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For me, it had a direct negative effect. My school (University of Western Australia - 190) prides itself on being one of the country's better schools. When it

For me, it had a direct negative effect. My school (University of Western Australia - 190) prides itself on being one of the country's better schools. When it's rankings started to slip, it took active steps to try and improve them - a significant part being a higher focus on research, rather than undergraduate teaching (the list rewards academic achievement more highly than graduate satisfaction). The result of this, was the bottom 1/3 of my faculty (Mechanical/Chemical engineering), determined by research performance being fired. Some of these were awful, lazy teachers, sure, but others were that special kind of lecturer who resonates really well with students but produces limited academic work. In addition, those professors with tenure (often stereotyped as being lazy teachers) were not let go, compounding the problem.

aik 14y ago
>> others were that special kind of lecturer who resonates really well with students but produces limited academic work. Interesting. This is definitely in agreement with the point that many "[research]" universities exist for the research and not for learning/growth outcomes. If only a better solution existed...
ramgorur 14y ago
Well, it is not always necessary to "resonate well with students", especialy in a tertiary education scenario. May be this is a requirement for primary or high-school level, but for university? I don't think so. I did my undergrad from an insignificant public school in a third world country, but secured my masters (by research, no coursework) from one of the top 30 schools from that list and it was an enlightening experience. To say the truth, I have learned most of the undergrad craps by myself (thanks to our local book markets teeming with pirated/photocopied books) -- in my case, the contribution from the so called "good teachers" is almost none. the "quality of teaching" is a very subtle concept and thers is no apparently good way to measure it. I think it is the "research" that should matter the most. Above all, no one is interested in average GPA of students.
- batiudrami 14y ago
  We...obviously have completely different philosophies on how universities should be run. A good lecturer is, in my opinion, paramount to learning. Too many of my classes had lecturers who were completely incompetent, and worse than that, didn't even make an effort to be good teachers, and I, like you, was forced to learn the content myself. Another, a man who is highly regarded (our school built him a lab just so he'd come here), used slides literally copied and pasted from Wikipedia. The result of this is I have a significant debt (though less than you get from a US college), and an education which is completely sub par.

aik 14y ago

>> others were that special kind of lecturer who resonates really well with students but produces limited academic work. Interesting. This is definitely in agreement with the point that many "[research]" universities exist for the research and not for learning/growth outcomes. If only a better solution existed...

ramgorur 14y ago

Well, it is not always necessary to "resonate well with students", especialy in a tertiary education scenario. May be this is a requirement for primary or high-school level, but for university? I don't think so. I did my undergrad from an insignificant public school in a third world country, but secured my masters (by research, no coursework) from one of the top 30 schools from that list and it was an enlightening experience. To say the truth, I have learned most of the undergrad craps by myself (thanks to our local book markets teeming with pirated/photocopied books) -- in my case, the contribution from the so called "good teachers" is almost none. the "quality of teaching" is a very subtle concept and thers is no apparently good way to measure it. I think it is the "research" that should matter the most. Above all, no one is interested in average GPA of students.

batiudrami 14y ago
We...obviously have completely different philosophies on how universities should be run. A good lecturer is, in my opinion, paramount to learning. Too many of my classes had lecturers who were completely incompetent, and worse than that, didn't even make an effort to be good teachers, and I, like you, was forced to learn the content myself. Another, a man who is highly regarded (our school built him a lab just so he'd come here), used slides literally copied and pasted from Wikipedia. The result of this is I have a significant debt (though less than you get from a US college), and an education which is completely sub par.