The Ivory Tower strikes back

One of the most interesting (and tragic) comments from a Ph.D. defending the premise that only those with doctorates should be professors - 

"Individuals who want experience and to learn from experienced mentors should go to work." 

Funny, I thought people went to college to prepare themselves for the workplace. It's apparently a different world in the Ivory Tower.

The one common theme to most of the ensuing discussions was a definitive disconnect between academia and the workplace.  While I center on the learning, the teaching, and the students, the Ph.D.s defending their positions centered on the faculty.  Some even went off on a tangent about end of course surveys (performance and accountability are scary things in the Ivory Tower).   

To be fair, there were a lot of Ph.D.s who were rational, respectful, and open minded in the discussions and I would surmise that most are fine teachers (and the students attending their colleges and universities are receiving a first rate education).  My position is that we're short changing the students when we artificially limit the universe of professors to only those with a terminal degree. 

The doctorate - to be or not to be?

I recently posed a question to three of my LinkedIn groups that pertain to higher education - Why is a doctorate necessary for attaining professorship at most colleges and universities?  As always, the responses were well thought out, cogent, and representative of divergent views on the subject.

Before I offer my view, I need to pen a disclaimer.  The doctoral level credits that I've earned are in statistics and research.  When I was in the program in the mid-1990s, I had a different take on pursuing my doctorate (like that's a surprise to anyone who knows me) - I was going after the dissertation first, thus the statistics and research courses up front.  I never finished the program because of various reasons, but got a taste of what it's like to pursue that level of scholarship.  On the plus side, most of the regional accrediting agencies have cleared me to teach statistics and research at the graduate level because of my doctoral credits - I'm considered academically qualified as well as professionally qualified.  

I am not against pursuing a terminal degree (or degrees), to the contrary, I believe that the constant pursuit of knowledge is a noble endeavor at any age and is consistent with the human thirst for understanding.  However, I strongly believe that the doctoral requisite for attaining professorship is wrong headed and irrelevant to the pursuit of scholarship.  We've gotten away from what education is really about and that is the learning.  Is a Ph.D. really required to teach?  Absolutely not.  I would go so far as to say that an undergraduate degree is not required to teach.  Bill Gates is not a college graduate; however, I'd bet dimes to dollars that if he were a professor, the level of education (read: learning) in his courses would be of the highest caliber.  Steve Jobs would not qualify for a professorship yet his speeches alone are worth a few college credits (I actually use several of his speeches to exemplify effective presentation and communications skills in the curriculum that I write).  There are literally tens of thousands of very qualified persons working in both the private and public sectors today that would make wonderful teachers and professors, but they lack the sanctioned "credentials" to do so.  If this is true, then isn't this sanctioning (or gate keeping) a net harm to the education profession and to students?   

The mandate of a doctorate for professorship and state certification of teaching credentials are anachronisms.  In another time, when knowledge was concentrated, the doctoral requirement and state sanctioned credentialing probably made sense; however, in today's environment where knowledge is diffuse and democratized, it no longer makes sense.  

The accrediting agencies themselves give credence to the qualifications of of those who are "doctorally qualified", but sans a terminal degree  For example - the AACSB distinguishes between academically qualified (AQ) and professionally qualified (PQ) and establishes a minimum AQ/PQ ratio to maintain academic integrity and stringency.  AACSB standards do give allowance for those without a terminal degree as long as they are “fully participating faculty.”  Most of the regional accrediting bodies have similar definitions of doctorally qualified faculty.  The point is, a professionally qualified rather than academically qualified professor is recognized by the accrediting bodies.

As for the research argument, it's a non-starter because possessing a terminal degree doesn't make anyone more adept at research than would an MBA make someone more adept at business or an education degree make someone more adept at teaching.  As with everything in education, it's the ability to apply the knowledge that counts.  I do grant that someone who has gone through the rigors of a dissertation will have a better baseline than most with regard to research methodologies, etc., but that doesn't necessarily translate to the ability to teach nor does it translate to the ability to conduct practical research. 

In certain fields a terminal degree may be quite necessary to teach the subject matter at a level of scholarship required to impart the knowledge; however, a blanket requirement across all professorships seems to be at cross purposes with the intent of most institutions (explicit or not) - to provide an education that can be put to productive use in the workplace (which, in most cases, a pure academic cannot do).  I do not begrudge the doctorate, not by any means, but I do begrudge the requirement of a doctorate for professorship.  

Context

The purpose of education is to employ knowledge to productive and useful purposes, not to regurgitate facts and figures without context.  In most states, our secondary schools "teach to the test" rather than a mastery of the subject matter.  This results in frustrated students, parents, teachers, administrators, and college professors/employers who must deal with the inadequate preparation.

