At Harvard, The Cuts to the Quick
Posted on May 15th, 2009 in Uncategorized | 22 Comments »
Larger sections. Fewer TAs TFs. This one hurts.
So…I have an idea for how the university could save money and improve the educational experience at the same time. It’s pretty radical, so brace yourselves:
Harvard could require professors to teach undergraduate sections.
No-brainer, right? Better education for the students, and you save a bunch of money. And you create a sense of, hey, we’re all in this together. In tough times, everyone chips in.
In other words, to paraphrase Rahm Emanuel, Harvard shouldn’t let this opportunity go unexploited. In a crisis, professors will find it hard to say no to this change. (If they do, start talking layoffs.)
And in this way, you effect a paradigm shift in one of the great weaknesses of Harvard College. When the crisis is over, the cultural change stays: Professors teach sections.
Dollars to donuts it’ll never happen…
22 Responses
5/15/2009 7:44 am
Already happens with some of us Richard.
5/15/2009 7:54 am
Yup, I know. But this would by FAS-wide and mandatory.
5/15/2009 7:59 am
Yes, you make an obvious point. Although I am not close enough to University Hall to actually propose such a policy, I have mentioned the idea to people who are, and the response is sad. I’d summarize it as: “yes, I know it’s obvious, but it makes no sense for me to say so because it’s a non-starter”.
5/15/2009 8:46 am
Why is this such a radical idea? Since when does “No-brainer” = “radical”? I must be way out of loop in regards to the current learning cultures of major colleges. My initial undergraduate degree came from Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia where all of my science professors taught classes and did significant research projects. I’m surprised to find out that teaching undergrads is not the norm at Harvard.
5/15/2009 9:21 am
I think a Harvard science prof would argue that there is a big difference between doing “significant” research projects and doing the pathbreaking work that a Harvard prof is expected to do. RB’s populist suggestion is quaint and nice but please, people, get real. Harvard wouldn’t be Harvard if it wasn’t a big crib full of overblown babies.
5/15/2009 10:09 am
I forwarded the cost-cutting memo to a friend who teaches in a small prestigious college in the midwest. His response to the item about FAS no longer hiring proctors: at his institution all faculty prepare, proctor, and correct all exams for their courses. It’s a given, part of the job description if you will. As an FAS mid-level administrator, I’m wondering whether we can look forward to senior faculty schlepping blue books to and from exams, never mind correcting them.
5/15/2009 10:19 am
The question of section size, number of sections, types of section leaders and so on has ripple effects, I think, for larger questions: how a curriculum is designed, how graduate students are supported, the role of the professor in teaching large lecture courses (which you’re addressing here), and finally perhaps the retention and attracting of students and faculty.
I’m interested in the comment by Dean Smith in the article linked to that what is proposed is not just increasing section size (though still maintaining a size limit of 18), but specifically cutting the number of non-Harvard-graduate-student “teaching assistants” (TAs), as opposed to “teaching fellows” (TFs). While I’m concerned about increasing class size, my experience as an undergraduate at Harvard was often quite uninspiring with the TFs. Often they were students from the law or the div school for a large core class in a not very related field, and frankly the ones I had were terrible teachers, who didn’t know the material. So, good riddance to them, I say!
I wonder to what extent the core curriculum creates demand and need for TFs. Other than the core, I’m guessing that TFs are teaching sections for maths and science classes.
Also, I don’t understand why graduate students at Harvard teach two sections often a term. That is certainly not the norm elsewhere. It’s a wonder they ever finish their degrees. Are they just trying to earn more money for expensive Boston? At many other institutions (like mine) this isn’t allowed and there is no budget for it anyway. Teaching is simply part of their fellowship package. I think it very unfortunate that it has become institutionalized that graduate students teach 2 sections a term. Does this also lead to the desperation of graduate students and departments to get more sections approved?
And finally, in response to “Surprised?”, Yale profs tend to teach one of their own sections, and I imagine they see themselves as star material just like the Harvard faculty. Whether or not institutions have professors teach their own sections has only partly to do with finances, I’d suppose, and more to do with the way an institution sees itself, whether it puts an emphasis on “college”-style undergraduate teaching, or gravitates to the star system of large lecture courses.
p.s. Full disclosure: I teach at Brown where for my large lecture course I teach one of my own sections, up to 22-24 students.
5/15/2009 10:27 am
Oh dear, that came out as a long post! All I meant to say that section size and teaching seems inextricably linked with curriculum design and priorities, as well!
5/15/2009 10:30 am
It’s tragic that Harvard is planning to undermine the quality of undergraduate education as a way to address this financial predicament. Can’t they just cut admin. expenditures? For example the Center for Government and International Studies includes dozens of independent centers. On every floor there is a director, a deputy director, and numerous staff. Sometimes there are multiple centers on the same floor. Can’t all of these be brought into a single Center and use the savings to hire more faculty and TFs? http://cgis.fas.harvard.edu/
5/15/2009 10:39 am
It is entirely possible to fold the functions of some centers into others and for some of the functions to be eliminated without serious consequences to the research and teaching purposes of the college. The losses of administrative jobs and the merging of some of the centers are certain and unavoidable.
