Garratt, George A.

English

Wood and Fiber Science (E-Journal)

CONTINUING EDUCATION-THE ANTIDOTE FOR PROFESSIONAL OBSOLESCE:NCE1 George A. Garratt One of the problems confronting wood scientists, professional wood technologists, and foresters is revealed when young and inevitably inexperienced graduates, pos- sessed of new knowledge relevant to the work they may be expected to perform, are unable to mesh their efforts with some man- agers whose own training is, at best, more than a generation old. This situation is not peculiar to the forest industries, however; it is merely a manifestation of the same gen- eral problem in engineering and other pro- fessions and so aptly pointed up by Cham- bcrlain: The older a man grows the less professionally adequate he hconles. For a pcriocl, perhaps an extended period, he may compensate for this obsolescence of his professional capital by the ex- perience he acquires on his job. As a specialized researcher . . . , he may come to know more and more about his subject. As an administrator, he rnay acquire skills in dealing with other pro- fessionals. As a teacher, he may develop compe- tence in imparting knowledge to students. But the odds are yearly becoming greater that at some point in his career, while he is still in his prime, the subject he has researched, or the functions which he administers, or the body of knowledge he has to teach will have changed so greatly that his lack of current professional com- petence will stand revealed." Chamberlain goes on to comment: It  takes no special insight to spotlight our edu- cational processes and philosophy as the major cause of the sputter in our social engine. We are still operating as though a person can acquire in the first twenty [or twenty-five1 ycars . . . of his life all the fonnal education he needs to keep him on an ascending career line through the re- maining forty years or so of his working life. But the fact is that the clock starts running down the moment a young man. . . steps from the com- mencement platform, be it college lor technical school] or high school. Rased on a paper presented at the annual meet- ing of the Society of Wood Science and Technol- ogy at Washington, D. C., June 23, 1968. Neil W. Chamberlain, "Retooling the Mind," The Atlantic, September, 1964. (Reprinted as Leaflet No. 14 of the American Alumni Council.) The fact that older people are compara- tively at a disadvantage does not mean that their services can be dispensed with. Rather it points up the crying need for what Cham- berlain has termed "retooling the mind-a process requiring effective forms of continu- ing education. Notable among these is the opportunity for professionals "to renew thcir fonnal education repeatedly, perhaps at intervals of three to five years" along the lines of their changing responsibilities. This kind of repeated formal discipline of con- tinuing education will be especially valuable to our [faculties]. The teacher at age forty or fifty usually suffers the same kind of obsolescence of knowledge as any other professional person. If we are to disseminate more rapidly [and effec- tively] the fruits of new knowledge, we should do our best to ensure that [the older as well as1 younger instructors are adequately equipped. . . . If our teache~s are to be given tenure [through- out their actnve careers], do they not have an obligation of lifetime updating of the instruction which they p ~ s s  along to our youth? It  has been said of the practicing gradu- ate engineer that not only will half of what he has learned in the university be obsolete in a decade or less, but that half of what he will need to know ten vears from now is not even available to him2today. Surely, in the present state of wood science and tech- nology, what has been said of the engineer is no less true of those in our profession. What may be different about the world of the wood scientist is simply the greater in- sensitivity to the problem that seems to per- vade the thinking of some of the less per- ceptive industry decision-makers who in a sense direct the destinies of the scientists and other professionals they employ. In highlighting the adult-career problem in today's world, I do not intend to mini- mize the importance of improving basic undergraduate education in our field and making the rnost effective use of what are, after all, the best years oi life for systematic learning and mental development. While 4 GEORGE A. GARRATT reviewing some of the literature about the education of wood scientists, I was attracted to Alan Marra's article on "Xylotonics-One More Option," which appeared in the June, 1967 issue of the SWST Log. What im- pressed me were the writer's comments about a shift in the basic needs of the forest industries and attendant educational pre- requisites, both of which have long been concerned with "the traditional fulcrum of wood properties and processes characteriz- ing many conventional programs." And here I quote briefly: Without forgetting that the status quo is the bread and butter of thc present which must be served if there is to be a future, it must be real- ized that many curricula inevitably pro'duce rela- tively narrow specialists, even though they comc out of what we believe to be an incredibly broad spectrum of basic and practical