My daughter is currently a high school sophomore.  Her math teacher recently  refused to answer a student's question pertaining to how and why logarithms are used in practice, saying that it wasn't important and they'd talk about it later in the course.  Now I don't know if the teacher was masking ignorance or not, but the student was bringing up a good point - context.  The how and why questions are extremely important in education; however, they're routinely ignored in favor of mechanics.  The mechanics are important, but are fairly useless when taught without context.

Last week, the very same teacher did a demonstration using a paper plate and string to explain the concept of radians.  Wham...the students got the concept!  My daughter told her teacher that the demonstration helped her to understand radians and that examples like this would be helpful in the future.  The teacher may take it to heart or not, but my daughter instinctively knows what works and what doesn't work in her education and it revolves around context.  The timing was fortuitous because my wife and I had a parent-teacher conference since the radian demonstration and we were able to mention to the teacher how much better our daughter found that teaching style.

All curriculum and instruction should be in context, not only within the body of knowledge itself, but in its relationship to other educational disciplines and practical applications.         

Status quo and innovation

One of the best management philosophies to put in place in any organization is the allowance for challenging existing business practices.  As a matter of fact, it should be incorporated into every job description.  There is a reason for doing things a certain way, but time and circumstances will change the foundation for those reasons, sometimes making them moot and irrelevant - not a very good standing for moving forward.

There's a story by Zig Ziglar that paints a caricature of status quo thinking; it's paraphrased here:

One Saturday morning a good ol' boy hunkered down in his favorite chair to spend the afternoon watching college football on TV.  His wife soon appeared and asked him if he could go to the store to pick up a ham.  "Sure, I'll go at halftime" he said, "I need some more beer anyway."  On his way out his wife reminded him, "Honey, make sure the butcher cuts off the ends of the ham."  "Yep, got it" and he was on his way.  When he got back he asked his wife, "Honey, I've always wondered, why do you have the butcher cut off the ends of the ham?"  "Because that's how my mama taught me."  He was still curious, "Well, why did your mama cut off the ends of the ham?"  "I don't know honey, but let's ask mama when she's over for dinner tonight."  That night as they finished dinner the wife asked her mother, "Mama, why did you cut off the ends of the ham?"  "Well, sugar, that's the way Nana taught me."  "Well, why did Nana do it?"  "I don't really know.  Let's give her a call and find out."  They called up Nana and asked her.  Nana replied, "Oh dear, my pan was too small for the whole ham, so I cut off the ends."

"Nana had her reason, what's yours?" 

This story is a perfect example of status quo thinking and not challenging the foundation of why something is done a particular way.  You can probably think of dozens of instances in your organization where the status quo doesn't make sense, but has never been challenged.  How do we move beyond the current state when we can't get past the status quo?

The only way to move forward is to constantly challenge the current state of affairs.  This isn't to say that we should purposely mess up a perfectly good brand or change just to change, but it is to say that we should always look for new ways of doing things.  By new, we mean effective and up to date.  

 

For example, before spreadsheets were commonplace, cost accounting was very departmentalized, done by the "green eye shade" people with calculators running overtime against pages and pages of ledgers.  Information was fed manually or through mainframe systems that produced data which couldn't be ported to any useful application.  The information was extracted manually and formulated by the cost analysts and accountants.  Spreadsheets changed everything.  Now data could be manipulated in almost any fashion so desired by the consumers of the information.  Data could be presented in ways that made sense to non-accountants and the data could be ported to and from relational databases with ease.  From this came integrated financial systems that pulled information from every quarter and worked seamlessly with other enterprise applications.  Financial data was no longer the domain of the "green eye shade" people, it belonged to everyone.  Data was at everybody's fingertips and could be used however they needed it to be used.  Spreadsheets, in essence, "democratized" data - there was no reason to stick with the old systems.

Challenging the status quo comes with its own challenges as does innovation.  People will resist innovation for a variety of reasons.  It may be that they don't understand the rationale behind the need for change, they may have a political stake that they don't want uprooted, or they are afraid of the unknown.  In order for innovation to become a norm, a culture of change must be present.  A manager must instill a mindset that innovation will be rewarded; it needs to become part of the formal goal setting and review process in addition to the compensation structure.  Individual and team goals must reflect continuous improvement through innovation and change.  If the goals reflect this, then the work itself will become a conduit for change.
                       

Risk is inherent to change and innovation.  A culture of change goes hand in hand with a culture that accepts risk.  Again, this is not a blind risk, but an environment where calculated risks are normal and will be rewarded.