{"id":594,"date":"2010-04-17T08:31:23","date_gmt":"2010-04-17T14:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/?p=594"},"modified":"2010-05-08T11:49:25","modified_gmt":"2010-05-08T17:49:25","slug":"on-becoming-a-university-part-vi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minkhollow.ca\/beckerblog\/2010\/04\/17\/on-becoming-a-university-part-vi\/","title":{"rendered":"On Becoming a University (Part VI)"},"content":{"rendered":"Approximate Reading Time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

Recognize that being an Academic is a profession, not a job. <\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u2026Part Six in the series on \u201cBecoming a University<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

As Mount Royal University <\/a>makes the transition from a college to a university\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

There is far more to becoming a university than a name change and the ability to offer degrees. Working only while at <\/em><\/strong>work, which consists primarily of teaching courses and dealing with students along with the occasional faculty meeting makes one a teacher, but not a professor. Forgive me if this sounds harsh, but the majority of the faculty I have met at MRU are of this sort – and the majority of the department chairs I have met behave as though faculty will be on campus from 9-5, M-F, and OFF the rest of the time. Many (although by no means all) are good, caring teachers but most are NOT professors. MRU can not become a university unless it has enough people who really are academics. Dedicated academics are academics 24\/7 – it is who they ARE, not what they DO. Academics do not punch a clock.<\/p>\n

You can’t become a university if you don’t have people who really are professors, and calling oneself a professor doesn’t make it so.<\/p>\n

Note: I make a distinction between being a \u201cteacher\u201d and being a \u201cprofessor\u201d.<\/strong> I am not trying to denigrate real teachers (i.e. those who are trained as teachers and have made that their profession)<\/em>. I have tremendous respect for real teachers, if they\u2019re dedicated to their profession. What I don\u2019t<\/strong> have a lot of respect for is faculty in Higher Ed who treat their positions as a job and do little more than teach their classes, manage their students, and put in some committee time. Most of these people have no real training in teaching and should have NO right to call themselves professors. Come to think of it, they should have no right to call themselves teachers either. They\u2019re little more than college employees.<\/em><\/p>\n