Why Your Children Should Attend Northern State

OK, forgive the shameless promotion, but I could help but think of the advantages of a smaller institution of higher education when I read this from the Wall Street Journal about embattled Harvard President Larry Summers.

While the crowd quizzed Summers on an array of issues, the president conducted an informal poll at last night's forum to identify students' primary concerns.

A chorus of [students] complained about the poor quality of academic advising and a lack of interaction between students and tenured professors.

When Summers asked the crowd whether "two senior faculty know you well," barely a quarter of students raised their hands.

I can guarantee you that at certain intimate South Dakota universities, perhaps one that goes by the initials NSU, you will have at least two, and likely more, senior faculty members who know you well. Virtually every class will be taught by a full-time faculty member and that faculty member will get to know you. In fact I was just chatting with some students before class today about university life and one of them, without prompting, said that Stanford might be more exclusive but they don’t care about their students and you might never be taught by an actual faculty member; it’ll be all grad students and adjuncts. That doesn’t happen around here. Now back to your regular programming.