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Why should educators and researchers choose to work at a university, as opposed to other types of organisations that do education and research? Similarly, why should students invest time studying at a university when there are alternative ways and places to learn (like proceeding directly to the workforce)? We choose to be at a university because we strongly believe in the university's core mission of creating new knowledge (research) and of transmitting accumulated and new knowledge (education). We come to a university because we believe research and education create the intellectual and social capital that enables individuals and societies to improve. We also try to do as much as we can within the university because we think that immersion in research and education is intrinsically important and inspiring in its own right, in addition to its contribution to individual and societal improvement.
I believe we should immerse ourselves in the university's environment of knowledge creation (research) and knowledge transfer (education) because we really do believe that this knowledge, along with insights, applications and problem solving related to this knowledge, can change, transform and improve the world. We come here and do what we do in a university setting because we believe that in some way, to whatever small or large extent, we can influence the future in positive ways.
I strongly believe that our SIS faculty should not do research just to add publications to our resumes. Neither should our SIS students take courses just to get sufficient grades on their transcripts to get a job.
Like any other serious research university, our SIS research faculty have to actively and competitively publish. Like most other department heads or deans, I like to highlight when our faculty publish in the so-called “most-prestigious” academic journals or conferences. Yet, whenever I talk to a SIS faculty member about what they are doing, I am careful to make sure the conversation is not focused on the facts of where they have recently published or how much they have recently published.
Rather, I believe it is more important to focus the conversation on the ideas faculty members are working on, on the problems they are trying to solve, on the potential importance and applications of the work, and on what the Dean's office can do to support the work.
The advantage of this type of conversation (versus one that is focused on the conventional concerns of how many publications and where) is that it strongly enforces the core value that we are here at SIS to create new ideas and knowledge related to information systems technology and management, with the modest aspiration of contributing to the world's progress. Such conversations also help to shape and reinforce a culture and mindset that recognises that while publications are indeed important and essential and carefully evaluated, they are not an end in themselves.
The real significance is not the fact that a paper is published (and therefore, all we have to do is to count publications). The real significance is in the content of the work contained within the publication and in the quality of that content. (Therefore, we actually have to understand what our faculty are doing in their research by listening to them and by reading the summaries and publications.)
There is a practical side to this point of view along with some extra costs. For example, one aspect of my behaviour that has become a bit notorious is that hallway, elevator and office conversations often get into the substance of what our people are thinking and doing, and might even get into brainstorming. Now, this is not as efficient as an exchange limited to the more superficial concern of “update me on how many you have published and where”. The extra cost involved is that I am sometimes (often?) late for meetings and appointments.
There is an analogous situation in terms of how I try and interact with our students. The conversations are seldom in terms of, “Will you get an A, B, or C in this or that course.” Rather, the conversations are focused on what they are actually doing in the course, what they think the course is about, and about what they are getting out of the course. These unplanned and ad-hoc hallway and elevator conversations with our SIS students are part of a bigger and more systematic attempt within our school to get the students to realise the linkages between their seemingly unending stream of assignments, projects and exams, and the “big and powerful ideas” that are related to the topics, methods and problems they are working on.
Students understandably have pragmatic interests, and they frequently want to know if a particular SIS course, or even the entire degree programme, will help them to get a good job. We are very fortunate that our SIS students are highly sought-after by industry. Our graduates are hired by a wide range of industries and take on a wide range of job roles spanning business, IT, and the IT - business interface. Our SIS students are also well paid for their employment (even more so than many of their peer graduates in other parts of SMU and in other local universities). While we reassure our SIS students that they will have many good options when they seek full time employment if they work hard and embrace the challenges we put in front of them, we do not need to dwell much on this. The evidence to date clearly demonstrates that if they have a passion for the programme and maintain their motivation, they will secure their first job (as an undergrad), or a better job or career path (as a professional masters student), or a job as a R&D researcher, a highly sophisticated IT user or innovator, or IT enabled change agent (as a Ph.D. student).
When talking to students, I work on getting them to realise something that is not always apparent to them; that our SIS educational programme provides them with a very strong foundation that gives them an advantage in any business-oriented professional capacity they might choose to pursue initially or in the future. This is because of the thinking, problem solving, logical analysis, complex business systems analysis, solution design and project management experiences we put them through. These experiences are incorporated into the way we teach about IT software applications, systems and management. It is also due to nature of the SMU curriculum which requires a combination of depth and breadth courses across a range of disciplines, and our strong insistence on the importance of second majors for undergraduates. These combinations will not only make it easy for our students to get a first job, but it will help them over a long term career.
Students, and in particular undergraduates, tend to see the purpose and applicability of a course in a relatively narrow context. For example, if they take software engineering, they are clear that it helps with software engineering (of course), as well as with project management in the context of creating software solutions. Immediately after completing the course, most students do not realise that the very intensive experience they just went through to manage the resources, risk and completion of their project throughout a complex design-create-implement software project lifecycle will give them a strong foundation for managing any type of complex project throughout the rest of their entire professional career.
My challenge, as well as the challenge of all of us involved with SIS educational programmes, is to get students to understand and connect with the essence of what they are so busy doing in their courses. In addition to giving our students the capabilities to finish next week's assignment or the course project, we are also striving to get them to appreciate how the related ideas and knowledge can help them long term in their thinking ability and in their professional development. Eventually, most students “get it”, and see the important ways in which the SIS educational experience prepares them for both IT and Beyond IT. However, this takes time and cultivation, and it certainly takes a concentrated effort of talking to them beyond the superficial dimension of “how are your grades”.
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