Dr. Juan Manuel López Oglesby, Director, Graduate Biomedical Engineering Sciences UPAEP
Esta dirección de correo electrónico está siendo protegida contra los robots de spam. Necesita tener JavaScript habilitado para poder verlo.
In the previous article, we covered a few imperatives in science strategy. [1] It is important to recognize that these imperatives come with some pre-suppositions about science and innovation in the context of our educational environment. In this article we will explore a few of these whys of science.
The first on our list is the fundamental “why?”. At it’s core, humanity is driven by this question. We strive to understand our universe and ourselves. We seek to uncover the truths behind our existence and explore even the unknowable. We have done so from the perspectives of philosophy, religion, art, mysticism, science, and more. We have pursued these questions in structured and unstructured forms. We have done so as amateurs and full-time professionals. A university is an institution and set of individual actors which encompass a very wide swath of these various perspectives and approaches. Science is just one of these facets of the endless human quest for understanding, though the primary focus of this series of articles.
Why formalize the education of scientists and so many other professionals in a university setting? In short, barring any future Matrix-esque sci-fi download of training and skills directly into the brain, some form of training process is still required to transmit knowledge and skill from one human to others. The many ways this has been done have varied throughout history and disciplines, but the university has evolved over the last 1000 years into a space that specializes in the training and (ideally) professionalization of new generations of humans. This is not to say that there are no better ways available, but a university is currently the most efficient way of providing specialized knowledge and skills transfer and professionalization to large numbers of people with a reasonable degree of repeatability and reliability. It is also the responsibility of universities and every one of us involved in them to carefully consider the evolution of the institution into one which will continue to be relevant to the needs of an ever-changing society.
Why professionalization? To answer this question, we must first define the professional. I like the combined definitions for a professional by Parsons [2] and Friedson [3], which state that professionals are those who have internalized a set of professional values, and are to be licensed and recruited on the basis of their technical competence. Furthermore, professionals generally accept scientific standards in their work, restrict their work to areas in which the are technically competent, avoid emotional involvements, cultivate objectivity, and put the client’s interests before their own.
Thus, for us to have a professionalized community we must first dedicate ourselves to the values education that an institution like UPAEP finds at center of its mission. It becomes an important priority for the institution recruit, retain, promote, incentivize, and develop those who do the best job of instilling a sense of values in their academic charges. It is wholly insufficient to train technically competent workers – the competence must first and foremost be couched in a strong foundation of ethics and values.
Likewise, it is insufficient to simply be a really great person who really, truly, wholly espouses the desired professional values. To fully develop a professional, the skills and knowledge being transferred must be of high enough quality that the resultant professional is prepared to face the strictures of licensing and be desirable for recruitment in the current work environment. These values and abilities must also be tempered by maturity and humility. Being able to recognize, accept, and be honest about our own limitations, avoid emotional involvement, be objective, and put the needs of others before our own may be considered “soft skills” by many, but they remain indispensable for our budding professionals, and must be included in the training curriculum at all academic levels.
The whys don’t stop here, but rather build from these fundamental bases. Why seek accreditations? To have third-party validation that the educational work being done is of sufficient quality to contribute to the social goals and norms surrounding our current and future workforce. Why publish papers? To disseminate knowledge, provide training opportunities for new scientists, and build upon the professional breadth and depth of the faculty who can then re-invest these skills into their educational labor. Why recruit world-class researchers? To bring world-class work, knowledge, and skills to the institution to then foster local work, training, and knowledge, increasing the opportunities for a higher-quality professional graduate. The list can go on and on. The whys of science are many – but the core concepts discussed here can help shape how we view our responses to these questions. This clarity of worldview can then be translated into higher-order planning such as strategy, which can then be prioritized and granularized throughout an institution. [1]
Have you studied your own worldview with regards to education and your own role within that noble task? If it is difficult for you to define the fundamental whys in your own life and work here, it can be difficult to provide that clarity to others. So, be it art, philosophy, religion, science, or any of the other grand pursuits at hand, independent of your personal administrative, teaching, or leadership role…I urge you to take on the personal challenge of truly exploring some truly important whys: why are you doing what you do, and why here?
