You make good points about the teaching/research dilemma, especially for places that end up farming out the teaching to grad students and term appointments. However, the reason that far away from the state of Michigan a degree from U. of Michigan is worth more than a degree from Hope or Calvin has nothing to do with teaching and only somewhat to do with big time athletics. They have an internal reputation for state of the art research, and some of that may work its way into the classroom. Research also brings in more money from the donors (but perhaps not as much as sports, once again).

I must admit my bias (I teach at Calvin), but I think the balance at the smaller schools is a healthy one. We do research here with the idea that we’re bringing it into the classroom, both by getting the students directly involved and by using the results as illustrations.

I submit to your schooling. I always thought it meant “one could not be fired.”

That said, I also think its pretty silly to give teaching jobs to people who have a primary focus of research as well as forcing teachers to publish.

Contrary to what Moab (and many like him or her) thinks, it also makes the job that much more stressful. How many other jobs start out as one year contracts after someone already has 5-10 years of post-college training? There are evaluations throughout, and at tenure the school has to decide if it wants to commit. A faculty member has ~6 years to convince the school that he or she is worth having around. Yeah, it’s cake alright.