@BiffBrown : For less quantitative subjects, you can only do but so much to be rigorous in an intro. course, but you can technically do a lot more in a math or physics class, especially in a small classroom setting. For example, the physics professor there runs both a 140/150 and tends to give a set of regular problems (like web assign) along with much longer problems (that can take a week). I have heard the same about math classes, especially beyond calculus 1 or so. Many more teachers getting creative with teaching there. Main’s math department has super high enrollment and serves too many joint majors and other sciences so they have to employ graduate students more heavily in addition to visiting professors ( this to proliferates as a solution to high enrollments). Main campus really only “serves” the majors outside of the core (linear algebra, Diff. Eq., multi, foundations). Oxford, as an LAC type campus doesn’t have to really serve any constituent (department/pre-profession) so it makes sense to see many more instructors taking more liberties. Also, students are just less likely to resist if a) there is only one option (instructor) and/or b) it isn’t some requirement for their joint major. Instructors (in math, graduate students and research faculty for most part) on main do not have time to deal with possible resistance to rigorous demands. Main gets rigorous natural science instructors due to the strength of the lecture track in them (most rigorous instructors are lecturers on main).
In physics(where I think maybe only Bing and the astronomy instructor are lecturers) and math, lecturers are not as powerful and have an extremely heavy teaching load, which isn’t really a problem until the courses they teach are hardly related to each other (like you may see a lecturer teaching 2-3 sections of a core course another section of a core course, and some upper division electives). Emory main campus is not the only one like this. Other schools (even elites) with extremely high enrollment in math have a similar thing going on… Physics on main is nothing like life sciences as it hardly has any majors relative to it so the lower divisions, including the calc. based course are really just service courses that they water down. The return on making them rigorous and stimulating is pretty low (whereas chemistry instructors that run a more challenging courses may convince some to join the major).
A lot of calculus and politics goes into determining the level of freedom given to teachers in certain departments.