Can I get a teaching job with an online doctoral degree?

I am thinking of pursuing an online doctoral degree (in instructional technology), with the eventual goal of teaching, and found this recent study published in the American Journal of Distance Education very interesting (and somewhat disheartening.)

Here is a snippet:

"Overall, from the quantitative results, it seems clear that a person applying for a faculty position to any of the search committees at the institutions included in this analysis would have virtually no prospect of gaining employment if he or she had earned a doctorate solely online. Moreover, their chances would be very slim if a sizable part of their course work had been completed online—even though they had a doctorate awarded by a traditional institution."

Here is a summary of the results, with a link to the paper (only available for a short time): http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/on_campus/nov05/technology.htm

You can read the abstract here: http://www.ajde.com/Abstracts/abs19_2a.htm.

Anecdotally, having spoken to faculty at my university, they confirm that they would not consider candidates with Ph.D's from online institutions.

Thoughts, anyone?

Cheers,
Helen

 

I heard the same thing. Read this post - http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19593&highlight=plane

 

Helen,

I would say this depends on what you consider "online doctorate". There are plenty of faculty teaching with degrees from places like Nova or Argosy. There are also many degree holders from UK and Australian universities that earned their degrees by using distance education and teach full time at the University level in the US or Canada.

If online doctorates mean earned from online schools like NCU, then I would say that this could be the case but there are still very few graduates to say that this is a general statement. I have seen many NCU PhD graduates teaching at Devry on a full time basis so I guess that online experince can be helpful if you teach for a school that also requires online teaching like Devry.

 

I think this is slowly changing a bit. Here are some schools that have hired faculty with online PhDs.

Northeastern University in Boston, a top-tier University, hired a Capella PhD.
William Hancock, a PhD in Management from Capella University works there as an undergraduate faculty instructor: http://www.staging.neu.edu/spcs/aboutSPCS/Faculty

There is another Capella Phd at Life University:
http://www.life.edu/Faculty_and_Staff/staff.asp

For Hays University has an NCU PhD. I believe this school is more open minded to faculty with online doctorates than other schools. There are several Capella PhDs working there too.
http://www.fhsu.edu/sociology/faculty.shtml

The University of Findlay in Ohio just hired Dr. Dan Yates, an NCU PhD:
http://www.findlay.edu/newsevents/news/newsreleases/2005/09/12ufappointsnewfaculty.htm

I know there is a Walden PhD teaching at a top Ivy League school but can't remember which. Folks, if you know where it is let me know.

Nova grads are found all over the place.

Hope this helps.

-S

 

The study in question looked at full-time, doctoral-level openings that were advertised nationally in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Such positions are presumably tenure-track. In general, the competition for tenure-track positions today is intense. It's not unusual for hiring committees to get hundreds of qualified applicants for any given opening.

Most online schools (and many lower-tier B&M schools) are not particularly selective or prestigious. In a buyer's market, doctoral degrees from such schools have little or no chance. Odds are that the hiring committee will get plenty of applicants with degrees from prestigious first-tier schools. So why should they hire someone with a second- or third-tier degree (whether it is B&M or online)? Most likely those applicants will be the first to get weeded out.

It's not impossible to get a teaching position with an online doctorate, but most likely it will be a part-time or adjunct position, rather than tenure-track.

 

Re: Re: Can I get a teaching job with an online doctoral degree?

As a tenured faculty - this is a pretty accurate summary. Really, depending on the field (science is less competitive that liberal arts) the more traditionally you can position yourself - the better. I was a non-traditional applicant - but I was able to present myself as a retired officer - who had been faculty at a RA military school.

Hiring committees are looking for people who reflect their values.

Now, once you are on board - you have much more flexibility on where you get your education.

 

We should also keep in mind that there is a lot more to be considered in getting hired as a full-time faculty than just the doctoral degree. Other areas such as scholarship, service to academia, teaching, and experience are as important, if not more important than the doctorate degree. I remember a post a while back from Anthony Pina that presented what I believe to be the best summary of what is considered in hiring faculty. In that post Anthony explains the specific areas within scholarship, service, teaching, and experience. You may want to do a search for that post, I cannot locate it myself.

Anthony, if you are around, maybe you can re-direct us to that information.

 

Capella University reports over 5,600 students are enrolled in their doctoral programs. I wonder how many will be looking for teaching positions?

 

List of Union Ph.D.'s in Higher Education

List of Union Ph.D's in Higher Education Administration

 

I'm sad that the thread's title seems to suggest, once again, that there is something substandard about online/distance education. The issue is -- or at least should be -- accreditation by an agency approved by the US Department of Education (USDE) and/or its Council for Higher Education Accreditation (CHEA). If one wanted to be more specific, then, fine, regional accreditation. As long as the institution has that, it should not matter the degree's delivery method. It's just a silly notion... a bias of those in the brick & mortar (B&M)educational world who just cannot seem to get their minds wrapped around the concept that for a vast majority of college courses and programs face-to-face contact, while perhaps preferred, is not necessary. In most cases, the quality of the education is not diminished for face-to-face contact's not being a feature or factor.

The exception, of course, is such as lab work, or hands-on practica. There may also be other unique situations wherein the Socratic method for a given course, or type of courses, may be intensified in order to more effectively drive home the material's salient points for better and faster recall later. Of course the online/distance learning delivery method may not be appropriate in such sitatuations; but they are, as this paragraphi's opening sentence stated, the exception, not the rule.

