Dear Bruce Pawlak,
I think it could be helpful for you to contact some professor in Germany
working in a Fachhochschule (FH), i.e. a University with parctical
orientation, a model which is institutionalized in that country. To
teach in a Fachhochschule the teachers, called Professor (FH), need to
have at least three to five years of relevant practical experience in
the field they teach, because the schools teach in a practical oriented
way. In some case the FH have even higher entry barriers, in terms of
the required final exam note from college, than the universities, so
that there is now competition between the two models among students. The
only limitation of FH is that, after completion, the students are not
allowed to start a doctoral program.
Saluti
Giuseppe Delmestri
Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italia