DOCTORS WHO DON’T HEAL, TEACHERS WHO DON’T KNOW.
Eduardo Cadaval
José María Buendía, “one of the few architecture teachers” in the words of Alberto Kalach, taught his university classes for several weeks dressed in a white coat and with a stethoscope around his neck. His disguise was the answer to the demand by the university authorities to “become a doctor” and thus be able to access the next ladder of his long academic career. Trainer of entire generations of architects in Mexico, Buendía was in his late sixties at that time, had a prolific professional and pedagogical career that made asking him to check his knowledge through a doctorate was as absurd as his response was ironic.
The schools of practical professions -engineering, business and architecture among others- require different criteria for the hiring of teaching staff. Their professors -for most areas, not all- must be linked to professional practice and yet many universities in different parts of the world have homogenized the hiring requirements with those of the scientific or humanities faculties, where the Doctorate is part of their own professional development that is closely linked to the academic field, that is, a scientist gets a doctorate because it is part of their own professional development; his doctoral thesis is part of the research in which he works. The ones that are literally your job. In the case of schools of practical professions, the doctorate is not part of the workplace, sometimes it can be a parallel path, but in many others it is the opposite of professional development.
It is not a minor issue, nor is it an exclusive problem for those who choose an academic position. Due to the current requirements and especially the requirement of a doctorate to be a full professor, many universities are filling up with people who have never practiced what they teach. That at best he does not know the realities of daily professional life and at worst, he simply does not know what he is talking about. In Spain, it is more common for PhD students to yearn to become a civil servant – a government employee – than to have a real interest in academia. A refuge is sought, the security of a professional outlet outside the fluctuations of the labor market, which by itself and individually is legal, but if the price that society pays as a whole is evaluated, it is not so much.
If the academy is intended to be valid in the 21st century -especially that of professional schools or practical professions- it has to be modernized, it is not possible that the only way of producing knowledge or accessing the academic world is a doctorate or post-doctorate (That elegant title to cover up job insecurity). It is enough to pay attention to what is happening in multiple areas to see that there are many other ways of producing knowledge. Generations and entire sectors – technology is the clearest – have had to leave the academy due to its lack of dynamism.
Currently there is already a bubble of doctors and doctoral students in several countries. Thousands and thousands of hours of study that in many cases is done due to lack of job opportunities or for the sole purpose of meeting the requirements to opt for a teaching position that may never be available. Buildings and classrooms to maintain, staff and electricity to pay to generate documents that become useless, without quality, or rigor, that contribute nothing and that only a handful of people will read; on many occasions paid with public money that could have been used for something else. However, the system is self-protecting and very few in academia seem to question its effectiveness or efficiency.
Let us remember that we refer specifically to the field of Architecture. We are not talking about a scientific or social area where research will end up having a tangible positive impact. Doctoral theses in Architecture are in many cases weak biographies, useless obsessions or boring reiterations. This text does not pretend to be an argument against conducting doctoral studies – it would be more necessary. Yes, it is against imposing the degree as an insurmountable requirement to access to teach classes on a regular basis and thereby replace professional experience with academia.
The public faculties of Architecture in Switzerland restrict practical chairs to experienced professors. If a professor does not have an office or is not a practicing architect, he simply cannot teach project workshop classes; If you have not calculated buildings, you cannot teach structural calculation classes. In the United States, which has perhaps the most dynamic university system in the world, professional schools have 20% of full-time professors – who are their governing body – and the rest of the teaching staff is made up of associate professors. or part-time internship professors who are required to be relevant in their professional field and not, on the other hand, have completed doctoral studies.
Schools seem to run like wild horses to meet those requirements that validate them or allow them to raise financial resources. Many times this happens according to their research merits and not because of the teaching quality. If you have to ask for doctorates, you ask for them, if you have to disguise something as research that is not, you do it. Faced with this, it seems urgent to reflect and warn about the type of architecture schools that we are building for the future. The hiring requirements that regulate many universities today will result in professional schools, without professionals. Full-time teachers with no practical experience because the system itself alienates her. After all, who wants to have heart surgery by an expert open chest theorist who has never performed one?
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