Professor David H. Bayley, of State University of New York at Albany, wrote an interesting article comparing Universities to Police Agencies. My first thought when hearing this was humorous. “Yeah, they are a lot alike! My professors are the police, and they are telling me what to do. I am in jail!” All joking aside, I jumped into the article and found some interesting points.
Bayley starts out describing how police organizations are not any worse than many other organizations today. To illustrate, he gives examples of how a University runs. Classes are given to educate and police investigate in the manner that desired outcomes are met. However, how much is being done to ensure the steps along the way are what would be considered the best? Police, along with professors, and anyone for that matter, have a hard time being criticized for how they do things. When being looked at, police, as well as universities, “prefer to be judged by what they do rather than what they achieve.” Blame is generally placed on the student, or the citizen, when the desired outcome is not met. However, how much focus is placed on getting the proper training? Yes, there are certain requirements to becoming a professor, but where is the training for teaching. Other than personal experiences of seeing others teach while you are going to school yourself, or teaching as a graduate student, there isn’t really a period of time that someone has to be trained in teaching. With all the comparisons done, let’s not focus on the people themselves, but the system in which they work.
What can we take from this? I personally feel like professors have a lot to deal with. They need to be able to find a way that they are able to deliver their knowledge to the students. They have a lot of expertise, but maybe not the right type of training (no fault of their own) to be able to do that. This is where I can see that being engaged with the students can help. Getting proper feedback from the students can allow the professor to see weak, and even strong areas they have. This can free us all from “jail”. The Faculty Center has great tools with workshops available. Finding the time may be difficult, but the reward can be well worth it.
The reference, if you are interested in reading the article is:
Bayley, D.H. (1994). Police for the future. New York: Oxford University Press.
