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DO LARGE ENDOWMENTS AND NOBEL PRIZE LAUREATE FACULTY PRODUCE BETTER TEACHING AND LEARNING OUTCOMES?

Abstract

The top universities in terms of numbers of Nobel laureates who either graduated or lectured at, are also at the top of all prestigious global university rankings. Harvard University, the richest university in the world, produced more Nobel laureates than any other university in the world, and remains one of the top universities in all global university ranking systems. Nevertheless, the notion that elite rich universities are synonymous with quality education requires a comprehensive examination. Said (2024) revealed that the wide-spread misconception that the O2 released during photosynthesis originates from the CO2 absorbed is rooted in the intuition of R. Feynman, a Nobel Prize laureate, graduated from MIT and Princeton, and lectured at Caltech. Publicly available data from course evaluations at Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University show that fourteen students evaluated teaching effectiveness of twelve different courses taught during Spring 2023 at 4.4 (on a scale of 1 to 5). Conclusions about teaching effectiveness cannot be drawn from data collected from small number of students, from a single academic term; as such, the findings cannot be generalized. At the University of Georgia, 1,785 students evaluated teaching effectiveness in 10 different biology courses taught between Summer 2004 and Fall 2014 at 4.6, rated learning experience at 4.5, and student engagement at 4.5. This paper proposes that departments or divisions use official course evaluations to present data on teaching and learning in their classrooms. Data should be driven from a minimum of 1,700 evaluations, from at least 10 representative courses taught within the past 20 years. Courses should range from introductory- to senior-, and one section of a graduate-level course. Except for the graduate-level section, data from less than five evaluations can't be used due to reliability concerns.

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