It is, unfortunately, a pissing match that is
all the higherups care about. What brings a school money? Students? Naaah. GRANTS bring the school money, for engineering -- And maybe that's only so true because at UF (where I attend for CS), tuition is dirt cheap. It's gone up like... 40% since I started, I think? and is still like $150/cr. And what brings grants? Research and papers and publications and. . .
I've had more mediocre professors at UF than great ones, by far. In the CS department, there's been one good prof, one great prof (He even posts on here, actually...), and one OUTSTANDING
... lecturer. Said outstanding lecturer is being
let go because he doesn't have a PhD (from the campus newspaper). Compare him to the
professors I've had that phone it in. The ones that show up 10 minutes late every lecture and read off ppt slides. The data structures prof I had who used the book and slides that our department chair wrote 10 years ago that I've even heard professors say are godawful, let alone everyone that takes the class. Grumblegrumble.