Tom Campbell wants LA and Berkeley to cost as much as Stanford

[sakky]

<p>

If enrolling fewer students was the objective, why do the flagship schools in the UC system continue to admit so many transfer students?

</p>

<p>Well, obviously right now it’s not the objective. But that’s precisely my point: perhaps it should be. </p>

<p>

Of course, this would mean a departure from the mission of the UC system --or is it?

</p>

<p>UC has a mission, but Berkeley specifically does not. That is, while the UC system is mandated to admit a certain percentage of California high school students, nothing says that they have the right to a top UC. Have them go to UCRiverside or one of the other lower UC’s. Heck, I thought the whole point of the founding of UCMerced was to accommodate the overflow. There is no reason that the two best UC’s must also necessarily be the two most populous.</p>

[FindAPlace]

<p>

The other reform that Berkeley should make is to simply reduce the size of certain departments, especially those that have relatively few students. For example, I don’t know why Berkeley has a whopping 55 regular faculty members, and that doesn’t even count the visiting faculty or the emeritus faculty, when Berkeley graduates only ~75 math majors and another ~80 applied math majors per year. An even more striking example would be the German department that actually has more full-time faculty (12) than it has students graduating from the major (about 10) every year, all at a time when certain majors such as the engineering majors, business administration, and economics are all heavily oversubscribed.

</p>

<p>This is a much better argument for the German department than it is for the Math department. I confirmed my thoughts after chatting with DH, who’s a math professor at USC and knows some of the faculty at Berkeley. The size of a math department is not properly measured by the number of majors within it because a math department must provide feeder classes for so many other majors. You could consider the size of the Berkeley math dept (which is top drawer, by the way) as a result of the strength of the engineering and other science departments on campus.</p>

[dstark]

<p>Ahhhh…the Berkeley haters…they are never hard to find. lol</p>

<p>“He thinks Berkeley and UCLA are providing an education comparable to Stanford’s and should be priced accordingly, with higher tuition and compensating scholarships for the needy.”</p>

<p>“He thinks Berkeley and UCLA are providing an education comparable to Stanford’s”</p>

<p>:)</p>

[xiggi]

<p>Neither are the fanatical supporters, Dstark! ;)</p>

[sakky]

<p>

The size of a math department is not properly measured by the number of majors within it because a math department must provide feeder classes for so many other majors.

</p>

<p>That assumes that you really need fully fledged math faculty to teach those feeders. Yet let’s be honest, those feeder courses (Math 16AB/1AB/54/53/55) aren’t exactly ground-breaking. Few if any cutting-edge concepts are being taught in those courses. They’re simple utilities and tools courses, where you’re taught how to compute derivatives, integrals, matrices, and simple differential equations, which befits the audience of engineering and natural science students who generally care very little for groundbreaking theory. They just need to know enough of the math to use as a toolkit with which to pass the courses in their major. </p>

<p>I’ll inject a personal anecdote of mine. I remember sitting in one of the feeder math courses and wishing it was taught by my old high school math teacher instead. Sure, he wasn’t an eminent mathematics research scholar who was heavily published in the top journals, but at least he knew how to teach math in a way that made it fun and interesting in a way that the assigned mathematics professor could not. Nor, like I said, was the material groundbreaking stuff. If my old high school math teacher could successfully teach AP calculus, then certainly he could teach multivariable calculus and linear algebra. What that also means is that Berkeley could pick up some cheap lecturers who may not have the research portfolio to merit a tenure-track job, but who had strong teaching skills, to teach those feeders. You don’t need tenure-track faculty to teach feeder courses.</p>

[dstark]

<p>“Neither are the fanatical supporters, Dstark!”</p>

<p>:)</p>

<p>“He thinks Berkeley and UCLA are providing an education comparable to Stanford’s”</p>

<p>I didn’t see…"“He thinks Berkeley and UCLA are providing an education comparable to Stanford’s, but”</p>

<p>;)</p>

[xiggi]

<p>

I’ll inject a personal anecdote of mine. I remember sitting in one of the feeder math courses and wishing it was taught by my old high school math teacher instead. Sure, he wasn’t an eminent mathematics research scholar who was heavily published in the top journals, but at least he knew how to teach math in a way that made it fun and interesting in a way that the assigned mathematics professor could not. Nor, like I said, was the material groundbreaking stuff. If my old high school math teacher could successfully teach AP calculus, then certainly he could teach multivariable calculus and linear algebra. What that also means is that Berkeley could pick up some cheap lecturers who may not have the research portfolio to merit a tenure-track job, but who had strong teaching skills, to teach those feeders. You don’t need tenure-track faculty to teach feeder courses.

