A Rant (NOT from the Ivory Tower)
Ladies and Gentlemen, I feel the need to begin…a rant.
This blog post was floating around the ether of the internet today. And it’s not the first time I’ve heard that the tipping point of higher education is coming, if not already here.
Here’s the rant: I get the feeling that a lot of people out there think those of us in academia are pent up in some aforementioned “ivory tower”, where we never converse with the “real world”, nor have any clue what’s going on out there in the “real world.”
I am here to state that I have never been in any sort or type of ivory tower. In fact, my reflective statement and teaching philosophy is and has always been - to bring in the real world into my classroom. It is not fair for me to pontificate regarding my profession if I’m not in its trenches on a daily basis. I view myself as “educator”, to instead be a “connector” and drag the real world into the classroom, not vice-versa.
Specifically, the majority of professors who teach in my college actually work in the “real world” ON TOP OF teaching. They have a site-based practice (in the “real world”) and they also come onto campus (or stay off campus at their sites) and teach. The pharmacy program is constructed around didactic learning, but more importantly real world learning through final year rotations out in the ‘real world’ and even more ‘real world’ training before the final year.
I can’t speak for other programs at other colleges and universities. But, I can speak for myself as an educator. There really is no ivory tower. And, after today, I doubt I’ll even utilize the term, because it really should only be reserved for fairy tales. While I as a student certainly understand that the price tag of education is getting near-outrageous, one should be very careful to generalize all education programs to the masses as completely ivory tower and not practical.
Now, back to the real world!
