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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (51522)	6/20/2002 4:58:06 AM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 82486

Also, the habit of subsidy has shielded colleges from eliminating anachronisms and developing efficiencies. The whole system by which professors are paid for 8 or 9 months of work, and then given sabbaticals every 7th year, is absurd. Payroll costs are among the biggest items of expenditure for any corporation, including a university. Professors should be able to apply for leave when working on scholarly projects that require more time, but not automatically get a paid year off, without rationale or grant behind it. Additionally, the whole lecture system is anachronistic. One could substitute interactive sessions on the Web, or merely use books or tapes, with questions reserved for discussion sections, instead of hiring some big gun to recycle his lectures to a couple or even several hundred students per class. The requirement that professors have doctorates is absurd. There is no reason underclassmen, especially in the lower division, cannot be taught by people with masters. Heck, any person with a bachelors should be able to teach introductory courses. Thus, the system of reserving most main courses to Ph.D.s, while remanding discussion to graduate assistant "section men", merely creates an expensive redundancy. Anyway, these are just examples of things that are not well- justified uses of resources, especially if there are competing needs.......