IT and the Ivory Tower
By Pam Baker
The perennial problem with teaching technology in an academic setting is that by the time cutting-edge applications reach the classroom, they're often past their prime. IT professionals blame the distance between the ivory tower and the real world. The teachers "are mostly full-time professors and have no link to industry," explains Pieter Dorsman, Amsterdam-based product marketing manager for T-Systems, a 100% subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom.
Educators respond that it's not fair to tar all institutions with the same brush. "I think there are regional colleges and universities that keep pace better than others," says Stuart Wasilowski, vice president of Workforce Development at South Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, N.C. "This is due in part to the funding formulas, business demand for trained workforce and most importantly, leadership personnel that allows this progress. When these stars line up, you have the possibility for an institution to be 'up to speed'."
Principle versus Practice
Much of the debate about the right way to prepare students for the real-world needs of enterprise IT centers on a fundamental question: Is it better to teach critical thinking or practice applications?
"Higher education's purpose is to teach principles," says San Francisco-based Greg Skinner, a former Alta Vista Principal Software Engineer and M.I.T. graduate. "It cannot keep up with technology, and it isn't in its best interest to try. The best that it can and should do is to provide as strong a foundation as possible so that students can apply it to current technologies and possibly develop new technologies."
But what about enterprise's need to have fresh graduates on the ground running from day one? "There will always be a delay in adopting newer technologies in universities, unless they create the technology themselves and it becomes a (article continues)
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