Colleges and universities should require all faculty to spend time working outside the academic world in professions relevant to the courses they teach.

Education is certainly the hot-button issue of the moment with national policies such as “Race to the Top” and “No Child Left Behind” changing the way we teach, appraise academic success, and even learn. At the heart of the debate over the future of education is the question broached in this prompt: whether colleges and universities should mandate that all faculty spend time working outside the academic realm in professions relevant to what they teach. Undoubtedly, scholars and university professors enjoy a venerable reputation for their depth of knowledge in their disciplines. Many may condemn those highly well educated scholars for residing “ivory tower,” lacking practical knowledge and stereotypically consider that the knowledge and the skill acquired in academic institution is anything but pragmatic. Indeed, having faculty members spending some time working outside the academic, keeping abreast of the latest trend and the up-to-date information, might seem salubrious, both to faculty members themselves and to students. However, I demur to implementing this policy on a compulsory basis, even though the merits and the logic behind this policy are commendable.

Granted that the importance of college education is to train students to become critical thinkers and to help them acquire skills necessary for them to survive and to compete in the real world, a widely-held belief espoused by educational theorists. Therefore, it is of paramount importance that professors and lecturers do not impart obsolete knowledge. Those hardheaded professors who renege to stay informative of the latest knowledge in their own respective fields might not be suitable to teach in college. Indeed, in a fast-paced world characterized by huge systematic problems and constant seismic shifts in science, business, and technology, teaching students how knowledge of a given field is being applied in society has bene the nitty-gritty of the college education. As Yogi Berra once commented, “In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is.” Therefore, the importance of striking a delicate balance between armchair theoretical framework and practical knowledge cannot be overemphasized. By leaving their comfort zones, faculties can access firsthand the knowledge and the experience of non-academic professions and therefore share them with their students or even tailor their pedagogical practices. For instance, a linguistics professor can work in the remote village, documenting and transcribing moribund indigenous languages. Or perhaps a linguistics professor can work as a lexicographer at a major dictionary publisher. Either case, this linguistics professor can certainly inform his or her student of how linguistics knowledge can be applied and used effectively in our quotidian life; that is, linguistics is not the subject that students passively learn. It is something that they can internalize and transmogrify into their life skills.
One consequence of implementing the policy is that faculty members are required to work outside the academia, they should be able to be inspired and intellectually stimulated to further their research and make major impacts on other disciplines, the repercussion of which is to foster greater boons to human beings. For instance, a biologist can utilize the DNA-dating technology to help an archaeologist to pinpoint the age of antediluvian fossils. Or a biologist can use the Game Theory model orchestrated by economics to help foreshadow animal behaviors. Certain unprecedented interdisciplinary values may have yielded salutary effects to the society.

Given all the merits of having faculties leave the academia for some time, however, I do not think that all should be required to do so. There are many disciplines or fields of knowledge that self-sustain without having to contribute to the advancement of the society in a utilitarian way. That is, the kind of knowledge contained in those fields might just be, though esoteric to outsiders, conductive enough to the kind of research needed in that given field. Take philosophy. The advancement of philosophy does not depend on faculties having practical work experiences. Having a philosopher professor working as a guide at a museum does little to the progress of the field. Or consider Albert Einstein, who developed the theory of relativity when he was working as a Swiss postal officer. Albert Einstein later admitted that although this job granted his some free time to think about time and space, the nature of the job—sending missives—contributed little to his formation of the theory. He could have better used that time to attest to his theory and the kind of mental exercise that he experienced might be lost. The field of theoretical physics or quantum physics may not have advanced too much. Therefore, one plausible consequence that might arise if all faculties are required to work outside the academia is that faculties, just like students, might end up loathing the kind of work they would have to do outside academia. Arbitrarily requiring all faculties to work outside school is far from being practical since some experts in some fields might be better off if they could just stay inside academia.

Although some may argue that if that is the case, then professors would be perpetually circumscribed inside their own domain of knowledge; however, such an argument is spurious. It is twenty-first century now, and there are a wide array of methods for one to get access to the latest knowledge and to obtain necessary life skills. We can see that this policy, though deserving some merits, as it has a virtue of motivating scholars to keep themselves informed with the practical world, may not be the optimal option for higher education, since one of the major ends of higher education is to train students to think abstractly and well. Some disciplines are fitting and can flourish better if faculties in those fields are not required to work outside academia.