College Discussion - View Single Post - A Comparison of Overall USNWR Rank and PA Rank

hawkette · 05-11-2008, 12:07 PM

afan,
I don't think we see the role of faculty that differently as your metaphor of the teacher as guide is a good one. I sometimes liken faculty members to coaches who can spot talent in their students and then work hard to develop that talent through a variety of methods. Such skills fall in the teaching skillset and not in the research skillset. Where is the focus of the teacher's energies? Is it on the student and the development of the intellectual/analytical skills of that student or is it on the research work that the teacher is engaged in? Ideally, it can be both, but I think we both know that this is often not the case.

As for the futility of rankings, I share some of your sentiment as I believe that fit issues should supersede the prestige considerations and statistical/ranking comparisons and especially when the differences in institutions are relatively minor. For example, as I have posted many times, I most prefer colleges that offer the strongest mixture of great academics, great social life, and great athletic life and this consistently leads me to put schools like Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, and Notre Dame at the top and few of the Ivy colleges on the same level. Others might not assign much weight to aspects of this (eg, social life, athletic life) and would concentrate only on the academic reputations and/or historical prestige associated with the elites. I accept that others may make this choice, even if it were not one that I would personally agree with.

I do, however, think there are some broad areas of comparison that can govern how we look at colleges and compare and judge what the environment will look like for an undergraduate student. IMO, those areas would be:

1. Student Quality-I think most folks would prefer a stronger universe of student peers than not.
2. Size of the Classroom and Nature of the Instruction-I think most folks would prefer to have smaller class sizes than not and that they would prefer to have professors teaching those classes rather than TAs
3. Faculty Quality and Focus-I think most would prefer to have professors who actually enjoy teaching and want to develop the thinking skills of their undergraduate students and have this as a key focus of their energy
4. Institutional resources-I think most would prefer that their college have lots of money that can and will be spent on building and delivering resources to undergraduate students.

05-11-2008, 12:07 PM	#16
hawkette Senior Member Join Date: May 2006 Threads: 141 Posts: 2,976	afan, I don't think we see the role of faculty that differently as your metaphor of the teacher as guide is a good one. I sometimes liken faculty members to coaches who can spot talent in their students and then work hard to develop that talent through a variety of methods. Such skills fall in the teaching skillset and not in the research skillset. Where is the focus of the teacher's energies? Is it on the student and the development of the intellectual/analytical skills of that student or is it on the research work that the teacher is engaged in? Ideally, it can be both, but I think we both know that this is often not the case. As for the futility of rankings, I share some of your sentiment as I believe that fit issues should supersede the prestige considerations and statistical/ranking comparisons and especially when the differences in institutions are relatively minor. For example, as I have posted many times, I most prefer colleges that offer the strongest mixture of great academics, great social life, and great athletic life and this consistently leads me to put schools like Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, and Notre Dame at the top and few of the Ivy colleges on the same level. Others might not assign much weight to aspects of this (eg, social life, athletic life) and would concentrate only on the academic reputations and/or historical prestige associated with the elites. I accept that others may make this choice, even if it were not one that I would personally agree with. I do, however, think there are some broad areas of comparison that can govern how we look at colleges and compare and judge what the environment will look like for an undergraduate student. IMO, those areas would be: 1. Student Quality-I think most folks would prefer a stronger universe of student peers than not. 2. Size of the Classroom and Nature of the Instruction-I think most folks would prefer to have smaller class sizes than not and that they would prefer to have professors teaching those classes rather than TAs 3. Faculty Quality and Focus-I think most would prefer to have professors who actually enjoy teaching and want to develop the thinking skills of their undergraduate students and have this as a key focus of their energy 4. Institutional resources-I think most would prefer that their college have lots of money that can and will be spent on building and delivering resources to undergraduate students.