"Eating Our Seed Corn" or Restricting Crop Diversity? Tony Clear Faculty of Commerce Auckland Institute of Technology, Private Bag 92006, Auckland 1020, New Zealand Tony.Clear@ait.ac.nz ~he US phenome ⢠non of postgraduate students being poached by industry before they have completed their studies, has been termed by Peter Denning as "eating our seed com." [2] Meeting today's demands for industry m a y rob a c a d e m i c institutions of capable and qualified staff to teach computing tomorrow, or even today. This in turn may have local and global societal impacts. While the trends are disturbing, and the concerns valid, perhaps it is time to revisit some assumptions about the nature o f academic work and what background is required to best prepare staff for an a c a d e m i c career in computing. Ernest Boyer in his critique o f the traditional "teaching vs. research," [1] dichotomy of the academic role, prefers to emphasise the concept of scholarship, and discusses four forms of scholarship as a broader term for covering the dimensions o f an e d u c a t o r ' s job. "Surely, scholarship means engaging
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