“The truth is 66% of the “entrepreneurship professors'” resumes I searched had NO experience in being entrepreneurs. The vast majority of them, like all their professor brethren, were the epitome of “those who can’t do, teach.” Merely bystanders, spectators, studiers-of, and observers of real entrepreneurs in the real world making real change. Simply the marching band who lacked the talent, skill, and work ethic required to make it on the football team.“
Look on the bright side. At least they weren’t phys ed teachers.
And of those who were entrepreneurs I wonder what percentage failed and instead of using their lessons to succeed decided it was safer to teach ?
Well, if your research didn’t include my school, then you stopped too early.
ALL of the profs here that teach Entrepreneurship at various levels EXCEPT ONE, have run their own companies. Fully half of them still do (or did, last time I checked, about 2 years ago).
Hell, I don’t even teach Entrepreneurship myself, and I run my own company.
But I’m also aware that this is not the norm.
Something tells me that TRUMP would love to have the Capt.’s research. It might make Trump University appear considerably more legitimate than the media (and a gullible BBB rating) have suggested. But then, these people ONLY believe that LEFTIST institutions for “higher” *cough* *cough* learning are legitimate.
I think the Captain is unfair comparing them to the marching band comprised of people who couldn’t make the football team. The band members need some musical ability as well as the physical conditioning and presence of mind for extensive foot drill.
I wouldn’t expect typical professors of entrepreneurship or many other subjects had any better chance of making the marching band than they did of making the football team.
“I wouldn’t expect typical professors of entrepreneurship or many other subjects had any better chance of making the marching band than they did of making the football team.”
Apples and oranges: professor of entrepreneurship, marching band member, football player.
That said, we would not be wrong in assuming that if someone were to become the director of a marching band or the coach of a football team, they would have first had some considerable experience as a band member or football player.
I don’t think it’s too great an ask to require someone teaching entrepreneurship to have had actual experience as one.
Sorry, last line should have read:
“I don’t think it’s too great an ask to require someone teaching entrepreneurship to have had actual experience as an entrepreneur.”
The ‘Global Warming Industry’ is perhaps the best example. It is populated exclusively by academics who have never had an actual job and would never survive if they did. They live in their own narrowly-focused bubble and feed off of each other with no pesky outside influence to speak of.
So Ken, then why are they teaching, because they failed, or were not all that successful. And those teaching AND running a business, if their bus. fails, their paycheck is still waiting on payday. I used to work at a company and run a small part time bus., and it wasn’t the same as when I ran a small bus. and that was my only pay check.
“Simply the marching band who lacked the talent, skill, and work ethic required to make it on the football team.”
~Cap’n Bad Analogy
“I think the Captain is unfair comparing them to the marching band comprised of people who couldn’t make the football team. The band members need some musical ability as well as the physical conditioning and presence of mind for extensive foot drill.”
Absolutely. But Cap’n wasn’t being unfair, he was being ignorant.
When I was a member of the Calgary Stampede Marching band in the ’70s, we traveled the world to enter into completions, including the Music Festival in Vienna, and won a lot of them.
During the Calgary Stampede, the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth, we would do 5 shows every day + practice in between. We worked hard all year round at it and it was grueling.
Every one of us(except for the flag bearers and the baton twirlers) started studying and practicing(hours per day)on our particular musical instrument as small children.
Trouble is how are you going to convince a successful entrepreneur to give up his business (or set aside a substantial amount of time away from it) to take up teaching? You’d have to offer a lot of money that the schools either don’t have, just aren’t willing to pay, or can’t pay because of unionized pay scales that say the transgender studies prof needs to be paid the same amount.
“I quit my research early only after 31 data points. And the reason I quit my research early is, frankly, because “I have sh|t to do.”…Research was done by google searching “professor entrepreneurship”. The majority of datapoints/resumes were selected from the Carlson School of Management (which has a surprisingly high percent of real entrepreneurs), Babson, and some other college whose name escapes me now. If you doubt my figures, or don’t like what I’m saying, or don’t think 31 datapoints is enough, then you take time out of your precious day to research it (unbiasedly, I’m sure) and come up with your own damn study. I’m sure you have the time. You’re an academic. I unfortunately don’t. I’m an entrepreneur.”
