[rant]Contact Hour Billing

[Jeunemaitre]

how about courses taught by someone for whom English isn't even an nth language (had a prof in a class I dropped, took me three lectures to figure out that one particular word was "velocity" -- and that was one of the few I words of his I ever figured out)

The problem you mentioned Pete, is one I observed quite frequently in my undergraduate education. I had a particularly difficult time in physics (lecturer spoke with an Italian accent, "recitation" TA was originally from Ireland ("fee"="phi", "aluminium"="aluminum"), and lab TA from Venezuela). Though I had no problem interpreting at the end of the semester, the beginning of the course was quite daunting.

On the other hand, since I've gotten back into education thanks to the bastion of higher learning that is Northern Virginia Community College, I've been pleasantly surprised with the quality of instruction. Most of what I'm taking is business and management courses taught by adjunct faculty (since all of my classes are held on week-nights from 7-10). The great thing about these instructors is that they provide grounded examples for issues discussed in class, and provide a more complete picture of what is applicable than an instructor with purely academic experience could.

I feel that the reason behind these issues in higher education, and others, is the focus of educational institutions on things other than the education of the tuition paying students. Some of these institutions focus on research (though much of it is basic research with little possibility for application), while others throw good money after bad into the marketing and image of the school, or the school's athletic program. The "Publish-or-Perish" mentality is prevalent in faculty departments across the US, placing a clear emphasis on enhancing the prestige of the school through faculty achievement, rather than student achievement. So long as colleges and universities pay more attention to their faculty and "student-athletes" than to their regular students, the quality of education will suffer. The difficulty is finding an effective way to communicate dissatisfaction with this trend to the leaders of academic institutions.

[I had started on a long rant about the how difficult it would be to disrupt demand for education (to try and demonstrate a dissatisfaction with the current system), because of the growing place in the US economy for knowledge workers, but I decided against it. After all, economics doesn't start until 7 tonight.]