Utility of London LLm or Harvard ALM for undergrad teaching

I'd like to tap into the collected expertise here once again. I currently teach HS History in an International school in India. Next year I'm moving to a new school in China. Good job, but I really have a 5 year plan (sounds too Soviet?) to teach in a nice liberal arts college. I have B&M B.A. (Williams) and J.D (Albany Law). My plan is to prepare to teach either Political Science (International Law/relations) or Criminal Justice. I've enrolled in the London LLM (old style) but taken no courses. I've also taken and passed (2 A's!) two DL courses in the Harvard ALM program. My question is how useful would the following programs be in setting me up for a future college teaching career:

Option 1-- Finish the Harvard ALM (Concentration in Government with much of the coursework in International Law/Relations). Then add a research PhD (in Law with dissertation on some aspect of Int. Law) from a school like University of Cape Town.

Option 2--Put Harvard aside. Complete the London LLM (specialize in Criminology and Crim Justice). Add a research PhD (in law or Crim Justice) from a school like Cape Town.

The residency options at both Harvard and Cape Town are no problem as I'm a teacher. Also, the cost of all the programs is within my budget. I'm more or less equally interested in both disciplines. Would either option make me competitive in the academic marketplace? Both? Neither? Comments? Advice? Thanks. BTW, I originally garnered all these ideas from this website. You guys rule!

 

First of all, even though there is some debate within the legal profession as to whether the JD should be considered a doctorate (the naysaying side of that debate being motivated, no doubt, by the fact that there are still a few old geezers left over who did the same work as you, only to end up with a mere humble second bachelor's --- the old LlB), within academia itself, your JD will be considered a doctoral qualification. The JD would be useful not just for law professors, but also to political science professors specializing in constitutional law or international law and business professors specializing in business law and business ethics. Therefore, being doctorally qualified as you are, you are already ready to take up the professorate.

As to the question of the Harvard ALM or the London LlM, you might go to the search function and do username searches for alarmingidea, who is in the Harvard ALM in Government with an expected date of graduation of 2006, and nosborne48, who is currently enrolled in the London LlM. Both of the sound good. If I had such a dilemma as choosing between the Harvard ALM and the London LLM, my big question would be: which one should I do first?

And, by the way, I must do my obeissances to one who is such a prestigious superbrain as to have to cionsider the possibility of rejecting Harvard for a better opportunity. The ground upon which you walk must sink beneath your intellectual weight!

There have been a few old threads about landing one's first professorship. Fairly recently, high school history teacher Misty Flannigan started a thread on how to land her first professorship, where she got a lot of good, constructive advice. I posted there a threadlink to our august Senior Member Anthony Pina's now-famous essay on how to land one's first professorship.

Your foot in the door to the professorship is going to be getting a few adjuncting positions in the community colleges and/or online teaching positions. As for moving up to a full-time tenure-track position at a four-year college, your experience as a high school teacher will give you a leg up on your competitors. From thence, if you wish to start teaching graduate courses, you might look at doing some adjuncting for a night school or online master's program. In the meantime, if you wish to eventually take up a professorate at a major doctorate-granting institution, you should start now by joining the American Political Science Association and similar professional organizations and presenting papers at their professional conferences and publishing articles in their scholarly journals. It will be much easier to get a professorate at a major university if you already have a publications record. As to the issue of a dissertation-only doctorate, some on this board have been concerned that American academe may have issues with the fact that non-US doctorates do not have coursework components, as the American doctorate does. This is a false concern, in my opinion, as my experience shows that a good many American deans and department chairs are blissfully unaware that doctoral degrees from institutions of higher education in the UK and other countries influenced by the UK system are earned by dissertation only.

Cheers!

 

And here is Misty Flannigan's thread: http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=23561

 

Welcome to the boards, by the way!

 

You could just get a DL Masters in Criminal Justice or International Relations. Lots of schools have DL programs in CJ.

I think that one very good DL program (the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy at Tufts) offers a Masters degree in int'l relations or diplomacy or the like and that one super prestigious school (Oxford) has a DL program in International Law that can be taken by distance with a couple Summer residencies. You could also look into one of the schools that offer Summer PhDs, such as Gonzaga, which offers a very open-ended sort of PhD in Leadership that could have about any focus you desired.

