Monthly Archives: June 2012

Re-Creation is No Vacation

June 21, 2012
Filed under Higher Education, Research, Teaching

Summers are for work. The myth lingers on that academics enjoy a three month vacation. Nothing could be further from the truth. We teach, but teaching is but one facet of what we do. Summer is time for everything else. (At least for those of us not teaching summer school.) Are we paid to teach? Yes, but… we can only truly teach others to achieve excellence when we continue to cultivate excellence in ourselves.

Unless I take time now in these brief months to do my own research, think my own thoughts, and write my own words, I will be of little use in helping my students hone their research, thinking, and writing. For that is what we academics are: professional researchers, thinkers, and writers. Or at least that is what we should be. There is too little time for the full-fledged pursuit of these matters September through May. Educators’ summers are for the re-creation of our minds.

How the GMAT May Be Wrecking America

June 10, 2012
Filed under Higher Education

I do not know whether or to what extent the following issues may contribute to the divided state of America, or whether these may be symptomatic of larger problems. A source close to me is applying to business schools. She encountered a series of strategy recommendations for raising her score on the GMAT on. The recommendations of the test preparation service include:

  • In your essay, fabricate factual information to support your case. The test graders will not fact-check. You will score more points by being persuasive and writing well, with no attention to your accuracy.
  • In your essay you must support either a stated position or its opposite. You may not opt for a nuanced compromise position.
  • For your argument analysis, you may always assert that the premises of the argument are not valid. This may be the easiest way for you to make a superior counter-argument and, thus, score points.

To argue without any basis in fact, without compromise, and without considering the validity of one’s opponents – to the extent that this mentality is representative either of our country’s business education or of broader cultural currents, we are in serious trouble. Without the pursuit of truth, without the pursuit of reconciliation, and without considering that the opposition may have some valid claims (notably that some of their premises are correct, if not their ideas about what to do in light of those premises) – without these traits, we have only nay-saying and no hope of forward progress as a society.