakephan09 said:
While both of you are absolutely correct that the CV shouldn't necessarily be taken as an indicator of pedagogical skill or predictor of teaching effectiveness, the entire philosophy of higher education as an enterprise is founded on the idea that academics at the cutting edge of research are best suited to teach.
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I would disagree, I think that Higher Ed as an enterprise doesn't care about who is best suited to teach.
 
ImTheCaptain said:
anecdotally speaking, the best researchers I've interacted with were pretty meh teachers outside of their small, specific high level courses/grad courses and as mentors, and even they weren't great.

the two skill sets are not really inclusive and it's a rare gem for the school to find a person with both
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In my department, the grad students tend to get the strongest evaluations. We give out teaching awards to the 3-5 students with the best evaluations who also get reviewed well from the grad committee. The cutoff is typically 4.9 out of 5 on the evals.

I haven't sniffed that in many years. The department average is around 4.2.

wakephan09 said:
While both of you are absolutely correct that the CV shouldn't necessarily be taken as an indicator of pedagogical skill or predictor of teaching effectiveness, the entire philosophy of higher education as an enterprise is founded on the idea that academics at the cutting edge of research are best suited to teach.
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Yeah. That's the philosophy. But there has been a distinct divide in the responsibility to teach and do research that is slowly being codified.

In my experience, professors are divided into different categories based on teaching and research. Formally, you have tenure-earning, tenured, permanent instructors, visiting instructors, adjuncts, and grad students. The tenured and tenure-earning are the ones with a formal research obligation and grad students are trying to do research to earn a degree. But even among tenured and tenure-earning faculty, I've seen a divide to the extent any one faculty member only falls into two or three of these categories:
-teaches undergrads
-teaches grad students
-advises MA students
-advises PhD students
-supervises undergrad research
-publishes regularly
-is a public scholar
-acquires external funding

I'm curious the extent to which you all have witnessed this in your departments.
 
PhDeac said:
In my department, the grad students tend to get the strongest evaluations. We give out teaching awards to the 3-5 students with the best evaluations who also get reviewed well from the grad committee. The cutoff is typically 4.9 out of 5 on the evals.

I haven't sniffed that in many years. The department average is around 4.2.



Yeah. That's the philosophy. But there has been a distinct divide in the responsibility to teach and do research that is slowly being codified.

In my experience, professors are divided into different categories based on teaching and research. Formally, you have tenure-earning, tenured, permanent instructors, visiting instructors, adjuncts, and grad students. The tenured and tenure-earning are the ones with a formal research obligation and grad students are trying to do research to earn a degree. But even among tenured and tenure-earning faculty, I've seen a divide to the extent any one faculty member only falls into two or three of these categories:
-teaches undergrads
-teaches grad students
-advises MA students
-advises PhD students
-supervises undergrad research
-publishes regularly
-is a public scholar
-acquires external funding

I'm curious the extent to which you all have witnessed this in your departments.
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yeah, evals are over weighted but do they matter after tenure? plus I thought they're generally recognized as terrible measures of effectiveness
 
TownieDeac said:
That presupposes a lot about pedagogical style and subject matter, doesn't it? Why would you have to be an elite researcher to practice Socratic methodology? Or teach Stats 101? etc. etc.
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No, I don't think that that argument has anything to do with pedagogical style or subject matter. And again, this isn't my argument as much as a foundational philosophy in higher education. Also the American system is founded on the lecture model moreso than Socratic method or any other teaching strategy.

I think the idea is that researchers at the so-called cutting edge have a better grasp of current scholarship and prevailing disciplinary trends -- have their fingers on the metaphorical pulse of the field.

But you're very right to point out that the premise entirely falls apart when we're talking about introductory courses or the kind of classes that fulfill basic undergraduate requirements. And the truth is that the overwhelming majority of college classes in the US are of this kind, and the vast majority of students are taught by faculty that are essentially generalists. As wake graduates we often forget just how many regional teaching colleges and vocational/technical/community colleges operate in this country.
 
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ImTheCaptain said:
yeah, evals are over weighted but do they matter after tenure? plus I thought they're generally recognized as terrible measures of effectiveness
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I wouldn't say terrible. They're as reliable as the students. At my institution, they're the only measure unless you proactively invite someone to evaluate your class. Then you have a #smallsamplesize problem.

I don't doubt our grad students are better teachers though. Our program is very good at teaching people how to teach and our grad students get a lot of experience because it's a large public. And they haven't gotten complacent yet.
 
ChicdeaC said:
I would disagree, I think that Higher Ed as an enterprise doesn't care about who is best suited to teach.
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Perhaps today, but I'm talking about the model on which it was founded in the States.
 
wakephan09 said:
No, I don't think that that argument has anything to do with pedagogical style or subject matter. And again, this isn't my argument as much as a foundational philosophy in higher education. Also the American system is founded on the lecture model moreso than Socratic method or any other teaching strategy.

I think the idea is that researchers at the so-called cutting edge have a better grasp of current scholarship and prevailing disciplinary trends -- have their fingers on the metaphorical pulse of the field.

But you're very right to point out that the premise entirely falls apart when we're talking about introductory courses or the kind of classes that fulfill basic undergraduate requirements. And the truth is that the overwhelming majority of college classes in the US are of this kind, and the vast majority of students are taught by faculty that are essentially generalists. As wake graduates we often forget just how many regional teaching colleges and vocational/technical/community colleges operate in this country.
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Generalists fulfill an important role. I've just started back teaching Intro over the last few years and it's amazing how much I have to go back and teach myself about my field. My research focuses on a small percent of a section of the entire field. Someone with a broad understanding of the field would do a better job teaching Intro. On the flip side, they wouldn't be able to teach the courses I can teach on education where I can go into detail about my research.
 
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