Hugh WILLMOTT wrote:
> P.A. Gantt wrote
>
> <<The working world wants
> our product (students) to be able to work day one.
>
> Rather than teach our students what we think they should
> know, why not ask our ultimate customers what attributes
> and skills they deem necessary for worker success on the job?>>
>
> Our `product' is not students but education based upon research and
> scholarship.
>
> Who pays for the education of students? Everyone who pays taxes, not
> just
> those who hire our students.
>
> The `working world' is not just those who sit on advisory councils,
> etc.
> but everyone who works in society, including those who work in the
> home, in
> schools,etc.
>
> Business has no legitimate place to dictate or monopolise educational
> agendas. Nor should teachers or trainers of management act as
> apologists for
> such dictatorship.
>
> Hugh
>
> Hugh Willmott
If I may add too many words,
I speak from a perspective of 11 years at a private University (well,
pretensions to a U, getting there) which placed great emphasis on
"preparing the student for their first professional (engineering &
business) employment." Demand for students from employers is very high
(>97%), so that ceases to be a decent measure of educational success.
Hugh is working toward saying (I think) that educational decisions are
made by different sources, and if so, he is right. We had the future
employer, the Accreditation Board for Engineering & Technology (ABET),
and our departmental collective wisdom, to arrive at a choice of
curriculum & course content. The parents were generally so awed by the
situation they did not question the wisdom of turning their darling
children over to the professors for 4+ years. We generally provided the
parents what they wanted, anyway - turning their adolescent brats
(whoops, offspring) into functioning adults. Well paid functioning
adults.
Inasmuch as the students bought into the social contract, they would
accept almost anything from the instructors, so long as the instructors
were fairly uniform in terms of intellectual difficulty (whoops again,
challenge). Just don't pass out many low grades. Our school 'culture'
was for relatively hard intellectual effort expected of, and received
from, the students. They all complained, but they did it.
In short, the whole thing works, and well. Multiple inputs from the 3
groups above result in a consensus, or at least understanding and sound
defense, of courses and academic choices. Yes, there is friction at the
edges. Academics don't agree with the industrialists, but they both
recognize the different perspectives they hold. ABET visits are to
academia what an ISO9000 audit is to a manufacturing company. Quit
complaining and keep your audit trail clean. I'm sure other countries
have their own academic accreditation/audit boards. The output of the
school I taught at was good, arguably as good as a research oriented
school near by. That research oriented school (which has a very good,
well earned reputation) aimed its under grads at grad school. 20% of
them went, too. Our school aims its students toward industry, and only
15% of our students went to grad school. So they were 20% efficient,
and we were 85% efficient?
I no longer teach at that school full time, so the above floats between
present and past tense. Sorry. It's late.
I just get a little short tempered when I hear (not necessarily those on
this thread) professors decry or extol pressure/input from non-academics
on what should be in the curriculum. We live in the larger world. We
have to interact with it, and adapt, slightly, to it.
Last word: When I first realized the mess the intro stat class was
in, and the near uselessness of its imposition upon willing minds, I
talked with the math department chair about the issue. He recognized
the seriousness of the situation (the next course in the applied stat
sequence had to start all over, as well as re-awaken the pummelled
interest), but cautioned me to 'wait a year or two. The lead instructor
for that course will retire soon, and things will change then.' It took
3 years for the key person (a really nice admirable fellow, actually) to
retire, and the issues did not go away. Only one instructor of 7
changed, and I noticed the effects immediately in my students. Do you
really think that a University can afford to change only when its
instructors retire? I would like to think this a retorical question.
Jay
--
Jay Warner
Principal Scientist
Warner Consulting, Inc.
4444 North Green Bay Road
Racine, WI 53404-1216
USA
Ph: (414) 634-9100
FAX: (414) 681-1133
email:
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Power to the data!