When I read the syllabi of some courses from Haverford College, I quickly realized through this research that the academic approaches of the liberal arts college were very different from those of the university.
First, the academic assessment is rather different. In my university, in the departments belonging to the humanities and social sciences, a course description would outline two main assignments: the first one being generally an essay, and the second one most of the time an exam, though sometimes a second essay and occasionally a presentation. Not much else was given. One student might think: “Yea! No homework!” I would say: no homework means no regular thought processes, no regular intellectual interrogation, no regular curiosity. An average student will not spend extra time reading or researching the topic of the week. So the only work the student truly develops to an interesting level consists of one or two essays.
In contrast, the Haverford syllabi contained work assigned every week: a reflective journal entry per week or per text read, three analytic papers, perhaps one midterm exam, and certainly one final exam or research essay. One European might say: “You should not need these exercises, you should be able to do the work on your own if you’re smart.”
My reply would be: a student is not a teacher. This is to say; even a very smart student would not always come up with a good method of learning. This is why those who teach us should be qualified to teach. The aim of these smaller exercises is by no means to torture the student, but to stimulate an interesting discussion with the text and to teach us students some possible ways to think critically. If I may quote Daniel F. Chambliss’ sociology paper, “excellence is mundane,” he says. Which is to say that the path to growth is in the little things and in their regularity. Our Exeter professors often told us we would grow intellectually by their teaching, but this is only for those who know how. As undergraduate students, we are here to learn methods of intellectual growth, not to be left on our own expected to make groundbreaking research overnight.
My point is, paraphrased, that it is not because an academic is qualified for research that they will be qualified for teaching. A research university will hire professors who can research their field well. A liberal arts college is an institution focused on teaching undergraduate students to help them grow both as students and as persons. The difference is crystal clear.
