In this chapter it focuses on universities striving for research fame, and neglecting undergraduate education, and promoting their college sports franchises.
It seems that colleges are selfish and only care about money and being recognized for things that really don’t matter. Shouldn’t the students be the most important focus? I think so. When I read this chapter, it talked about colleges trying to save money by using part time “professors” who don’t know what there talking about. If was a student at that university I would be offended. All the money they “save” goes to graduate schools, research programs and faculty who are involved. I wouldn’t want to go to a school with teachers who don’t know what they are talking about.
The concept of “Upward Drift” was discussed in this chapter which is when a university, whether they can afford it or not, that relentlessly added graduate and doctoral programs in order to compete in the research prestige race. Upward Drift universities put scarce dollars into their graduate schools and neglected undergraduate education. It is the pursuit of fame and prestige which were the “potent drivers of institutional direction and decision making.” It is wrong to have such things motivate a school. This situation accelerated the decline of undergraduate education. In the 1987 Time Magazine noted that 40 to 70% of faculty involved in college undergraduate programs were part time professors. Most of the part time teachers don’t know anything about their subjects, and even the TAs who are in the graduate program don’t know how to teach because when in the undergrad program, they were in a class of 500 and a part time professor was teaching.
Many universities have no teacher training and spending years doing research and little time learning how to teach. This creates difficulties in the classroom. Teaching and research don’t go together and it is unfortunate that this has and is happening in our schools across the country. It must be discovered how to balance the undergraduate and graduate programs. The general public sees that teaching undergraduates is the primary mission of higher education. Administration and faculty must focus on the student, developing them into an educated individual. It is very important and should be the goal. Not to be prestigious and rich.
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