Community Colleges and Prestigious Degrees

I know many (some) community colleges prefer PhD's to M.A.'s in part, I believe, for reasons of academic prestige. Does a degree from a "prestige" school really matter at the com. college level for either MA or PhD degrees? Or is it a really big deal like it is at many 4 year colleges?

 

Based on my limited observations, I think it is more common to see Ph.D's at two year branches of larger universities. For example, a few years ago I took a few classes at Raymond Walters College which is a two year branch of the University of Cincinnati. There were quite a few, including a former therapist who taught a psych. class I took, with Ph.D's at RWC.

On the other hand, close to my hometown in Virginia we have a small, rural community college which isn't a division of anything and I don't recall there being many Ph.D's there.

 

I am a tenured faculty at a community college who has been on many faculty hiring committees. A Ph.D. means nothing to most of us at the hiring level. A thorough understanding of the community college, our mission, and our students is far more important. I cannot tell you how many Ph.D.'s have come before a committee I was on and proceeded to tell us how honored we should be to have them! I'm serious. Or the many who talked about their need to do research and they needed time and space to do that. In my opinion, get your fulltime CC job FIRST, then go for the Ph.D. I'd say most of my faculty got their doctorates AFTER being hired by the community college. I will also tell you a Ph.D. usually gets more red flags than anything... we tend to be suspicious of a Ph.D. who may be "settling" for a CC job until something "better" comes along (i.e., a university job). Now, the joke would be on those candidates because a CC job is a blot on your vita for most traditionalists at the universities.

 

Re: Re: Community Colleges and Prestigious Degrees

I do outreach with the CC's in the Chicago metro area. In the sciences, PhD's are not common - and there is some "hair-trigger" sensitivity with regard to 4-year school faculty - my having taught as an adjunct at a community college makes me "OK".

 

Re: Re: Community Colleges and Prestigious Degrees

What about age? An associate of mine that has taught at local 4 year colleges as an adjunct for over 6 or 7 years with excellent student evaluations is thinking of going to a CC full-time. He told me he has taught over 60 classes in this time period. Only has a masters and has no intention of going for a PhD. Love teaching but hates researching. Not sure his age but know it is over 50.

Does he have a chance of getting a full-time CC position?

 

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Laws regarding age discrimination aside, it really depends on the institution and what the person is qualified to teach, and what the demand at the school is...and the schools (and the administration's) agenda. I personally targeted higher ed because I was tired of the acquisition fever of the late 90's when I retired - two companies in 36 months. I think my age (and the fact that I "wore" well) was a positive. Honestly, my having a master's/pending terminal degree (EdS) was simply an excuse - they wanted someone with vender certifications - which are rarer than PhD's in academia My Oxford diploma in Computing - which was undergraduate and technically irrelevant - was also a big hit.

My impression is that it really doesn't matter how good your friend is if someone in the hiring chain already has someone in mind - selection committees are amazingly cavalier re: employment law and the concept of "fairness" - so your friend should work the "people angle" - be nice.

 

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Of course he does! As long as he has the CC background and can do a decent interview and mini-teach. A Ph.D. is NOT the ticket to get into a CC fulltime, gang! Like I said earlier, get in the door, THEN go ahead and get a doctorate if you want.

 

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I think he was more concerned about being over 50 than the PhD but either way it is good news.

I will pass on the comments I received here to him.

Thanks!

 

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Perhaps it varies by geographical region.

Here in the San Francisco area, Ph.D.s are increasingly common in community college science departments.

The chemistry department at the community college that I attended, City College of San Francisco, has 17 faculty members. Of these, 13 have Ph.D.s. They are from some pretty prestigious schools, too:

UCLA 5, UC Berkeley 4, and one each from UC Santa Barbara, Harvard, Stanford and Colorado State.

http://www.ccsf.edu/Departments/Chemistry/faculty.htm

The chairman of their little astronomy department has a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. This cool little department actually does research and invites lower division undergraduates to participate from their first class. (How many "top tier" universities give their freshmen and sophomores that kind of opportunity?)

http://fog.ccsf.org/~lkao/Project/project.html

I've always found it amusing that this community college is vastly more research productive than Knightsbridge University's astronomy Ph.D. program.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Community Colleges and Prestigious Degrees

Well, that explains where all the hard science PhD's from Chicago have gone - they're in California