In 1974, I wrote this introduction to a "Professional Development Summary" as a supplement to my annual evaluation. This illustrated how important the link between the academic and business world was and continues to this the present day. Added emphasis appears in red:
A basic premise of the close interrelationship between theory and practice underlies the presentation of this material. This raises a question of the difference between the focus in an academic unit and what the student confronts in his own organization, and how the two may be successfully interwoven to their mutual benefit.
As the diagram suggests, a two-way relationship is felt to exist between the world of the instructor and the world of the student. We take our academic theories and apply them as indicated by the upper arrow. Then we learn about the usefulness of the theory in the feedback we get from the practical environment.
The Resumé, and the Activity and Service Summary primarily focus on the theory or academic side of the relationship. This Professional Development Summary is designed to complement those documents by elaborating the practice component of the above relationship in my own career. As the Resumé indicates, the present career path began with the decision to obtain an MBA in the area of Mathematical Methods and Computers from the University of Chicago. With the solid foundation in theory acquired in that program, the next four years were spent in practice finding out what worked and what did not work in solving real problems in real organizations.
The work experience pointed out that many opportunities existed for further theoretical development to improve the quality of practical work in the information systems field. This led to a to return to school to obtain an advanced degree and an opportunity to develop theory as well as to apply it. The natural course would have seemed to seek a Ph.D. with an emphasis in information systems. It was decided that was exactly the path not to choose in order to successfully pursue this line of career development. Judgment suggested that significant improvements in the practice of theory in information systems would come from a blend of organization theory and systems development.
With the strong theoretical preparation from Chicago and the four years of practical experience, the decision was made to pursue a major concentration in organization theory at the University of Pennsylvania. Everyday seems to provide more evidence that progress in the field depends, perhaps necessarily, on a successful blend of information systems and organization theory in the solution of applied problems.
Since the Resumé and Activity and Service Summary emphasize the academic side of professional development, the following material fleshes out the significant practice experience which in conjunction with academic work has greatly increased the growth potential in my chosen career path. The summary of professional development is presented in three sections:
- Major Project Experience - these activities have provided an opportunity to test theory in practice and identify areas for further theoretical developments. In working with systems professionals, a rapport can be established since the instructor has gotten his hands just as dirty with real problems as they have.
- Special Study Topics Supervised - fortunately most of the work done in this area has been with students working full time in a career job. This has provided an opportunity to work hand in hand with an individual with a real problem and attempt to blend his practice and my theory to come up with a workable solution to the problem.
- Seminar and Workshop Participation - these experiences have provided opportunities to keep in touch with user problems since the major portion of my time has been spent in the academic environment. These are challenging opportunities to make the content of the classroom relevant to the needs of day to day practitioners.
This overview of the material presented in this document indicates the personal significance attached to the practice component of professional development. It is strongly felt that the time spent in any one of these forms of practice area is as important as the time spent in the various forms of academic pursuit emphasized on the other documents. In order for my professional development to continue along a successful path, a good balance between theory and practice must be maintained.