DETC to pursue USDOE approval for doctorates

E-mail from Michael P. Lambert, Excutive Director of DETC, posted by DWCox at http://www.collegehints.com/boards/showthread.php?t=185:

 

This is potentially great news for those of us enrolled in programs with DETC schools or schools seeking DETC approval. I may consider postponing my completion date until after approval.

 

I hadn't heard that Boyer was seeking DETC accreditation. Do you know if a site visit has been scheduled?



Tom Nixon

 

By the way, my favorite DETC school has to be Babel University Professional School of Translation. It doesn't sound like things would bode well for the translating.





Tom Nixon

 

Yeah. Try to get the English part of their website to work...

 

I think this is a great news for DETC. I have no doubt that most of the DETC colleges/universities would benefit from this opportunity. There seems to be a great market base these colleges/universities could serve. I also think that things will look pretty competitive between the RA and DETC colleges and their docs.

Both docs will have accredited doc degrees. The question will become which doc is better. Granted, both would be accredited degrees. It seems to me that the future is very ripe for a new war of the accredited doctorate degrees. Time will tell. Thank you.

 

Boyer was originally a part of Taft and split off. Boyer merged with Taft again earlier this year. Currently the Boyer Graduate School of Education is a division of William Howard Taft University but not currently enrolling new students. The university is in the process of developing a masters level program. Hopefully when DETC begins accrediting doctoral programs the university will resume it's doctoral program.

 

If I were in your position I'd be pleased as well. I'd also be considering the exact plan you mentioned - delay degree completion until after the approval. There are, of course, two main things to consider in this regard. The first is that you might delay your degree completion only to find that approval is not granted. Time is a valuable comodity. The second is that approval is granted but as a result, standards (and costs) are raised. You may find that you're not as close to completion as you'd thought (and your tuition is higher too). I'm betting that this would still seem like a good deal. Overall I'd say this is good news.
Jack

 

What will be interesting to see is whether or not DETC doctorates will ever get hired within traditional RA academia?

John

 

This is probably bigger than DETC.

Do any recognized but non-RA institutional accreditors accredit doctoral programs, apart from first-professional degrees?

If this recognition is going to be extended to DETC, I expect to see it extended to ACICS, TRACS and the others as well.

I also expect that kind of proposal would be strongly opposed by the RA world. Doctoral degrees are the jewel in the crown, the pinnacle. These degrees represent the top levels of scholarship and research. I don't imagine that the conventional research community will be comfortable with losing control of what 'Ph.D.' means, with sharing that power to define the research degree with a whole group of organizations lacking research experience or accomplishments.

What's more, individual academics are usually doctors themselves, and that doctoral title is part of their personal self-image. It's a rite of passage. Academics are not going to want to see their elite status "cheapened", "watered down" or "demeaned" by a bunch of lower-class interlopers. There's going to be a widespread gut-reaction against making Ph.D.s more accessible.

So, I guess that I'm saying that I expect to see a great deal of politically potent opposition to this kind of proposal.