A vegades he parlat en aquest blog de les funcions que tindria un nou tipus de professor. un professor que aprofités totes les eines de la web 2.0 i que també fe més que no pas només docència i recerca, sinó que tingués un important component de servei, en general dins d’un model de governança evolucionat.
Per això m’ha semblat interessant l’entrada de l’Inside Higher Educationt titulada The Skill Set We Need on comenta la manca de formació del professorat per tal d’impulsar estratègicamet la posició del seu grup de recerca o departament:
The economic crisis has also exposed a deeper problem — namely that faculty often lack the skills that are necessary to help us improve the position of our departments and colleges and lay the groundwork for growth in the years to come. Economists refer to such a situation as a skills gap – the areas of the economy that will experience the most growth in coming years (such as biotechnology) are those that require skill sets that the labor market does not provide in sufficient number. For faculty members today, preparing for the departments and programs of tomorrow requires skills that are not commonly taught in graduate programs and for which administrations don’t provide incentives. Building stronger programs means higher enrollments and more money. How one does this, however, involves mastering skills for which there is little training and no guidance.
Ja no es tracta només de cobrir una jubilació, sinó de mirar on és més necessària estratègicament. No es tracta ja de mantenir la plantilla d’un departament, sinó de mirar on són més interessants estratègicament els recursos disponibles:
The days of universities blindly signing off on faculty lines, even in the case of replacements following retirements, are over. The challenge will be to justify why a line is necessary. With scarce resources and nearly infinite demands, administrators are hard-pressed to justify why some departments should receive additional resources and others should not. A strategy for selling new lines is to use them to create synergies between academic units. Positions involving multiple departments can create faculty that complement each other rather than duplicate each other. Even within programs, faculty will need to justify how an additional line addresses a need in the curriculum. We think about curriculums as integrated wholes: in the coming years we will need to better sell how those proposed hires fosters that integration.
Aquesta entrada doncs reflexiona sobre la necessitat de noves places que adrecin temes com la interdisciplinarietat o curriculums integrats. Jo més aviat hi afegiria: places que permetin fer coses diferents, i que no repeteixin el que ja existeix.
A nivell departamental, és fàcil:
Faculty members should review the university strategic plan for insights on how to better align their departments’ needs with those of the university. Across departments, there are commonalities that can be used to position departments for future growth – statistics and research methods, for example, is taught at many universities at the graduate and undergraduate levels in psychology, sociology and political science. At some universities, we would also add public policy and international affairs to this list. While there are important differences in the subject matter, each class uses a statistics text and software. A cluster hire on social science research methods could solve some problems across these units and create additional synergies. Within departments, it is essential to think about the tradeoff between specialists and generalists. While many faculty would like to have another person in their exact same subfield, it might be more suitable for a department to hire a generalist to cover large intro classes if the present faculty members are unwilling to cover them.
Es parla d’alineació de l’estratègia departament i de la universitat! I es parla també de professorat-investigador generalista i especialista. No em desagrada pas, aquesta idea. És una mica el mateix que passa amb la recerca de la descoberta i la recerca de la integració, que ja he comentat alguna vegada en aquest blog.
En tot cas, el que cal és transparència i mètriques (complicat, per cert, això segon!)
The final barrier for faculty seeking to build stronger programs is transparency and benchmarking. Faced with pressures from state legislators, faculty need to be more open about what they do than ever before
Val la pena reflexionar sobre el que diu aquesta entrada de l’IHE. Encara que no s’hi estigui totalment d’acord, o que correspongui al sistema americà, hi podem aprendre coses interessants i veure-hi algunes claus de futur.
Imatge: http://www.samplestuff.com/2011/04/23/earn-extra-money-by-marketing-your-skills/