I've read several articles like this lately, and they've all ignored the elephant in the room, which is this:
Professors hate teaching.
The best-respected professors in a university manage large research projects, occasionally doing some research themselves. No-one becomes a professor to teach - if they wanted to teach, they'd have left after their degree and gone to a high school. The way that we select professors works to further this - no-one got tenure at a 'good' university without a strong research record. And since the competition is so fierce, research becomes your only focus.
It may be the case that smaller universities, or less-prestigious colleges, can give tenure to university-teachers. But as far as I can see within the system, teaching is considered a second-rate activity for second-rate minds. Given that, no professor who is considered excellent will try very hard to teach, and students' education will suffer.
Professors hate teaching.
The best-respected professors in a university manage large research projects, occasionally doing some research themselves. No-one becomes a professor to teach - if they wanted to teach, they'd have left after their degree and gone to a high school. The way that we select professors works to further this - no-one got tenure at a 'good' university without a strong research record. And since the competition is so fierce, research becomes your only focus.
It may be the case that smaller universities, or less-prestigious colleges, can give tenure to university-teachers. But as far as I can see within the system, teaching is considered a second-rate activity for second-rate minds. Given that, no professor who is considered excellent will try very hard to teach, and students' education will suffer.