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> (My Ph.D. advisor, perhaps the greatest and most passionate educator I have ever known, received the excellence in teaching award and was then promptly denied

> (My Ph.D. advisor, perhaps the greatest and most passionate educator I have ever known, received the excellence in teaching award and was then promptly denied tenure.) Wow. How to make your university Hell on Earth reduced to a single, easily actionable sentence. I realise that is the norm. Still, a sad comment on what academia has become. As a parent paying tuition bills it particularly rankles.

ThrowawayR2 7y ago
> "*Still, a sad comment on what academia has become." You are incorrectly treating academia as some kind of monolithic hivemind. As I understand it, there's two broad categories of postsecondary institutions: research and teaching. (See, for example, the discussion here: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/49911/how-to-determine-if-an-institution-is-a-research-or-teaching-university-in-the-u https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/49911/how-to-de...) The prestigious universities are research institutions and all incentives are aligned toward doing research and getting grant money and that's why the author says what he says. (The classic joke letter, ostensibly written by one "Prof. Hardass Slavedriver", expresses well what the pressures are at a research university: https://lifesciencephdadventures.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/a-demotivational-letter/ https://lifesciencephdadventures.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/a-... .) Teaching institutions focus more on the educational aspects but, having neither prestige, grant money, or endowments, they cannot provide as comprehensive a set of facilities, advanced courses, or the undergraduate research opportunities that a research university does. So, for the student, it's really a trade-off when choosing between the two. Do I want to get a solid, middle-of-the-road education at a teaching school or do I want to go for broke and try and take advantage of the advanced educational opportunities at a research school?

ThrowawayR2 7y ago

> "*Still, a sad comment on what academia has become." You are incorrectly treating academia as some kind of monolithic hivemind. As I understand it, there's two broad categories of postsecondary institutions: research and teaching. (See, for example, the discussion here: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/49911/how-to-determine-if-an-institution-is-a-research-or-teaching-university-in-the-u https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/49911/how-to-de...) The prestigious universities are research institutions and all incentives are aligned toward doing research and getting grant money and that's why the author says what he says. (The classic joke letter, ostensibly written by one "Prof. Hardass Slavedriver", expresses well what the pressures are at a research university: https://lifesciencephdadventures.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/a-demotivational-letter/ https://lifesciencephdadventures.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/a-... .) Teaching institutions focus more on the educational aspects but, having neither prestige, grant money, or endowments, they cannot provide as comprehensive a set of facilities, advanced courses, or the undergraduate research opportunities that a research university does. So, for the student, it's really a trade-off when choosing between the two. Do I want to get a solid, middle-of-the-road education at a teaching school or do I want to go for broke and try and take advantage of the advanced educational opportunities at a research school?