Curious to what people think about a student signing up for a course for a specific professor and then the professor does not actually teach the majority, or sometimes none, of the course. Since students pay for the course, is this misrepresentation? Also consider if the TA has influence on the grading system.

It depends.

At most schools professor are rate in three areas: teaching, service, and research.

In most departments, the faculty's teaching component is a give-me, as long as you don't do drugs in class, sleep with a student, get taped something indefensible... What matters for most faculty is research.

So, PhD students are inexperienced but may actually care more about the teaching. OTOH, there can be profound difficulties with culture and communication, particularly if they are foreign. Many faculty are lazy, many phD students are overloaded.

Neither is necessarily bad nor good.

But it helps for students to establish good relationships with faculty. Internships, mentoring, working as an assistant, recommendations, etc. So, generally a good idea to take major classes with "real faculty".

My .02 as an ex-department head (not at A&M).

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It depends.

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So, generally a good idea to take major classes with "real faculty".

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I agree. There are plenty of lower-level courses where a T/A is a perfectly adequate instructor. But the further you go up, the more you should see the "real faculty." But there are exceptions. Some areas of study are more theoretical, while others are more practical. The more a field is practical, the better off you might be with a T/A, assuming the T/A came from industry. For example, I'd rather take a theoretical math class from a full professor, but I might rather take a media production class from someone who recently came to the Viz Lab from a movie studio, just because they probably have more insight into what is happening in the field right now.

Back in the 90's a dept I interacted with had a retirement. The following year a visting prof taught one of the retirees Jr level courses. OK...his area of expertise wasn't necessarily aligned exactly with the subject but at least he had some credentials that weren't bad. The year after that an interim dept head assigned one of his 2nd semester masters students to be the instructor for that Jr level course after the visiting prof left. Several of us "outsiders" had rather vigorous discussions with the dept head and senior faculty in the dept about the issue and I was shocked at the defensiveness and contortions the academics argued to defend it. They seemed to change direction quickly when they saw a draft letter to the TX Board of Prof Engineers and Accreditation Board for Engineering & Technology (ABET) about what had transpired. One of my friends who ran a statewide association operated from the dept and also was very vocal about it being unacceptable ended up getting put on a small teaching appointment and taught that class for twenty plus years until he retired. It is crap like that (and many similar instances of things) that gives academia a bad name.

I have taught in higher education for almost 30 years, and I am not tenured/tenure-track, so my primary focus is teaching. While I also have service requirements, I do not have any research requirements. I have noticed that most students (when I came to college I was the same way) have no idea how the world of higher education "works" nor how they fit into this world.

I used to spend a class day (lecture) in which I attempt to orient students to this new world. Now, rather then spend a sustained 50 minutes, I weave tidbits in throughout the semester. The highlight real includes a brief history of higher education in the United States:

Higher education in the United States started with the goal to educate clergy and leaders and modeled its organization and structure after Oxford and Cambridge. This British influence resulted in a classical curriculum. Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, Princeton, etc. focused on Greek, Latin, logic, rhetoric, and other classical subjects.

In the mid-1800s higher education shifted to a German-influenced system that taught new findings through experimental and empirical research. Earning a PhD became the mark of a "true scholar" and the classical focus was mostly abandoned by the major colleges and universities. The new land grant schools (TAMU) followed this model and placed little emphasis on the classics (relegated them to be handled by the core curriculum) and focused on science, technology, engineering, and agriculture with a heavy focus on research as the goal of the university.

The German model not only explains why the curriculum contains what it does, but it also explains how the curriculum is delivered. The focus was to develop PhDs with expertise in specialized areas. These PhDs teach the next generation of future PhDs. The students under a specific professor's tutelage where the assistants (in that professor's research) and they in turn taught those below them, etc. Universities kept the undergraduate program, but, in the beginning of this transformation from classical to German model, the undergraduate program was largely treated as students who would continue in the education system as eventual PhDs.

Key points for students to consider:
PhD faculty are evaluated on all 3 missions of higher education (research, teaching, and service), and research is their number one focus. Research is how they get promoted, so teaching is not their main focus.

PhD faculty are highly educated in their area of expertise. The vast majority of them have zero education on pedagogy (how to teach), so they often aren't the best teachers. Courses taught by Phds are by-and-large "I have a depth of knowledge of this subject. My research focus is (insert a specific and highly-focused topic within the subject). It has been so long since I have been in the place of being introduced to this broad subject that I don't even remember not knowing what this undergraduate course teaches. Here is a book that explains the basics. You students should get yourselves up to speed so you can understand what I will talk about in class." There are, of course, exceptions, and some PhDs are wonderful teachers. Many times they are fully tenured and are not concerned with "publish or perish". It is also quite possible that a TA is better suited to teaching undergraduates simply because they are closer to their undergraduate days.

In higher education, students are expected to learn more than faculty are expected to teach. I hope this makes sense. Students are in charge of their learning. Faculty are not tasked with making sure students learn. One of the things that students need to learn is how higher education works. For example, in higher education, we communicate by showing which ideas are not ours by meticulously citing sources, both in-text and on a reference page. This is especially important because ideas are the product in higher education. It is theft to represent other people's ideas as our own.

Higher education in the United States is, of course, evolving, Most undergraduates are not planning to pursue a PhD. Instead, they see college as a path to a job, and they expect the college to "train them" so they are ready for the job. Some colleges are responding to this by modifying their curriculum in this way. Regardless of curriculum changes, the structure of the university is still largely the German model.

I type all of this because I find that often dissatisfaction comes from misplaced expectations. While society seems to be moving toward expecting that higher education is a commodity, the academic arm of the university does not approach it this way.

Finally, the instructor listed on the registration system is the "instructor of record". That person is tasked with submitting census day rosters, mid-term grades (if applicable), and final grades. Many departments are moving toward TBA as the instructor (for various reasons).