What a truly stupid thing for whomever you spoke with to admit. It's as stupid today a white business owner in the '60s saying that he'd never hire a negro. There was no rational reason for that then, and there's no rational reason for what you've been told now. They're of the same prejudicial cloth... with nothing in the way of empirical evidence to back it up. A degree is a degree is a degree, as long as it's accredited. Course delivery method play no role in it whatsoever, with the possible exception of the aforementioned unusual circumstances.

I wish you'd refer whomever told you that thos this thread. If the B&M world of academia would get their heads out of their asses about this. It's embarrassing -- to them -- and they don't even see it.

I still say the day is coming when someone with the time and financial means is going to put an end to this sort of discrimination with a lucrative lawsuit. There is no special category of regional (or any other type of USDE- and/or CHEA-approved) accreditation. If accreditation, generally, is to actually mean anything, it must be that if it's accredited, then it's accredited, regardless of delivery method.

What a shame is this situation. What a shame.

 

The analogy's not devisive; racism is. Refusing to say the words isn't the solution to racism, it's just cowardly... or, if not, then it's at least burying one's head in the sand.

I believe that's true.

 

Superficially, this list appears to confirm the general perception of a "tightening" academic job market over the past few years. You can easily use the Acrobat "search" function to list the number of times that a given graduation year appears in the list. For recent years, you get the following results:

1995: 43 Union PhDs listed
1996: 56
1997: 60
1998: 54
1999: 39
2000: 10
2001: 9
2002: 6
2003: 2

The numbers for the post-2000 classes will likely rise over time. But it seems unlikely that they will match the levels of the 1990s.

 

The main issue is also the massive graduation of PhDs from online schools compared with traditional schools. Online schools seem to be graduating in the order of thousands while traditional schools normally graduate only few PhDs in a given discipline per year. The issue is that soon the market will be flooded with online PhD holders competing for the same jobs with traditional PhD holders.

I see that in the future there will be a need of poct-docs in business in order to filter candidates the same way we have it in science where the competition is so fierce that post-docs are almost mandatory.

 

A $64 question is: If faculty, did they receive their PhD before or after they were hired?

Union has received some negative publicity in the last few years - can't have helped.

 

I don't know. Maybe all of them. Scary, huh? LOL.
Actually, most online doctoral students tend to be full-time working professionals, and a great number of them are already employed at local community colleges or masters level universities.

In fact, during the residency in Scottsdale two years ago, I was surprised to see that so many of their doctoral students had over 5-10 years experience as college instructors; some were even deans at small community colleges. But most of them, based on my observations, simply wanted that Ph.D so they could put a mark on that check box to remain in their positions or get a promotion at their current schools. Some others were pursuing a Ph.D for the sake of pursuing a life long dream.

If you are looking to teach at a community college, then an online doctorate should work well.

-S

 

This study provides no conclusive answers. If you take a closer look, several limitations are quite evident. One they mentioned was: "the respondents were asked only to choose between the type of degree without any information regarding the specific method, instructional design, or name of the institution offering the degree program. Obviously, this information may influence how people react to an online degree." Take this a little further and look at how they described the online degree to the respondents:

"Candidate C received the doctorate from a "virtual" university - that is, one having no classrooms, labs, or libraries and where all instruction and interaction with others is offered by computer over the Internet, without direct face-to-face contact with mentors and other students".

No classrooms...no libraries...? Do any of the accredited online PhD's that we know of resemble this? I think not! Candidate A got this flowering statement right off the bat: "...has a doctorate in the appropriate academic specialty". Why didn't it say that about Candidate C? Candidate A had "positive" word associations while Candidate C had negative word associations within the questionnaire.

In the qualitative portion of this study one respondent said: "a degree obtained via the Internet is akin to one ordered from a catalog."

The funny thing, or I should say the hypocritical thing is that many of the respondents have no trouble offering online degrees to their students.

But in all fairness, the way the questionnaire was worded leaves some doubts to the study's validity (IMHO).

 

From a legal standpoint, yes. From a market standpoint, no.

In practice, a doctoral degree from a top-ranked university (e.g. Prestigious Ivy U. or Flagship State U.) is worth more (often much more) in the job market than a similar degree from a 3rd- or 4th-tier university (e.g. Satellite State U. or Nonselective Private U.). This discrepancy is especially pronounced in the academic job market, because people in academia tend to be well informed about different institutions and their place in the pecking order.

DL schools, by and large, are not particularly selective or highly ranked. Based on current US News rankings, for example:

- Nova Southeastern is 4th tier among national universities
- Union Institute is 4th tier among national universities
- Touro is 3rd tier among Northern master's universities
- Capella, UoP, Walden, NCU are unranked

DL doctoral degrees may be accredited and perfectly valid, but that's not necessarily enough. In a tight academic job market, a doctoral degree also needs to be prestigious. And DL doctoral degrees aren't there, at least not yet.

Perhaps someday this will change. There are clearly prestigious DL degrees at the master's level. But not at the doctoral (or bachelor's) level.

 

Right on the money. Note that a degree does not have to be your highest one in order to be noticed.

My Oxford Diploma in Computing is undergraduate - but got me the job - as long as I had a post-masters degree to "check the block" and satisfy the Dean and Provost.