Sunday, May 1, 2011

The Meta Professional - like everyone

The Meta Professional

This new role for academics has been designed by a group in the US: The Meta Professional Project.

The Meta-Profession project derives from a conceptualization of the professoriate as practicing a 'meta' profession. That is, a college professor must perform at a professional level a variety of roles that require expertise and skills in areas that often extend beyond the faculty member's specific area of scholarly expertise or "Base Profession". Thus, the skill sets required by faculty to perform in these roles are divided into two general categories: Base Profession Skills and the additional Meta-Profession Skills. These skill sets are delineated in a series of matrices which show the interaction between a specific role (e.g., teaching, scholarly/creative activities, service, or administration) and the skills required by the work involved in carrying out that role.

http://www.cedanet.com/meta/


Yes, it is often heard around the uni that academics require a whole set of skills that might not have to do with their area of expertise. There is a set that is to do with teaching, a set with IT and a set with administration, to name a few.

But what job doesn’t have that???? Nearly all jobs require administration and IT proficiency. Going through the matrix of skill sets from this site, really is not revealing. In fact, I’d even put a fair number up in their frequency of use categories (colours). Nice to see it set out so well, but nothing that wouldn’t be as complex for any other profession – especially ones where advanced education is required, for example doctors, lawyers, business managers etc.

All it is really pointing out is that academics do a lot of things across several areas. Looking at it slightly more closely, it is a little misleading in that all the blue cells are ‘almost never’ and even the yellow cells are ‘occasionally’ so there are not even as many things as it could first look like.

What I’d say, is it’s time to grow up and face reality. Most of these people have doctorates. Some ability to multi-task or be meta-professionals just goes with the role. If you don’t like it, or can’t do it, go and cut grass for a living. Oh wait… I can think of so many things that a grass cutter must be able to do – I should do up a skills matrix!

Let’s face it, students have to deal with most of these things too in their work/study/life. Someone sure should do a matrix for them. I refer to Walther, J. (2006). "Engineering education: Targeted learning outcomes or accidental competencies?". ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition, Conference Proceedings.

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