Have you ever had that one professor who completely ruined a class for you? Whether it was because they have zero teaching skills, clearly didn't want to be there or spoke almost no English, they made life hell for you. The sad thing is that I've had way too many of these cases and I'm only a sophomore in college.
The whole point of attending university is being taught by experts in your field, who will take extra time of their day to help you understand difficult concepts, thoroughly explain during their lectures and transform you into successful professionals one day. Getting a degree is not an easy task; students have heavy course loads to juggle with extracurriculars and on-campus jobs as well. We rely on professors to teach us so that we can do the work easily.
I did not sign up to be tens of thousands of dollars in debt from student loans so that researchers, who have never taught a day in their life, are forced to lecture me on cell biology because the university requires them to be professors to do research here.
Any grade school teacher will say that they went into this profession because they love TEACHING. They spend time on making lesson plans and working out ways to explain one concept five different times for students who might not get it the first time around, even if it's teaching introductory biology to 7th graders when they have a master's degree in that field. It should be the same way with college professors. If you don't have an education degree, you shouldn't be teaching. Plain and simple. I want to love a class because my professor makes it interesting and clearly loves what they're doing, not because they're just here to do research. We can't learn well just by teaching ourselves a difficult course of brand new material.
Now, before you argue with me that immigrants have every right to teach here, I'm going to stop you. I'm the child of immigrants, so I'm all for them to work here. The difference is that my parents worked their butts off to become fluent enough in English to become successful in their jobs. If you are going to teach at an American university in English, please for crying out loud, be able to speak and understand the language well enough to communicate with students properly. I don't care if you have an accent, I just want my questions understood and answered in a way I can comprehend.
What happened to putting the students, on whom pays this institution millions intuition, first? I can't become a successful Physician Assistant without the professors who put forth 110% effort into making sure I understand the material and made me love my major. They are the ones who deserve those jobs, not some fancy Ivy League researcher who thinks they're above public state university students. The ones who will meet with you outside of office hours to go over exams, come to your exam review sessions and stay after with you to discuss questions, even though it's late and they have a kid at home, are the kind of people that should be hired over others.
So dear American universities,
Give me what I'm paying for.
Sincerely,
An angry college student who will pay tuition for your graduate school as well.