On Mon, 12 Oct 1998 11:09:01 -0500, tom abeles wrote:
>2) at the post baccalaureate level, many students choose the professor
>rather than the institution which seems to lead towards insitutions
>seeking to acquire superstars. At the uncergraduate level, the institution
>seems to have a "brand" effect which may reflect the faculty to a greater
>or lesser degree, creating some interesting issues.
"You mileage may vary," of course... When I decided to obtain my MBA, I
evaluated 2 programs here in Columbus, Ohio. The Ohio State University,
certainly a well-known college throughout the world (or maybe that's just
my viewpoint ;-) ), and Franklin University, an older, much smaller,
school located downtown. I chose the latter, not because of the
institution, nor for any specific professor, but rather for their
philosophy...
Their professors cannot obtain tenure. Every contract (to my
understanding) is year-to-year. They constantly review and change the
MBA program... it's only 5 years old, and has seen some change in course
offerings, required courses, and optional courses, with nearly every
incoming class. By design, the administrators want the program to learn
from itself so that a graduate returning only 5 years later would see an
entirely different MBA offering.
The program seriously considers input from students when evaluating both
the program and the individual professor's performance. Professors don't
lecture so much as facilitate class learning. The university constantly
evaluates its product (graduated students) in light of what the business
community (its customer) indicates it desires from the MBA program. Class
design throughout the program facilitates team learning (for students),
and the MBA faculty pursue joint projects as a learning team themselves.
Every 5 years, the MBA program gets a complete head-to-tails review which
takes into account all the learning obtained over the previous 5 years.
The review team consists of faculty and staff, as well as business
community and student representation.
I'm not certain I'd call the graduate program a LO, but I do believe it's
the closest thing I've seen in an academic setting! I just wanted to
share what I see in my little corner of the world ;-)
- David
-- D a v i d H S h e r r o d L i f e l o n g L e a r n e r mimesis @ infinet . comLearning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>