What should a visiting professor to MPC know to prepare for their visit?
We are having a visiting professor to MPC. Why should we care? It’s not because a sense of authority, keep the status quo, or fill some requirements. It does have a more profound reason. It’s way beyond requirements, to have good relationships with authorities, or just to complete a checklist to see we are going on the right path. A visit to MPC has an objective greater than for the professor’s gain of visiting us and having the possibility to learn something from us. The main objective of a visiting professor to MPC is to enrich our culture in the whole sense of this concept. There are many ways to accomplish this, which include feedback and most important the opportunity to explore new knowledge brought by the visitor. When a professor is visiting MPC, it’s a great opportunity to “consume” his or her knowledge, principally with the dialogue tool. While doing this, we must embrace and understand other points of view, expanding our perspective of knowledge and ideas. So, in order to reach this we must use the dialogue tool, but we must not only have a dialogue but a rich dialogue. A rich dialogue is one that fulfills two basic points. The first and most important point is that all of the participants follow the dialogue rubrics accorded before. Without these rubrics, the dialogue is most likely to fail. The second point is to stay on subject. Not because we don’t like spontaneous topics, but for the health of the dialogue to accomplish a concrete set of conclusions, even if they are not reached by consensus. Along with these two points and mainly with the first one, it is necessary for all the participants to actually “be” on the dialogue. By this, I mean that everyone must understand and engage the learning process through making the rubrics work, such like active listening and understanding what the other person is saying. It’s also important to understand that it’s not about anyone, but it’s about everyone. We don’t embrace a dominating attitude and do encourage that everyone participates with ideas and opinions.
After setting the main objectives of the visits, it also comes into subject why it’s important for us to have these visits. We must take into account that the visiting professors are new and fresh points of view, which, if we want, can help us discover new passions and have a more clear objective of what we want to do with our life. Through dialogue and they telling us their experience we can obtain this. It’s important for all of us to be in a college that has a good reputation and is seen as one with people with values and principles, who are passionate for everything in life, and are capable of fulfilling their commitments, and by giving the example we can set all of these. Finally, all members should keep in contact with them, mainly because they took the time to care for the MPC and it would be respectful and enriching to tell them how are we going in accomplishing our objectives, and make them part of the learning process.
In order for a visiting professor to MPC know how to prepare for their visit, he or she must start by knowing who we are. What is the Michael Polanyi, whom composes it, what are our dreams and passions, and what is our history or biography. Of course, all of these will have to be very short, but long enough to give them an idea of why each of us is here. This can be given in a brochure.
They must know what is our culture. We define a culture as a set of rules created in order to give rise to a particular environment. In our case, we have created a culture so we can be in a true learning environment. We based our culture in values and principles, and most important respect. Respect in all the sense of the virtue, toward others and most important toward us. We respect commitments and are responsible of our actions. All of the above comes with a sense of responsibility aimed at the students, so everything we do and how we do it is for a reason directed to be a more student-centered institution, and keep and improve our learning environment. We work with rubrics, for dialogue, individual, and group work, so it has great importance for the visiting professor to know and follow these rubrics while they are on their visit. Our rubrics, especially our dialogue rubrics, explain what attitudes we embrace and why, why we never have a dominating attitude, don’t hold back, answer one question at a time, stick to the text and not to our beliefs, and are comfortable and not afraid of silence. All of these help to create the dialogue environment we want to have in order to make the best of the visit it can be. We encourage everyone to be spontaneous, so we allow breaking specific guides, not rubrics, of what was planned and are flexible with the time and schedule if required. Finally, our culture aims for everyone to be real. By this, we mean that we inculcate honesty, constructive, and negative criticism. All of these can be provided by a guideline.
After knowing about where they are going and whom are they going interact on their visit, the visiting professors must know their role in the visit and how can they contribute to our learning environment. For them to know their possible contribution, they have to know what is our learning environment. Knowing this will also help them realize what should they do and how should they behave.
The last point a visiting professor has to know for preparation is the topic of the dialogue or activity that we are going to do. In order to do this, he or she will have to read any chapter, essay, or other text assigned for the dialogue. In case it’s not a text, the other resources apply as well (e.g. videos). To complement the readings, a context must be explained for better understanding. It’s also important to agree that if a visiting professor has not read or watched the respective assignment, a summary must be given before the dialogue or activity starts. On the other hand, if a visiting professor assigns something, all the participants of the dialogue or activity must do it. So, if the dialogue is going to be about a specific area of their specialty, the other participants should also prepare questions for the dialogue or send them to him or her via email beforehand. This would help the dialogue evolve in a better and deeper way. Also, if he or she needs any resources for their visit, they must tell it with anticipation. Finally, they have to know how much the activity or dialogue would last, so we can keep on schedule and they can have a better use of their time. All of these should be provided with a guideline with at least one week of anticipation.
After knowing all of these points, the visiting professors are ready to visit the MPC and have an enriching experience for both parts.