disciplines. Un- fortunately, this narrowness deepens further in practice, due to the pressure of ncw knowledge which continually impinges upon one's compet- itive performance. lluch is owed the status quo specialists for their contributions to making forest products a paying proposition. However, it would bc over-extend- iilg good fortune to hope that they could also in- novate the field into the cybernetic, jet-propelled future. A somewhat different breed is needed here; people with cnduring or renewable breadth far beyond what we feel instinctively it is possi- ble to produce. Already we are having trouble producing the breadth necessary for the narrow specialist. How can we hope to cnibed in a single mind a workable quantity of an even larger number of technologies so as to induce a 'critical mass' effect necessary to permit genera- tion of new concepts in wood utilization? . . . By regarding the present science and tech- nology as a point of departure rather than a pro- fessional destination, it should be possible to in- troduce efficiencies into the edlicational process which will make time for broadening. This reference of Marra's to the back- ground preparation of the wood scientist brings to the fore the entire question of the educational experience to which we subject our professional neophytes. University ad- ministrators and educators in general, with their avowed concern for what they con- sider the proper role of the liberal arts and humanities in professional education, have become increasingly critical of the precisely job-oriented undergraduate curricula which have evolved over the years in engineering, forestry, and comparable professional fields. These critics contend that our science-and- engineering-oriented professional schools are so imbued with the significance of the wide-ranging scientific and associated tech- nological advances of this day and agc that they are not facing up squarely to the equally compelling necessity for under- standing present-day and impending socio- economic and even political developments which will largely dictate the future course of events in all professions. Surely, the wood science and technology programs, with their marked concentration on the technical, applied-science aspects of instruc- tion, are susceptible to this same general criticism. The on-the-job failures of professional foresters and wood scientists in the ~ a s t  have seldom been for lack of technical com- petence. Rather the inadequacies are much more often related to: lack of ability to communicate effectively; lack of under- standing of human behavior and the con- sequent inability to work effectively with other people; lack of imagination and of capacity to adapt to change; unwillingness to assume enlarged responsibilities because of feelings of inadequacy; and lack of un- derstanding of basic business principles. To a large degree, these are all deficiencies which can be strongly influenced by the educational experience of the professional, particularly at the undergraduate level. I have a strong conviction that today's task of preparing undergraduates for pro- fessional careers establishes so strong a case for a well-rounded general education that significant specialized training in any real depth is far better left to the more appro- priate environment of graduate study. Pre- supposing that the undergraduate program has provided an adequate scientific, mathe- matical, and economic base, such advanced study can be much more effectively de- signed than any undergraduate experience to provide the quality and degree of spe- cialization needed in today's and tomorrow's professional arena. Such a broad-based gen- eral education background, well rooted in the pertinent natural and social sciences CONTINUING EDUCATIC)N 5 and humanities, may also be the keystone in the arch of later-life exposure to continu- ing education. But to return to the primary subject of continuing education, the antidote for pro- fessional obsolescence. Three major ingre- dients are involved: the practitioner him- self, the employer, and the program for jxoviding the nccessary educational experi- ence. The wood scientist or professional tech- nologist, as an employee, has three hurdles to clear if he is to remain competitive throlighout his career. These relate to his perceptizjeness in recognizing his further educational needs before the problem as- sumes insurmountable heights, to his initia- tive in seeking out effective ways and means for gaining the requisite knowledge, and to his per,seruerance in pursuing his o'bjective at whatever intervals and costs may be indi- cated. Conceiving the need for continuing education may not be so difficult, especially after an obvious defeat in competition for a desired promotion or a more challenging job assignment, or upon realization of in- ability to comprehend the full context of publications or talks in one's special field of interest. Likewise, with the mounting attention bcing devoted to planning and activating continuing education programs, it will become increasingly easy to find suit- able offerings. Undoubtedly the most diffi- c i~l t  aspect will be the acceptance of a life- time commitment to learning. There will surely be a significant dropout problem in the arcn of continuing education, as one person