</p>

<p>It all goes back to the old debate about teaching skills, preparation, and dedication, and how appropriate the “Faculty + TA/GSA” truly is. </p>

<p>Of course, in this corner of CC, speaking ill of the TA model is considered nothing sort of sacrilege and blasphemy.</p>

[ewho]

<p>

I remember sitting in one of the feeder math courses and wishing it was taught by my old high school math teacher instead.

</p>

<p>So you prefer Berkeley High to Cal. :)</p>

[dstark]

<p>"It all goes back to the old debate about teaching skills, preparation, and dedication, and how appropriate the “Faculty + TA/GSA” truly is. </p>

<p>Of course, in this corner of CC, speaking ill of the TA model is considered nothing sort of sacrilege and blasphemy."</p>

<p>How did Berkeley do in the dedication to teaching part of USNWR? ;)</p>

<p>With the large classes, TAs, liberal professors, all the negatives, this is what Tom Campbell said, </p>

<p>"“He thinks Berkeley and UCLA are providing an education comparable to Stanford’s”.</p>

<p>:)</p>

[UCBChemEGrad]

<p>

@sakky

What that also means is that Berkeley could pick up some cheap lecturers who may not have the research portfolio to merit a tenure-track job, but who had strong teaching skills, to teach those feeders. You don’t need tenure-track faculty to teach feeder courses.

Interesting. Do you know of any Berkeley’s peer research universities that utilize only lecturers for basic courses?</p>

<p>

@xiggi

Of course, in this corner of CC, speaking ill of the TA model is considered nothing sort of sacrilege and blasphemy.

Welcome to the dark side, xiggi…I know the unfamiliar can be frightening. :)</p>

[xiggi]

<p>

How did Berkeley do in the dedication to teaching part of USNWR?

</p>

<p>They did every bit as well as they usually do in the annual Peer Assessment. If the people who answered the new questionaire were as knowledgeable and unbiased as they “usually” are remains a question that begs for an answer. As far as I am concerned, the first words that come to mind are deceptive, joke, crock, baloney, and a slew of similar terms. </p>

<p>Fwiw, this is the first year I have yet to *look *at the printed USNews rankings and renew my online subscription. While I used to think that, despite all their flaws and “leveling” techniques, the USNews was the best we had, I now think they are just a small step above the utter garbage produced by Forbes and other wannabes.</p>

[UCBChemEGrad]

<p>^ Haha… how can 2,000 academic survey takers not know what xiggi does? </p>

<p>I mean the collective biases of 2,000 research faculty must be the same as a liberal arts college lover. I just don’t understand. <em>shakes head</em> :)</p>

<p><em>Oh, and after the 5,000th post, He rested</em></p>

[IBclass06]

<p>

@UCBChemEGrad

the collective biases of 2,000 research faculty

Plural of anecdote = data?</p>

<p>*At the University of Wisconsin at Madison, the provost’s most recent peer assessment form gave the highest possible rating, “distinguished,” to just two institutions: its own and the New School. To every other university but one, Madison’s response gave the second-lowest rating, “adequate.” Those 260 “adequate” institutions included Harvard, Yale and the rest of the Ivy League, the University of California at Berkeley, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University. Only Arizona State University scored below all the rest, given the lowest rating of “marginal.”</p>

<p>The presidents and/or provosts of 15 of the 18* [sample] *universities rated their institutions “distinguished,” from Berkeley (no. 21 on last year’s list) to the University of Missouri at Columbia (No. 96).</p>

<p>At Berkeley in 2008, the chancellor rated other “top” publics – including the University of Virginia, the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – “strong.” However, he rated all of the University of California campuses “distinguished,” with the exceptions of Santa Cruz and Riverside, which were also “strong.” (Merced was not on the list.) </p>

<p>In a 2009 survey, an official at the University of California at San Diego (No. 35) rated that campus “distinguished,” above the University of Pennsylvania, Duke University, Dartmouth College, Northwestern University and Johns Hopkins University (all “strong”).</p>

<p>The president of the University of Florida (No. 49) rated his campus “distinguished” in this year’s survey – along with Harvard, Stanford and MIT – and no other institution in Florida above “good,” as reported by the Gainesville Sun.*</p>

<p>:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:</p>

[dstark]

