This is a great point. I’m a huge fan of taking time off to work in industry before going back to grad school. I took three years off, and I think it was one of the best. I’m not sure about differences in teaching, but I do feel as if working gave me a perspective that I don’t think I had coming out of undergrad. Not only does it contribute to the application of my research (and works to bridge the research-practitioner gap), I feel I matured in that I am better able to situate graduate studies and academia in society. Kudos to those who go straight, though. That’s a lot of school without a break!
As for teaching, I know in my previous position I was able to practice speaking in front of large groups of people, including big dogs in the company, so it improved my public speaking skills. I think that certainly helped.

I’m certainly not opposed to the idea of structuring classes focused on a particular group of people, but I’ve always hated the terminology for some of these classes. I know I’m being super picky, I’ve heard of classes called “Math for the Social Sciences” or “English for Math Majors.” I think even just naming the classes this way facilitates disciplinary and silo-ed thinking when it comes to academics, as well as risks stereotyping certain majors as being weak n a particular domain. For example, at my school, everyone knew that “Math for the Social Sciences” was a lot easier than other Math classes, but many of us Social Scientists are actually strong in Maths. I realize this is just a matter of semantics, but can we at least think of better names for some of these classes?

This is a really interesting idea! However, I think we first need to think about the role of the President. One of his/her primary duties is fundraising. I don’t think I’d be able to determine who has particularly good executive and/or fundraising skills. But it would be really fun to have university presidential campaigns on campus!