Between the Harvard ALM and the London Masters, I'd choose Harvard. But of course, London's no slouch. Both are well-priced for the name brand of the school.

Good luck.

 

Re: Re: Utility of London LLm or Harvard ALM for undergrad teaching

I have to disagree there, especially in regards to Criminal Justice teaching positions. The Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (as close to an "accreditor" of CJ programs as you're going to find) recommends that very few CJ teaching positions be filled with J.D.'s, and then only if they also have a Master's in Criminal Justice. If you look at the full-time CJ positions on the Chronicle website, most, if not all, will state "the J.D. alone is not acceptable for this position".

To the original question, never discount the Harvard name, especially in the United States. I don't think you could go wrong with either choice, London or Harvard, but I'd go with Harvard.

 

Re: Re: Re: Utility of London LLm or Harvard ALM for undergrad teaching

Hmm. Interesting. I had mentioned the JD in the context of constitutional law and international in the political science department and maybe, if he's ever interested, business law and business ethics in the business school. I hadn't thought about a JD teaching criminal justice. On that note, wouldn't a criminal justice department want a JD handling the class on legal issues like search and siezure, mirandizing, controlled use of force, etc.? Just wondering out loud.

 

Thanks for all the good info so far. Hope to get even more. One of the posters mentioned the potential benefits of completing BOTH degrees. Would there be any benefit in completing one degree in Int Law and then the other in Criminology/CJ. Would these two degrees and a JD work synergistically to equal a PhD? Or would the lack of the PhD largely relegate me to Comm College teaching?

 

Criminal justice

No, the J.D. alone is often not adequate to apply for many criminal justice positions.

Criminal justice is not primarily a legal discipline. It is, rather, a branch of sociology and people doing research in the field really need the statistical methods and research background of a Ph.D.

Public policy is (or perhaps should be) driven by social science rather than law. The J.D. receives NONE of this training.

Besides, there are a lot of J.D.s out there and WE have lots of career possibilities; do you really think that the academy wants to deprive its own children of those very few opportunities to pay off their student loans?

 

It sounds to me more like you want to set yourself up for an academic position that's somewhat legal-related and that you're not particularly set on one thing, but in your mind you have five years to set yourself up for this second career.

Here's what you should do:

1). FIGURE OUT WHAT YOU WANT TO DO.

Do you want to be a poly sci professor? A criminology professor? An international relations professor? Some other sort of professor that touches upon the field of law?

You don't want to look like some reject lawyer who doesn't know what he/she wants to do and so picked up a couple random Masters degrees in the ignorant and vain hope that it would impress someone in academia. You must do everything in your power over the next five years to put together a CV that dispels that notion in the minds of hiring committees.

Another possibility that you haven't mentioned is being a business law or small college business professor. Your JD is a bonus there. Teaching law to undergrads can be a lot of fun, and teaching undergrad business courses isn't exactly hell for most profs (except, perhaps, accounting). You might look into online MBAs or MS in Management to supplement the JD. If you finished that Harvard MLA/ALM and then got an MBA from a decent state school (all very doable in 5 years, you'd be positioning yourself decently for one of those nice small colleges or even a larger university that's seeking a business law professor or a business professor (but the latter's competitive only at a small college, business professor candidates, as opposed to business law professor candidates, must have a PhD or be ABD and headed PhD to be considered at the university level. I'm not saying that all small colleges will fall all over themselves to hire you for a business position with a JD/MBA (and perhaps even an MLA from Harvard). Even the smaller colleges want PhDs in the business departments, but the truth is that they sometimes can't get them because they don't pay enough to really entice a good scholar with a PhD. So, you'd be competitive and have a chance somewhere. There are no shortage of Masters-only profs in small college business departments.

2). PRODUCE SOME SCHOLARSHIP

Unless your life's dream is to teach at a CC (and you've already indicated it's not), you better start writing for some journals, or at least presenting some papers in an attempt to get published. You have five years, you should be able to get some things published. Even if it's only for some state's bar association monthly or quarterly, at least it'll get you on the map.