Hahaha. In other words, “I took a stab at conducting ‘research’ — which I define as being a single Google search — but realized rather quickly that it’s harder than I thought, so after looking at no more than a non-representative handful of colleges (including one ‘whose name escapes me now’) and having dug just deep enough to confirm my own beliefs, I gave up on my (garbage in/garbage out) ‘study’, declared unilateral victory, and inoculated myself from any and all criticism by challenging anyone who would question my methods to actually do the work that I couldn’t be arsed to do in the first place. Because I’m ‘too busy’ (though not so busy that I don’t have time to write a 630-word blog entry about how busy I am) running my own ‘consulting firm’. Which presumable requires research skills. Which evidently I don’t have.”
Oh Captain, do tell: in your head, what was the point of this post?
Rodney Dangerfield made a movie about this very topic Back To School …. It is the same.
A friend of mine is a prof at a Canadian university. He is allowed to consult to a certain percentage of his teaching time. If industry is slow he just teaches. If it’s busy he consults as much as possible. Nice gig if you can get it.
I have another friend who worked for the Geological Survey of Canada. He was also able to consult as long as it didn’t conflict with his GSC gig. Who determined any conflicts? He did of course.
I’ve never met a private industry type who was paid to teach or to consult to government. They probably exist too.
“I’ve never met a private industry type who was paid to teach or to consult to government. They probably exist too.”
They’re called lawyers. You’re welcome.
Which presumable requires research skills. Which evidently I don’t have.
Son, I don’t think you want to be challenging the Captain on his research skills.
When I took my industrial engineering at Sheridan, 3 out of 4 profs were actually part time, they were upper echelon industry types
also when I took a communications course, it was taught by a person who worked in industry, and taught part time
Most profs in business and other disciplines go straight through from a bachelor’s degree to a Masters then a PhD. Then they get an Assistant Prof job at some university, never having experienced the business world at all, except as a consumer.
My field is economics/finance. After I got my PhD and was interviewing for faculty jobs, I tried to emphasize my experience working in finance. Most of the profs who interviewed me could care less. So far as they were concerned, I might as well have been in a ballet company.
I am a p.eng. and later got a teaching cert.
Now if you don’t know it you become a journalist
back in mid 80s I had an instructor at Brock who ran a digital business of some sort. he taught the microprocessor course where we all found out about microinstructions, the function of the clock pulse in coordinating the various chips on the mother board, and the very fine highly technical and detailed process how a processor uses nand gates to carry out an instruction. ie, the instruction consisted of a unique array of bits on and off, and depending on which were on and which were off, various other steps would occur until the instruction was completed.
the whole thing went right over the head of some of them, but not me.
I cant imagine such an extremely technical course being taught by other than someone who had spent years up to their elbows in the stuff. the fact he was so familiar kept the explanation clear and to the point.
about 4 or 5 years later I bumped into the fellow at his plant in Hamilton, he proudly showed me the catamaran he had built using floor space in the plant, naturally it incorporated digital controls to link the navigation to the sail controls !! very approachable straight forward guy.
What’s the old saying, “”A” students teach “B” students who then work for “C” students”?
Agree 100%. I still play in Bands and I found that analogy offensive and ignorant.
I suspect those professors interviewing you for faculty positions actually did care very much about your finance experience. They would have seen it as a threat.
Nah. It now is, “those who can, do; those who can’t, run a blog.”
The implication is that the people who are particularly good at doing something are the best people to teach it, and in a just world, they would be the ones to do so. But is it true or reasonable?
In response to the Captain, one of the most innovative and effecting batting coaches was Charlie Lau. In an 11-year career as a journeyman catcher, Lau compiled a career .255 batting average, but he had far more impact as a hitting instructor than the great Ted Williams (19-year career batting average of .344).
The best novelists and poets tend not to be great teachers of literature. And anyone who has been to law school or medical school or (particularly) dental school knows full well how perfectly awful many of the most skilled practitioners are at teaching.
Teaching usually demands a different set of skills than the thing being taught. But it also demands that the teacher know and understand a lot about the things being taught (as did Charlie Lau), and the major problem with so many contemporary academics is that they are far more full of “passion” and “commitment” (and full of other things as well) than they are of a broad and deep understanding of their subjects.