5/15/2009 10:45 am
To Al: All Harvard professors do teach. The vast majority are required to teach two courses per term. The question at issue is whether they should teach more courses or teach their existing courses with less support from TAs, not whether they should teach at all.
To Real Savings: Since nearly all of the money spent by the CGIS centers comes from center-specific endowments or from project-specific grants, it’s not clear to me that that money could be used for other things. Better to keep the centers but do more to require them to focus on our core mission.
5/15/2009 11:01 am
Are the funds from endowments and grants to pay for administrative staff? This is where the savings can come, so that more of those funds can be used for focus on research and teaching, including salary support for faculty.
5/15/2009 11:27 am
I wonder if this is why we keep hearing about House staff being cut — they are not funded by particular grants or endowments, so are more easily eliminated, even if those jobs have significant impact on the student experience. I find it interesting reading here to contrast 50/50 who thinks faculty salaries should be cut in the name of fairness and Real Savings who thinks staff should be cut to give more to faculty (presumably poorer junior faculty).
5/15/2009 11:42 am
Richard,
Your suggestion is absolutely RIGHT ON TARGET. I hope it gets legs.
At Princeton professors are required to teach sections; this is by no means a radical shocking suggestion.
This is what blogs are for!
SE
5/15/2009 11:45 am
I agree with Standing Eagle -who must have been hybernating.
What are Econ Professors complaining about? It’s not clear why they want more time free from students. For a look at what two of their luminaries had to say about the crisis back in the fall read below. What do they want more free time for, write on their blogs?
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=524253
Mankiw kept the audience chuckling with cracks about his safe job as a tenured professor, references to Chapter 26 of his “favorite textbook,” and “the mafia approach” of forcing banks to increase their capital stock, in which he supposed that the Treasury Department might say to an ailing bank, “You have a really nice bank here—I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to it.”
He discussed academic critiques of the Treasury’s bailout proposal and alternatives through which the government might help banks recapitalize, but did not indicate which approach he favored.
Kenneth S. Rogoff, an economics professor and former chief researcher at the International Monetary Fund, said that the “bloated” financial sector needed shrinking for some time.
He garnered spontaneous applause for his jabs at recent Harvard graduates who had gone into investment banking by saying that many of them would now be free to “go into other activities.”
“I got a call from a former student today,” Rogoff said. “He asked, ‘What am I supposed to do now? Do I have to get a real job?’”
5/15/2009 1:19 pm
When I first came to Harvard, I taught one section in each of my large-enrollment courses, but graduate students complained that I was cutting them out of jobs. Teaching sections oneself is, however, a great way to get a feel for how students are responding, and it’s more effective than just visiting the TFs’ sections from time to time.
As Beecham notes, they are cutting non-Harvard teaching assistants (TAs), not current graduate students who are teaching (TFs). At present, graduate students eligible to teach are still doing so, but it will be more difficult to find the extra sections that so many TFs have relied on to keep them financially afloat. Most graduate students need to teach two sections a semester or one language section that counts as something approaching the equivalent of two sections.
Next year, sections in German have been drastically pruned. I understand that this is being done in other foreign-language departments as well. What this means is that students will have fewer choices of time block in which to take their language courses and will thus have to juggle more carefully in order to fit them in. (Remember that there is still a foreign language requirement.)
As other have said in the comments above, this new situation will probably become the norm. The following year, even more cuts need to be made, according to Dean Smith. So we can expect even more pruning of section offerings, and very likely some cuts that strike ever further into the quick of the educational enterprise.
5/16/2009 7:09 am
By the way, I should have written “teaching fellows.” Correction forthcoming.
5/16/2009 8:19 am
The Globe today has an article describing how the pain of adjusting to the new fiscal situation is shared…
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2009/05/16/harvard_president_made_775k_in_first_year_on_job/
5/16/2009 9:22 am
There are significant ties between Wall Street and Harvard University. Many in Harvard’s governance uphold the same ethical norms that allowed the current financial crisis to happen.
What happened to the ‘Harvard Watch’ Group and the reports on Harvard Governance they produced?
http://books.google.com/books?id=rUyvmnHO_kUC&pg=PA68&lpg=PA68&dq=harvard+watch+governance&source=bl&ots=DdGNwARXWh&sig=cBq3yWnfw0SewyqFnUsyFg0r5xA&hl=en&ei=bMsOSqUF18e2B-b9_OgH&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6
5/16/2009 11:43 am
The Crimson just woke up to the actions led by some student leaders on the budget process:
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=528223
5/16/2009 2:22 pm
Actually, I think you were right the first time: it’s fewer TAs and not necessarily fewer TFs. TAs are those instructors who aren’t FAS grad students.
5/16/2009 3:31 pm
Certainly the TAs-often people who live in the area and are have the appropriate qualifications-will be the first to go. In fact, many have already been told that they will not be rehired in the fall. In large courses, however, some TFs (grad students) may not get the two sections they had been hoping for, and it may be harder than it used to be for them to find an additional section in another course.