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tsukikageThe Role Of the University in Higher Education
The Role Of the University in Higher Education
September 19, 2003, 06:05 PM
After attending the whole IT in the research university event as well as reflecting on my experiences in classes here at CMU and my illustrious schoolmates' comments and complaints on their own experiences, I've got to thinking about what exactly the role of a research university should be in the broader educational system. Although I'm no expert in education, I have been a student for many years now and have some experience with teaching, so I feel I have some authority to pronounce on this subject.
Here's my thoughts on what kind of learning would be appropriate at the various stages of education and who should be responsible for meeting these expectations:
1. Undergraduate education should focus on giving students a broad base of knowledge to form the foundations of a productive intellectual life, as well as enough skills in a particular field to begin a career. Ideally students should all leave undergrad as T-shaped people. In my opinion, undergraduate degrees should not be conferred by research institutions; they should instead be granted by colleges that are specifically oriented towards teaching. Teaching well is a full-time job; you can't expect researchers to be able to just "fit it in" to their research schedules, especially when their incentive structure heavily favors deprioritizing it in favor of their research. These teaching colleges must also have the resources to offer courses tailored towards students with particular interests; it is not acceptable to expect a designer to learn everything they need to communicate with programmers by taking an introductory computer science course geared towards people who want to focus on programming, for instance.
2. Professional graduate education, such as the programs I and most of my friends are in here at CMU, can be taught by research institutions, but must not be seen as "more undergraduate work". If you want to learn a new skill, you need to go back to a teaching college. Professional graduate education, on the other hand, should mostly involve courses run in a seminar style that focus on collaboration between the professors and students (most of whom are returning to school after spending some time practicing their trade) to distill the abstract research done by academics into a form that can be used by the industry practitioners. Essentially, professional graduate education should be viewed more as a form of technology transfer (numerous studies have found that transferring people is much more effective than merely transferring technology) and less as a form of instruction.
3. Academic education, or PhD programs, should be run more or less as they are now. Essentially PhD programs are (or should be) a form of apprenticeship where the student learns by working with the master. Hopefully freeing researchers from some of their teaching burdens will give them more time to spend working with their PhD students, who are the type of people they are actually qualified to teach.
So that's my modest proposal.
Makes sense to me, although I think these different forms of education could be held at the same facility if the faculty is hired with each of these areas in mind.
The Role Of the University in Higher Education
September 19, 2003, 06:05 PM
After attending the whole IT in the research university event as well as reflecting on my experiences in classes here at CMU and my illustrious schoolmates' comments and complaints on their own experiences, I've got to thinking about what exactly the role of a research university should be in the broader educational system. Although I'm no expert in education, I have been a student for many years now and have some experience with teaching, so I feel I have some authority to pronounce on this subject.
Here's my thoughts on what kind of learning would be appropriate at the various stages of education and who should be responsible for meeting these expectations:
1. Undergraduate education should focus on giving students a broad base of knowledge to form the foundations of a productive intellectual life, as well as enough skills in a particular field to begin a career. Ideally students should all leave undergrad as T-shaped people. In my opinion, undergraduate degrees should not be conferred by research institutions; they should instead be granted by colleges that are specifically oriented towards teaching. Teaching well is a full-time job; you can't expect researchers to be able to just "fit it in" to their research schedules, especially when their incentive structure heavily favors deprioritizing it in favor of their research. These teaching colleges must also have the resources to offer courses tailored towards students with particular interests; it is not acceptable to expect a designer to learn everything they need to communicate with programmers by taking an introductory computer science course geared towards people who want to focus on programming, for instance.
2. Professional graduate education, such as the programs I and most of my friends are in here at CMU, can be taught by research institutions, but must not be seen as "more undergraduate work". If you want to learn a new skill, you need to go back to a teaching college. Professional graduate education, on the other hand, should mostly involve courses run in a seminar style that focus on collaboration between the professors and students (most of whom are returning to school after spending some time practicing their trade) to distill the abstract research done by academics into a form that can be used by the industry practitioners. Essentially, professional graduate education should be viewed more as a form of technology transfer (numerous studies have found that transferring people is much more effective than merely transferring technology) and less as a form of instruction.
3. Academic education, or PhD programs, should be run more or less as they are now. Essentially PhD programs are (or should be) a form of apprenticeship where the student learns by working with the master. Hopefully freeing researchers from some of their teaching burdens will give them more time to spend working with their PhD students, who are the type of people they are actually qualified to teach.
So that's my modest proposal.
Makes sense to me, although I think these different forms of education could be held at the same facility if the faculty is hired with each of these areas in mind.
