tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35117130.post6315976465264409218..comments2024-03-28T19:18:40.387-04:00Comments on Northern Reflections: The Importance of UndergraduatesOwen Grayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06464860078574618579noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35117130.post-16100021004304644272011-06-18T18:07:12.748-04:002011-06-18T18:07:12.748-04:00That certainly seems to be true. Our second son co...That certainly seems to be true. Our second son considered pursuing a PhD.<br /><br />But he says that tenure is hard to come by. Universities prefer to hire adjunct professors, and he could spend the rest of his life as an itinerant scholar.<br /><br />Our eldest son has finished everything except his dissertation. He's hoping -- and praying -- that he'll find a permanent place to land.Owen Grayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06464860078574618579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35117130.post-21687077652782945962011-06-18T17:01:36.792-04:002011-06-18T17:01:36.792-04:00I think the situation is probably more mixed than ...I think the situation is probably more mixed than the analysis lets on, too.<br /><br />But the existence of large classes and small armies of TAs and contract term-appointed instructors isn't simply because professors don't like teaching. Plenty of university administrations have no problem whatsoever scheduling massive classes and offloading as much work as possible to term instructors and TAs that they can pay at a fraction of the expense of a salaried tenured or tenure-track professor.Sixth Estatehttp://sixthestate.netnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35117130.post-8294785283565169172011-06-18T16:05:11.318-04:002011-06-18T16:05:11.318-04:00Our second son just received his Master's degr...Our second son just received his Master's degree in English from Trent University. He sent us a video awhile ago of a band he is in. It is composed of three English professors and three graduate students.<br /><br />Trent is small and a lot different than McGill and Concordia -- where my wife and I were undergraduates -- and the University of North Carolina, where I did my graduate work.<br /><br />There are, Simpson wrote, exceptions. I know I always enjoyed sitting in a seminar more than I did sitting in an auditorium with 500 students.Owen Grayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06464860078574618579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35117130.post-45165386449623599752011-06-18T14:05:22.962-04:002011-06-18T14:05:22.962-04:00My better half went back to UBC for a degree in en...My better half went back to UBC for a degree in environmental sustainability, a mixed arts/science programme of the geography faculty. Her experience seems to have been markedly at odds with the situation depicted by Jeff Simpson - smallish class size, innovative curricula, few TA's and mainly very engaged professors readily accessible to students. She does describe her faculty as an unusual enclave within such a massive university which, I suppose, may account for the differences. They're nested in this small, rundown building in which confines they're somewhat isolated from the megaschool that surrounds them.The Mound of Soundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09023839743772372922noreply@blogger.com