after another gives up the struggle to extend the reach of his mind. Learning is hard work and the absorption of knowl- cclge is sufficiently demanding for many well-intentioned people to find it distaste- ful. Naturally, this is apt to be i11creasingIy so with advancing years, and the one spur to action may well be the competitive urge to maintain position and professional recog- nition-to save face, if you will. One of the potential roadblocks to the effective use of continuing education is apt to be the attitude of those employers who give little or no encouragement to the self improvement of professional members of their staffs when this may involve some temporary loss of service or even a limited expense to the organization. The support given to continuing education by enlight- ened executives has been outstanding in some fields which are notable both for the inservice programs that have been estab- lished and the extent to which professional and administrative personnel are encour- aged to make use of educational leaves. Al- ready well-est(ab1ished and of proven value in some industries and private businesses, the "mid-career" educational program is also becoming a must in many of the larger public organizations. Unfortunately, with notable exceptions, the wood-based indus- tries havc lagged behind in this respect, as a consequence of administrative indiffer- ence and the limited size and scope of many of the concerns being served by wood scien- tists ancl technologists. Now for the third ingredient in the con- tinuing education complex-the program. Recognition of the projected obsolescence of much of o11r present specialized knowl- edge ancl the resultant need for repeated updating of the practicing wood scientist's scope and detail of understanding has been given by the Society of Wood Science and Technology, notably by the establishment in 1964 of its permanent Committee on Mem- bership Services. I t  is not my intent to dis- cuss the role and program of this committee relating to continuing education. Rather I want to indicate what I conceive to be the responsi1)ilities of the forestry schools and allied academic departments in this situa- tion. The potential role of these institutions seems crystal clear, for they are unique in their capacity for providing the formal in- struction, informal guidance, and allied fa- cilities needed for continuing professional a n d '  scientific education in appropriate fields. Some progress has already been made in this area, through various seminars and other types of professionally oriented short-term instruction being offered by many schools. But these represent only a limited start toward meeting the real need. To some degree, the desired results can 6 CONTINUING EDUCATION be obtained through study for an advanced degree, but such procedure is too tirne- consuming or otherwise unfeasible for most practitioners. A more reasonable solution appears to lie in the establishment of non- degree programs specifically tailored to the needs of wood scientists and technologists. These might well take the form of coordi- nated series of one- and two-week seminars and other forms of short-term instruction held at strategic intervals throughout the year; or they might be month-, semester-, or evcn year-long resident programs involving flexible course and conference-type combi- nations, with the student relatively free to pick and choose his activities with such faculty guidance as necessary. Such proce- dure would require more than passing at- tention on the part of the faculty and place a special responsibility on some instructors. Rut the benefits to the participating stu- dents and instructors alike, and the educa- tional prestige for the institution, would be far greater than any burden such activity might impose. There is a rare opportunity for effective educational service, the real significance of which as yet appears to be only dimly perceived by many university administrators and faculty members. Increasing recognition is being given to the fact that in wood science and technol- ogy, as in all professions and all fields of specialization, regardless of the original ( undergraduate and graduate ) preparation, there is primary need for continuing educa- tion throughout one's active career. Learn- ing, once regarded as a prelude to adult life, is increasingly coming to be regarded in- stead as a life-long process, with every man engaged in a career race between his obso- lescence and his retirement. Success will come to those who have the perception to identify the problem, the determination to seek appropriate ways and means of rcsolv- ing it, and the ambition and mental stamina to "see it through to its final satisfactory conclusion. In addition to members of the Editorial Board of Wood and Fiber, the following individuals have reviewed papers published in this issue: H. Dean Claxton Robert E. Martin K.  W. Davidson A. A. Moslemi Giza Ifju D. B. Richards 11. L. Kenaga John F. Siau Wesley A. Loos John D. Sullivan 13ichard J. Thomas 

Continuing Education-The Antidote for Professional Obsolescence

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Continuing Education-The Antidote for Professional Obsolescence

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Wood and Fiber Science (E-Journal)