>William J. Hobler, Jr. wrote:
>I would like to ask the academics in this group what the rules of post
>graduate education are? I have had an unfortunate experience that has
>soured me on the ability of post graduate education to ready people for
>business or industry.
snip
>Our students consisted of half full time students and half part time
>students (professionals trying to upgrade their skills). The
>professionals recognized the business problems, made assumptions, set
>measures, etc., and moved on. The full time students waited for the book
>or instructors to give "the" answer.
snip
>How can universities prepare students for competition when there is no
>clear indication of competitive success? Where in the education system do
>students learn that the world runs on judgement or best practice?
I am not at present an academic, however I have been, on an International
level. Our students, like your professional part time students were
highly motivated because they were comfortable with the rigors of
performance. On the other hand they were pretty miserable at doing
standard academic type work. Graduate students who came to the
conservatory from Universities were better at the writing but struggled
with the performance work. Both eventually worked it out.
This distinction between vocational and academic is not only your issue.
Phi Beta Kappa does not have a chapter at Juilliard School of Music
because they consider it to be a vocational school i.e. not a liberal arts
generalist curriculum. Juilliard students would probably have most
"competitive" students for lunch then go after the MBAs for dinner.
Juilliard accepts 15% of all students who apply and their professional
graduate program accepts 6% of all applicants. Applicants are auditioned
all over the world.
I mention this to point out that it is the responsibility of a teacher to
evaluate the context both individually and culturally that a student
brings to a class. Performance and academic contexts are different ways
of thinking and ask for different rules for success. The academic student
is by and large younger than the performance or professional student. If
not in years, in emotional maturity. That the University did not want to
endanger the future of their academic students in your practical
performance program is not surprising. I am sure that the 19th century
chauvinistic attitudes, that some of my finest academic professors showed
towards "mere performers" or "the crassly crude petty competitors
incapable of original thought and doomed to believe the banal is profound
in the pursuit of profit," could be just as destructive of part-time
professionals as we are capable of doing with inexperienced academic
graduate students. MBAs at Univ of Mich. or not. How old are they? 21
years old? 22?
The University is not a vocational school. Its job is to cultivate people
who will have most of their nonsense behind them when they go to work in
the world. If the University has done its job then they will be arrogant
but smart. If we do our job we will get around the arrogance with a
salary and find young people who know how to learn.
A word of warning about these people who would "know what we want" before
acting. Often, they have a very low tolerance for BS and that means that
sometimes pet stories that we like to believe about life and the market,
that are destructive nonsense, get challenged. And if we are who we say
we are, the Boss from LO, we also will have to change. If we can do that,
then we can figure out, with the aid of life, how to encourage an inner
more creative motivation for their actions then simply pleasing a
surrogate Father. Just tell them you already have a child.
Good luck,
-- Ray Evans Harrell Artistic Director The Magic Circle Opera Repertory Ensemble, Inc. 200 West 70th Street, Suite 6-c New York City, New York 10023-4324 mcore@soho.ios.com