Mark Guzdial points to an article by Nicholas Lemann in the Chronicle of Higher Ed entitled The Soul of the Research University. It’s a good essay about the schizophrenic nature of the modern research university. But Lemann takes some shots at the notion of teaching skills in the university. Here’s some devil’s advocacy from the piece:

Why would you want to be taught by professors who devote a substantial part of their time to writing projects, instead of working professionals whose only role at the university is to teach? Why shouldn’t the curriculum be devoted to imparting the most up-to-the-minute skills, the ones that will have most value in the employment market? Embedded in those questions is a view that a high-quality apprenticeship under an attentive mentor would represent no loss, and possibly an improvement, over a university education.

Later on, Lemann refutes that perspective, that students are better off being taught at research universities by professors engaged in research. He seems to miss the irony that this apprenticeship model is precisely how these research universities train PhD students. For bonus irony, here was the banner ad I saw atop the article: