Professionalization, Tutor Training, and Service Learning in the Writing Center

In “The Professionalization of Tutor Training,” Judy Gill defines professionalization as “introducing prospective tutors to the professional conversation” (1), which includes instruction in writing center theory featured in the surveyed courses in the form of collections of essays that introduce students to “the larger institutional, theoretical, and historical context in which [the practice of] tutoring takes place” (3). In this article, we discuss two important components of tutor training that seemingly do not fall within the scope of professionalization Gill mentions in her article: 1) the use of tutors’ field-specific expertise during their training and 2) tutors’ preparation for administrative positions and responsibilities. In our experience with one of the undergraduate tutoring practicum courses offered by The Writing Lab at Purdue, these two components helped our tutors-in-training professionalize as both professional writing (PW) majors and prospective tutors entering the writing center field. Hence, in our attempt to reconcile our experience at Purdue with the definition Gill provides, we pose this question: Is there more than one form of professionalization that students develop in our tutor-training courses?University Writing Cente

THE PROFESSIONALIZATION OF ETHICS

This Article looks at the importance of teaching law graduates to be ethical lawyers. The author hypothesizes that the current versions of the ethical rules and the structure of law firms have the potential to encourage the professionalization of ethics rather than connecting all practitioners to the values of professional responsibility. This Article sets out the factors that contribute to the increased professionalization of professional responsibility in large law firms. These factors are the need for lawyers to always be accessible, the pressure to specialize in a specific field, and the complexity of the ethics rules as written. The author argues that as a whole the ethics rules need to be more accessible to the ordinary, non-expert practitioner, would be a valuable contribution. The three specific proposals are the creation of specialty-specific ethics education, acknowledge the contribution of the ethics specialists, and to draft the ethics rules differently. The goal of this new approach is to “de-professionalize” ethics and remind each lawyer of her obligation to be an ethical practitione

“Professionalization: Overview” & “Professionalization: Europe”

Two entries in a large encyclopedia of the social sciences

Project management - a growing profession. The Romanian case.

The paper analyses the status of professionalization of project management in Romania and worldwide. The relevance of the topic is grasped in the context in which project management has been confronted with various shifts: from a technical/ engineering function to a macro-economic organizational concern, from a tools-and-techniques view to an innovation-driven approach, from widespread adoption by the industrialized world to an accelerated growth in developing nations, too. The explosion of practice has raised the issue of theoretical foundations and professionalization. The current status of professionalization of project management is discussed against a series of standards found in the sociology of professions literature, with a special focus on the issue of education in project management - education models, trends, global reach. The paper also assesses the Romanian educational offer in the field of project management in relation to the larger issue of professionalization, with a view to signalling possible areas of growth and improvement: ensuring accuracy of term usage, refining the educational curricula, initiating large-scale research programs on Romanian realities, publishing research results, building awareness around the benefits of the profession, increasing strength and visibility of professional associations, lobbying to require certification for key project management positions.

Training Public Historians: Academy and Reality.

Professionalization builds structure that solidifies a discipline; professionalization erects walls that bar outsiders. Professionalization elevates understanding to a higher plane; professionalization draws practitioners into rarefied air that precludes rough and tumble engagement. Professionalization clarifies a discipline's voice, allowing it to stand out among competitors; professionalization creates an arcane language that blocks shared conversation. Professionalization codifies a set of tools; professionalization discourages thinking outside the (tool)box

Public Opinion Poll: Executive Summary

Outlines survey findings on Americans' views on college sports, including commercialization, professionalization, coaches' salaries, athletes' welfare, effects on other departments, and links between athletics success, expenses, and alumni donations

Professionalization of College Sports: The Case of College Basketball

This study examines how major college basketball programs have become professionalized, and follow a professional model in terms of their revenues, expenses, and profits. “Professionalized” is defined as having a fundamental focus on profits and revenues. Revenue and expense data for the 2006-2007 season was selected from the six major conferences: Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, PAC 10, and SEC. Data was collected from the Office of Postsecondary Education, where revenues and expenses are reported for each school. These data were examined and used to gauge whether these programs or conferences are following a professional model. In addition, the study examined the marginal revenue product of acquiring one more premium player (a player that has been drafted into the NBA or WNBA). Data were collected from NBAdraft.net, where NBA and WNBA draft classes were be used to determine the number of premium players on each college team. OLS regression analysis was be used to indicate relationships between the data. These relationships indicate that men’s basketball programs follow a professional model and that the marginal revenue product of acquiring one more premium player is greater than their compensation through scholarship. Women’s basketball programs do not appear to follow a professional model, or acquire players that generate significant revenues greater than their compensation through scholarship

Does Money Matter? The Impact of State Political Context on the Relationship between Race/Ethnicity and Campaign Finance

Despite increasing campaign-finance legislation aimed at equalizing barriers in political campaigns, a fundraising gap persists across racial/ethnic lines. In the era of modern campaigning, with the expenses of advertising and polling, among others, ample funds are necessary but not accessible to all candidates. This study addresses the relationship between candidate race/ethnicity and campaign fundraising, and the possible moderating effect of three dimensions of the state political context: state legislative professionalism, state Republican party strength, and state culture (South vs. non-South). I evaluate fundraising totals across 15 states for more than 3,000 candidates in the 2006 state legislative elections. Ultimately, the findings suggest that after controlling for other candidate characteristics, as well as for district and state context, there is a negative statistically significant relationship between candidate race/ethnicity and fundraising. In addition, the effect of race/ethnicity is moderated by two features of the state context: legislative professionalization and state culture. This study finds that nonwhite candidates continue to fundraise less than their white counterparts and that state context is important in understanding the race/ethnicity gap in campaign finance

Capturing the competence of management consulting work

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to assess whether the effort of consulting firms and branch organizations to establish a shared and standardized methodology as a means to professionalize consulting and as a standard for training is possible and sensible. - \ud \ud Design/methodology/approach: A survey was conducted among Dutch management consultants, which explored their ways of working and their ways of learning. - \ud \ud Findings: The study shows that efforts to develop a shared and standardized phase-model methodology do not seem to be effective. Instead of following phase-models, consultants appear to be improvising bricoleurs, tailoring their ways of working to specific situations, and using broad, heterogeneous and partly implicit repertoires, which are built through mainly through action-learning. This requires another kind of methodology and another kind of training. - \ud \ud Research limitations/implications: The article gives a general direction for the development of a consulting methodology and the education of consultants. Further research on consulting practices and repertoires is necessary to explore this direction. - \ud \ud Practical implications: The paper concludes that the value of phase-models as a standard is limited. Therefore, branch organizations, consulting firms and corporate universities should not focus their professionalization and training activities on these standardized methods. - \ud \ud Originality/value: Little work has been done yet on the relation between professionalization, methods, and training in management consulting, and no earlier publication has studied this topic quantitatively