Community College Teaching

Community colleges commonly require 18 semester hours in a subject area on the master's level for prospective teachers at their institutions, but what about those degrees which are not earned by traditional semester hours of credit? For instance, would a person with a research master's, such as foreign schools offer, be likely to be accepted for a teaching position at a community college?

 

Yes, provided that you have completed the master's degree.




Tom Nixon

 

The problem with research degrees, writes someone who has one, is that there are no transcripts. When the department secretary is sorting the paperwork, she has a checklist. When the checklist is completed, she puts the application packet in the "Complete" file. Without a transcript, it stays "Incomplete," no one on the hiring committee sees your application, and you get the pro-forma rejection letter either right after the application deadline or sometime in May...

 

I agree completely with Jon. Unless you are dealing Harvard, Yale and other top research universities, a master's degree without transcripts will likely hinder chances.

 

Okay, a slightly different question: What about self-designed degrees or degrees with units of credit but which are obtained by projects and other non-traditional methods of earning credits?

 

When I received a lifetime community college teaching certificate in Arizona, the state required 24 upper division (or graduate) units in each subject that one wished to teach. In California, they stopped issuing community college credentials and now require a masters degree (or equivalent) if one wishes to teach an "academic area" and an AA or BA plus a certain amount of years of work experience to teach a "vocational" area.

Tony Pina
Faculty, Cal State U. San Bernardino

 

Okay,

I have thought about this kind of thing before. Is there an "easier" way to get into community college teaching via DL methods?

No. Mostly because an administrator will need to know that whatever work you have done for your MA has been standard classes, standard issues, and so forth. They need to know that so that you will cover the subject area well. If you have a non traditional masters (like one of those independent study ones, or "create your own curriculum" things) you will not stand up to competition with someone else who has done their time with the standard courses. Same goes for thesis only MA's.

Chris