Undergrads and sessional instructors tend to think of the primary job of a university to provide well-taught classes. On the flipside, university management and

Undergrads and sessional instructors tend to think of the primary job of a university to provide well-taught classes. On the flipside, university management and the faculty running each department are often much less focused on teaching than you might hope. Research, recruiting grad students, sports, student services, and facilities are all things that may worry a university administrator more than ensuring the best teaching is going on in their undergraduate classes. The more familiar you become with how a university is run, the more you'll realize that the goals undergrads think the university should have are quite different than the goals it really has. For example, if a great teacher leaves and is replaced with a grad student with weak teaching skills, that can show up on an administrator's spreadsheet as a win because that grad student was dependent on the university for living expenses.