Another Fine Mess

We’ve all heard of the cobbler whose kids had no shoes. How about the university that didnt believe its own press?

Consider this: When the Victoria University of Manchester and the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (the MIT of the UK) decided to merge, not one of the professors who was knowledgeable about mergers and acquisitions was included in the consultation and implementation process.

Here’s another example: Some years ago, the president of the the Academy of Management, the preeminent professional organization for management scholars, posed a poignant question to those attending the annual conference: What would happen if the Academy mattered? This must have hit a number of people between the eyes like a two-by-four, since I’m willing to bet that most of those in attendance thought it did.

More recently, one government funding body decided to change its ground rules. In order to be eligible for funding, the researcher(s) had to describe how the results would be applied or put into practice. Scholars had become brilliant at creating proposals to obtain money so that they could study something arcane and publish it in a peer-reviewed journal, but had lost the plot somewhere when it came to putting into practice. (I’ll probably get a lot of flak for this, but even the global warming folks are beginning to discover this.)

I read recently that business schools are churning out graduates that don’t understand business. Small wonder. Apparently those in charge of the universities don’t either.

Here’s another example that applies more widely to business schools in general. There are two messages that are being promoted simultaneously: One to those who buy the teaching and the other to those who do it. Universities want the students to believe that their professors, teachers and lecturers are the best in the world so that they will persuade their parents, the government, or anyone else who’s contributing to pay their tuition, fees, and living expenses.

The other message is sent to their professors, teachers and lecturers. As my illustrations above have shown already, these same universities don’t think that those who teach know what they’re talking about. If they did, they’d listen to and put into practice what they say.

Of course, there are exceptions. Personally, I believe that anyone who wants to attend university should be afforded the opportunity to do so. But, that doesn’t mean that academic standards should be lowered so they’ll pass. It simply means that students, who might not otherwise have the chance, could go. Whether or not they succeeded when they got there would be up to them.

If you’re planning to attend yourself and/or are paying the student bills, then you ought to investigate the university’s own practices. It might make prevent you from making the expensive mistake of supporting institutions that don’t practice what they preach.