<p>5,000 posts…scary.</p>

<p>“Fwiw, this is the first year I have yet to look at the printed USNews rankings and renew my online subscription. While I used to think that, despite all their flaws and “leveling” techniques, the USNews was the best we had, I now think they are just a small step above the utter garbage produced by Forbes and other wannabes.”
:)</p>

<p>Oh and just to be sure Xiggi, you really aren’t discussing Berkeley in this Berkeley thread. Your concern covers all schools that use TAs, and have largest classes, etc. Schools like Stanford for example. It’s just happenstance you happen to be in this thread. You have no beef with Berkeley. ;)</p>

[budda]

<p>IBclass06, can I get a link to that article?</p>

[IBclass06]

<p>[News:</a> Reputation Without Rigor - Inside Higher Ed](<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/08/19/rankings]News:”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/08/19/rankings)</p>

[sakky]

<p>

Interesting. Do you know of any Berkeley’s peer research universities that utilize only lecturers for basic courses?

</p>

<p>Sure. One particularly peer research university would be…none other than Berkeley itself!. For example, Berkeley’s Computer Science 61A course - the gateway course of the CS and EECS majors - is being taught this fall by none other than Brian Harvey, who is a lecturer. Many of the CS61x series courses used to be taught by Mike Clancy, who is a lecturer. (Clancy now teaches mostly CS3 while serving as the general teaching coordinator for all lower-division CS courses). </p>

<p>[UCB</a> Online Schedule of Classes: Search Results](<a href=“http://osoc.berkeley.edu/OSOC/osoc?p_term=FL&p_classif=L&p_deptname=Computer+Science&p_presuf=--+Choose+a+Course+Prefix%2FSuffix+--&p_dept=&p_course=61A&p_title=&p_instr=&p_exam=&p_ccn=&p_day=&p_hour=&p_bldg=&p_units=&p_restr=&p_info=&p_updt=&x=49&y=11]UCB”>http://osoc.berkeley.edu/OSOC/osoc?p_term=FL&p_classif=L&p_deptname=Computer+Science&p_presuf=--+Choose+a+Course+Prefix%2FSuffix+--&p_dept=&p_course=61A&p_title=&p_instr=&p_exam=&p_ccn=&p_day=&p_hour=&p_bldg=&p_units=&p_restr=&p_info=&p_updt=&x=49&y=11)</p>

<p>[Faculty</a> List | EECS at UC Berkeley](<a href=“Faculty - EECS at Berkeley”>Faculty - EECS at Berkeley)</p>

<p>Keep in mind, this is not just some scrub computer science department. This is the Berkeley CS department, one of the most highly rated CS departments in the world. Yet they often times use lecturers to teach the large intro gateway courses.</p>

<p>So I ask: if the Berkeley CS department can have non-tenure-track lecturers teach large undergraduate courses, is it really so outrageous for the math department - or any other department for that matter - to do the same? You don’t really need tenure-track professors to be teaching every course.</p>

[middsmith]

<p>

@sakky

Sure. One particularly peer research university would be…none other than Berkeley itself!. For example, Berkeley’s Computer Science 61A course - the gateway course of the CS and EECS majors - is being taught this fall by none other than Brian Harvey, who is a lecturer. Many of the CS61x series courses used to be taught by Mike Clancy, who is a lecturer. (Clancy now teaches mostly CS3 while serving as the general teaching coordinator for all lower-division CS courses).

I took CS61A the summer before I entered college. I think the reference book, Simply Scheme, was written by Brian Harvey. The TA told us that book is used at MIT as well.
He’s hardly a random lecturer. Most lecturers at Berkeley are way more impressive than tenure profs at my LAC.</p>

[sakky]

<p>Nobody is saying that Harvey is a “random lecturer”. </p>

<p>Brian Harvey doesn’t even have a PhD in computer science (although he does have a MSCS from Stanford). His PhD is actually in education. He was also a former high school teacher. He spends relatively little time conducting formal CS research, certainly relative to the regular tenure-track CS faculty. Instead, Harvey has devoted his life to education and teaching. {Clancy, on the other hand, doesn’t even hold a PhD in any discipline.} </p>

<p>The point simply is that the CS department has proved that you don’t need research-oriented tenure-track faculty to be teaching every undergraduate course. You can indeed hire lecturers. Granted, they ought to be impressive lecturers. But they can still be lecturers.</p>

[UCBChemEGrad]

<p>^ Sounds good.</p>

<p>

Plural of anecdote = data

Hmmm… I think N=2,000 is sufficient to qualify as “data”. Don’t you think opinion polls provide value?</p>