On Fri, 6 Jan 1995 11:39:59 -0800,
Richard Perry  <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
 
 
>One of the critical marks by which a career field is recognized as a
>"profession" is that it possesses and controls a corner of
>theoretically-founded, rationally organized knowledge, and that some kind of
>formal training is required to understand that information. . . .  I believe
our professional training programs give short shrift to anything
>that is not that anecdotal, "from the trenches" perspective.  I believe that
>the next generation of practitioners in our museums need understanding that
>can be passed on by reflective, informed practitioners, AS WELL AS from
>sociologists, communications theorists, management theorists, historians,
>and anthropologists of contemporary society so that these twenty-first century
>administrators, educators, curators and conservators, etc., will understand
>what's going on around them and their future institutions.
 
We need a thinktank; every other profession has at least one.  Maybe we're
not a profession because we don't.
 
Ken Yellis
Assistant Director for Public Programs
Peabody Museum of Natural History
170 Whitney Avenue
Box 208118
New Haven, CT 06520-8118
[log in to unmask]
(203) 432-9891/9816(fax)