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The Forum > Article Comments > The professor as a pretender > Comments

The professor as a pretender : Comments

By Murray Hunter, published 12/12/2014

Many professors on reputation alone are able to impose their own policy ideas upon society, without actually having the knowledge and experience to yield such influence in solving world problems.

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While there is much in what the author says, but particularly in reference to some professors being poor public communicators; it's not a broken system full of pretenders!

i.e., many lectures can be recorded on DVD; even from ivory towers, and students learning at far less PUBLIC or personal cost in their own homes.
And only needing to attend a campus to do the practical hands on work or research!

This would release finite funding for essential R+D, and indeed, ensuring it was commercialized, initially in proof of concept pilot projects!

And there really should be a sizable low cost government fund that enables local entrepreneurs to undertake that very task; and then also enlarge production in order to create export markets for it, rather than as ever, outsource it!

And then pay through the neck forever, for our best ideas and the products or services that then flow from that!

Criticism is just too easy and of absolutely no value whatsoever, unless it is also accompanied by a host of viable solutions; the true test of genuine and thoughtful debate/rational thinking!
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Friday, 12 December 2014 11:03:01 AM
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I agree with Rhrosty, but I would like to add a few points.

Firstly, some examples of what he was talking about would have been good, most of his examples were fictional characters.

Then there is a contradiction, he states ....

"Statistics show that very little university research ever becomes commercialized, and thus new innovative intellectual property generated has little social or enterprise value. Many pieces of research end up being solutions that seek a problem. The comfort zone many university professors exist within blind them to potential opportunities."

this kind of research is called "blue sky" research. You are not searching for a particular discovery, you have no target commercial use in mind, it is purely academic, researching ... searching for answers. This kind of research is the only way you can get "out of the box" results.

The author then says .. "This is very necessary if public policy is to shed it's uni-dimensionality, where 'out of the box' creativity can be drawn upon to create future policy roadmaps."

Blue sky research found WiFi and has earned Australia over half a billion dollars in royalties alone.

Oh and you do not get to be a professor by "knowing someone"
Posted by DominorVobis, Saturday, 13 December 2014 2:32:23 PM
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Good article. It definitely resonates with my university experience. I would even go so far as to say that some of what is taught actually retards your employment opportunities and practical problem solving skills. I spent considerable time "unlearning" some of what I was taught, in order to enhance my employments prospects and interactions with people outside the academe.

Some sections of the academe resemble the Church rather than a place of critical and analytical insight. I won't comment on all the departments, but the Humanities and Social Sciences departments have several fixed tenets in which 99% of their "research" revolves around.
Posted by Aristocrat, Saturday, 13 December 2014 10:58:33 PM
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Yes a really true depiction.

A couple of examples.

A mate & I built what was for a couple of years the most successful racing car in Oz. We used an aging Brabham, & the engine we developed.

After winning every race it started for over 18 months, I ran into my favourite professor from my engineering course. I excitedly told him what we'd done, & how we had built the engine, thinking he would be interested.

He cut me off after a couple of minutes, telling me I was wasting my time, those ideas would never work. I guess he'd missed the fact they already had, very well. Pity, I had thought he was great.

Thirty-five years later I ran into a flatmate from my last year at uni. He gave me a sob story. He'd become an academic, due to retire in 3 years. His research project only required his attendance at uni Tuesday & Wednesday, & his lectures could fit this. This led to he & his wife moving to the retirement home they had built at Batemans bay. & selling their Sydney home.

He drove up on Tuesday, stayed with his daughter Tuesday night, & went home Wednesday night. This was an excellent arrangement he thought. I wondered if his students agreed.

But then the problem. "They" had refused to renew his research grant. "They" reckoned it was going nowhere.

Well he'd known that for a while, but hell, only 3 years to go, they could have let it go, couldn't they?

Now he'd had to come up with a new project, & it required him coming in 3 days, totally disrupting his cosy 2 day arrangement. Hell it was almost not worth moving to Batemans bay. He thought it may be sour grapes by someone.

He really did expect me, a tax payer, paying his wages to be sympathetic.

Yep they sure do live in a different world to real people.
Posted by Hasbeen, Sunday, 14 December 2014 1:15:53 AM
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What counts as research ? Research about 'research' ? Does someone from the Faculty of Hermeneutics and Semiology go over some research drafts to render them less comprehensible ?

As someone obsessed with Indigenous issues, particularly to do with Indigenous policy and history, and student participation, every so often I Google "Indigenous research" just to see if there is any (you can do the same), given that there must be hundreds of Indigenous academics doing nothing but, rather than be of any use to Indigenous students.

Indigenous affairs is chock-full of issues, problems, crises and tragedies, so one would think that some researcher, somewhere, would be tackling some of those issues. But not as far as Google is concerned.

So many of those 'researchers' - perhaps as a reward for doing nothing, and therefore doing nothing controversial - are rapidly promoted to professorships. Every university has at least one now. Often they are parked into positions which seem to have no duties attached - what the hell, it's all money direct from Canberra, so nothing out of this year's uni budget - where they can get put on committees, go to international conferences (some, I'm told, go to at least four or five each year - Hawai'i in July is a favourite).

Meanwhile Indigenous students - albeit in record numbers - drive themselves through their courses with little help from Indigenous staff: working with non-Indigenous students is more prestigious anyway, and doing 'research' more prestigious still.

So I look forward to the day when I find a genuine research project when I Google "Indigenous research".

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Monday, 15 December 2014 8:11:39 AM
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Joe.

try starting here.

http://www.adelaide.edu.au/directory/lester-irabinna.rigney

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-842X.2001.tb00563.x/abstract;jsessionid=283C79051B67CCE34CCAB26F78AD57E6.f01t04

try using http://scholar.google.com.au/ for your searches
Posted by DominorVobis, Monday, 15 December 2014 10:27:00 PM
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