3). JOIN SOME PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES

This has already been mentioned, and it's true. If you're intrigued by the business law thing, then join the ALSB. If you want to be a criminology prof, then I'm sure they have a scholarly society for that as well. Same for poly sci or international relations.

4). REJECT ANY NOTION IN YOUR MIND THAT AN OVERSEAS DEGREE AS ANYTHING OTHER THAN A SUPPLEMENT TO YOUR MAIN DEGREE WILL OPEN THE DOORS OF ACADEMIA TO YOU IN AMERICA

I'm not meaning to be snotty here, but if you decide you just gotta be a criminologist or a political scientist, I do not think an overseas degree from anything short of Oxford, Cambridge, London School of Economics or the Sorbonne is going to do you much good over here. You might supplement your main degree in a field with an overseas degree (such as an LLM from London supplementing your JD and MBA when applying for a business law position or supplementing your JD and MS in Criminology when applying for a small college Criminology position), but don't depend on it as your main degree. I do not think the University of Cape Town will cut it if you're angling for a position in Poly Sci when you're up against candidates with US PhDs.

5). BE REALISTIC

No matter what anyone tells you, except in certain specific disciplines in the world of academia, a JD and $3.50 will garner you a latte at Starbucks. A JD plus a half dozen Masters is probably not going to be seen, without more, as a PhD-equivalent by many schools, even the small ones.

As another poster said, Criminology is a research-oriented discipline, and they want PhDs on the faculty. Now maybe a JD plus a Masters online from a good school will cut it, but you will still be at a disadvantage if there are PhDs among the candidates, and there pretty much will be PhDs in the running at those "nice" smaller liberal arts schools. If you just have to go that way, though, the University of Cincinnati and the University of Massachusetts-Lowell have online MS in Criminology. There are other good schools with programs. Look them up on the US News eLearning search tool. http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/elearning/tools/elsearch.htm

Now if you have some substantial scholarship under your belt by the year 2011, an MS in CJ plus a JD, it just might get you there for Criminology at that small college. However, I think your chances are smaller in the area of Poly Sci, I just don't see the JD as being what you need to teach as anything other than an adjunct. Maybe with a Masters online in Poly Sci, but I still think less likely. No idea about international relations. There frankly aren't many int'l relat departments in existence.

6). GET A FOCUS

Kind of related to #1 above. If you want to be a prof in 5 years in the States and you want your JD to help you rather than make you look like some wierdo who doesn't know what he wants to do when he grows up (no offense intended, just trying to make you see the world through the eyes of hiring committees), then put together a plan that will fit all the pieces together by five years and make you look like you know exactly what you are doing.

If you gotta go CJ, then I would get the best online MS in CJ you can and maybe push onward with the Harvard degree, emphasising law or CJ as much as possible. And of course, produce some relevant scholarship. If you're angling for business law, then get an online LLM and/or an MBA or MS in business and again, produce some scholarship. I see those two as your best chances of getting a position at a small college. Unless you can take off the next five years to get a PhD in Poly Sci, I don't see that as your future in academia.

 

Bruce Tait's signature line has clickable links to DL CJ degrees.

A couple of old threads on the PhD in Criminal Justice via dl:

http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20975
http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=20499

Some old threads on international relations degrees via dl:

http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=23081
http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21843
http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21002
http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9591

 

IR programs ranked

Foreign Policy magazine (wwwForeignPolicy.com) has a several page piece (February? 2006) ranking masters and PhD progams in IR.

From their web site:

"Inside the Ivory Tower
A new survey of international relations programs reveals the most influential scholars, the top schools, and what these professors really think about politics, trade, and the Iraq war. By Susan Peterson, Michael J. Tierney, Daniel Maliniak"

Registration required.

-Orson

 

The University of Cambridge offers a MSt. in International Relations that, IMHO, is second to none.

Several residencies required. It costs GBP 9,500 for the 2-year program. Next intake is in 2007, but prospective students should contact he schools in August 2006.

www.cam.ac.uk