A professor of Jewish civilization at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service (SFS) critiqued the doctoral education process for its neglect of undergraduate teaching in a Sept. 30 book.
In “As Professors Lay Dying,” Jacques Berlinerblau, the professor, argued that faculty devote less time to undergraduates because they are focused on research as opposed to teaching, creating a nationwide crisis within higher education. The book, an update to a previous edition, shows that since the graduate study and hiring process is centered around research, faculty view anything that distracts from that, such as undergraduate teaching, as a negative.

Berlinerblau said doctoral programs, which focus on research, do not prepare faculty to teach undergraduate students.
“The doctorate doesn’t prepare you to teach undergraduates,” Berlinerblau told The Hoya. “American higher education developed an ideology that really cool stuff doesn’t involve undergraduate teaching. The cool stuff is working with graduate students, or ideally not teaching at all, and just being able to do research.”
Berlinerblau added that this dynamic harms undergraduate teaching.
“The professorate has emphasized research at the expense of teaching undergraduates, and now we have this kind of crisis in undergraduate teaching,” Berlinerblau said.
Berlinerblau, in his book, argued that faculty are not prepared to teach students because doctoral experiences often focus solely on research, and universities do not invest in pedagogical training. Professors gain and maintain positions at universities through research, resulting in a faculty that views teaching as a distraction from research, according to Berlinerblau.
Berlinerblau, who teaches a comedy class in the English department at Georgetown, said the book was a deviation from the scholarly work he typically publishes, noting his casual and comedic tone, including making jokes throughout the book.
“I do mostly scholarship, but this book is a trade book; it’s meant to be funny,” Berlinerblau said. “It doesn’t have any footnotes. I’m not trying to document or discover something. I’m just trying to describe where I am.”
Jonathan Bar-On (SFS ’25), who worked with Berlinerblau on the book, said the book provides college students and applicants with unique insights into what to look for in a mentor and what to look for in an education, respectively.
“I think that for most college students right now, it’s an important read so they can understand a lot of their frustrations with their professors and their classes,” Bar-On wrote to The Hoya. “I think the people that will benefit the most from this are high school juniors and their parents.”
Berlinerblau said the book examines the difference between how people earn their doctorates and obtain a tenure-track position and what that faculty position — which professors often keep for decades — entails.
“I talk about this massive disconnect between what we’re training doctorates to do and what they do,” Berlinerblau said. “What, in theory, we’re supposed to do is teach undergraduates for 50 years or so. But we’re never trained to do that in graduate school.”
Lainey Lyle (SFS ’27), who also assisted Berlinerblau with the book, said an issue with undergraduate teaching is a lack of tenure offers.
“When professors are tenured, they’re going to be much more dedicated to the school,” Lyle told The Hoya. “You can guarantee that they will be doing more research, but also more teaching in their tenure job.”
Lyle said helping Berlinerblau with the book taught her new ways of thinking about higher education.
“I think it was very interesting. Berlinerblau certainly has a lot of opinions on the idea of the undergrad education experience,” Lyle said. “I read through the entire book three separate times, leaving comments and double-checking all of his footnotes on the back end.”
Berlinerblau said recent cuts in higher education grants by the federal government made a new edition timely and necessary, serving as a commentary on the perils modern education faces.
“As I understand it, the Trump administration is doing its best to tell private universities that, ‘We’re watching you, and we will inflict pain if we can,’” Berlinerblau said.
Berlinerblau said students should pursue their interests to maximize their college experiences even amid this apparent crisis.
“Cultivate your own garden, and that’s the advice I’m giving to people, artists, musicians, journalists,” Berlinerblau said. “Do your thing and do it well.”