Walden Graduate Granted Tenure

According the Walden Ponder, Dr Sherry Robinson who earned a PHD in Applied Management and Decision Sciences was granted tenure by Penn State University and promoted to associate professor of Business administration.

This recent announcement hopefully will open more doors of opportunity to Walden NCU Capella PHD holders, who aspire to teach at a traditional brick and mortar campus.

The Walden Ponder is the university news letter that is printed once a month.

http://www.hn.psu.edu/Academics/uresearchfaculty.htm#PG24706

 

So you don't get the wrong idea . . .

Note that this is Penn State Hazleton, a small (1,150 students) branch campus in the Penn State system. The probability of a Walden grad becoming hired in a tenure track position on PSU's main campus (University Park) Smeal College of Business is infinitesimal.

This would also be true for graduates of ANY third or fourth tier B&M Ph.D. program in business with AACSB accreditation. Smeal recruits faculty from its peers - the top ten or fifteen Business Ph.D. programs in this country or similar foreign institutions.

 

As an additional point of reference, Dakota State has a number of Capella grads in its tenured faculty:

http://www.departments.dsu.edu/gradoffice/Programs/D.Sc/Faculty.htm

 

This is very true - you'll find a number of Nova Southeastern grads (including myself) in tenured positions at small and medium sized schools, but certainly not at a top rated school.

Regards - Andy

 

where is there a list of these tiers? Is there a link or something someone could share?

 

I can't say that I entirely agree with this. With the national shortage of Ph.D. grads in accounting or possibly even finance, a third or fourth tier AACSB grad can do well. It all comes down to supply and demand.

 

There probably isn't a list that one could get their hands on. First of all, it is discipline specific. An institution can be first tier in, say physics, and fourth tier in business, education and psychology. Also, a school that is considered first-rate for business overall, may be considered second-rate for specific disciplines such as marketing, accounting, etc. Second, the perception of institutional quality will vary across individuals and institutions. My top-tier schools in my discipline will overlap everyone else's but would likely be different in some respects. The variation is greater in the lower tiers.

Remember that for research doctorates, it is the reputation of the faculty and alumni in their discipline that determines the quality of a program.

There have been some attempts to rank institutions based on the research productivity of their faculty and alums and based on a general sense of the quality of the institutions that its graduates are placed. Articles with such rankings appear once in a while in discipline-specific academic journals.

I can say that you figure out the rankings pretty quickly sitting in the bar with your colleagues from around the country (world) at major academic conferences. I can also say that such informal rankings are usually confirmed when going through vitas on a faculty search committee.

 

IU's Kelly is a top school

Re: This is very true - you'll find a number of Nova Southeastern grads (including myself) in tenured positions at small and medium sized schools, but certainly not at a top rated school.

Regards - Andy

I pulled up the Viewbook from Nova's Huizenga School http://www.huizenga.nova.edu/FutureStudents/Documents/viewbook.pdf and page 52 includes:
DOCTOR OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION | CLASS OF 1984
Donald F. Kuratko • Bloomington, Indiana • The Jack M. Gill Chair of Entrepreneurship, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Executive Director, Johnson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at The Kelley School of Business, Indiana University

 

I also wonder if he already was a lecturer there to begin with, and the only thing holding him back was the lack of a PhD. It's a lot easier to get a position when you have your foot in the door, rather than just coming from the outside.

Just looking when tenure-track positions when they open UF, we have applicants come in from all over. However, when someone who was working as a post-doc or adjunct in the department is also applying, about 90% of the time it goes to that person. (unless they didn't like you.) I've even overheard a hiring committee chair say "We already know who we are going to hire, but policy requires us to interview X amount of people."

 

Don is a shining exception to the rule. Look beyond Don and what will you find? A bunch of NSU grads teaching at small and medium sized schools.

It isn't that it can't be done - it is simply not common.

Regards - Andy

 

When you look at accredited distance doctorates, the number they graduate each year is likely microscopic compared to what mainstream brick and mortars are turning out. Even the likes of NCU and Walden aren't pumping many out the back end. There's just more to hire from the brick and mortars. I would expect that as more time elapses we'll see at least a few more in some of the top schools. Time will tell.

Excuses such as...

1) Oh, they are already teaching there to begin with...
2) Oh, but they already had another doctorate from a brick and mortar...
3) Oh, but they have a reputation in their field to begin with...
4) Oh, they had already published before earning the doctorate...
OR...
5) Yeah, but they were already tenured before earning a PhD...
6) Yeah, but they only got the job at a branch campus of the school...
7) Yeah, but they are only working in administration...

are all used by some forum members even if a person does manage to obtain a brick and mortar tenured position. Few, if any, distance doctorate students obtaining tenure can garner much respect on the forum. As it is, people who often go for a distance program already have careers and are in different circumstances than 24 year olds. Many of the B&M PhD students go straight from 4 yr colleges to the doctoral programs.

Now, I'm not seeing all that much research coming from those who have completed distance doctorates either. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places, though. Typically, if I do see research it doesn't tell me where they went to school. If they produce some compelling research they may get hired more by top brick and mortars.

I doubt that the main reason people are earning distance doctorates is for tenured slots. Afterall, it's probably represents a large pay cut and often these people already have a career. So, why is the leveling factor here always whether these graduates can get tenured jobs? Is it because people think that schools are the only place a doctorate is needed? That's obviously not the case. I see many companies recruiting PhD's. There are a number of people working tenured jobs without a PhD, too.

Maybe many distance doctoral students are even working in think tanks. Who knows. For me, I already have a career and it pays a great deal more than what a tenured prof earns. I wouldn't even look at academia (i had my fill as an adjunct a few years ago). In fact, most of the PhD's I work with(and most i work with have a doctorate) come out of academia due to the workload and the pay.

Whew! Sorry for the long post.

Bing

 

I'm not sure I agree - there are about 1,000 new PhD's in business each year in the US. Nova Southeastern graduates 40-50 alone. Most B&M schools turn out very few each year - many have no more than 20-30 students total with only 4 or 5 coming out each year.

Regards - Andy

 

Andy,

I'll try to come up with some numbers on it. I wasn't just honing in on business programs, though. Lump in the DBA's, EdD's, DSc's, PhD's in psychology programs, PsychD's, PhD's in information systems, doctorates in Public Administration, etc. How many would brick and mortars be pumping out? All these are programs available at non-traditional schools. Even one school down in Florida offers a Doctor of Physical Therapy.

UConn has 82 current doctoral students. If half drop out they'll graduate 41. That leaves about 960. Think there are less than 960 graduates left amongst the rest of the schools in the U.S.?

 

That's likely graduating 10 per year actually...leaving the 990 for the rest of the schools. Now, I was just reading some articles that doctoral admissions is up in the U.S. I noticed that Krannert, at Purdue, has about 120 PhD business students. If they graduate half then that likely leaves 40 per year graduating from there. This didn't even take into account the IS or IT doctorates they are graduating.

Accounting was graduating 100 PhD's per year. That had been 200 per year a few years ago. The article mentioned that accounting grads could get 118K/year for 9 month contracts at schools.

 

Perhaps, if they are already hired at a B&M school... How many people read the Walden Ponder?

Dave

 

Dave,



You are correct in your assessment that Dr Robinsion may have already been employed prior to attaining her doctorate, or the reality that this campus is an extension of the Penn State system. As previous stated by another poster. However regardless of the circumstance Dr Robinson is a tenure professor with PHD from the "Big three schools"

I agree the litmus test will be the hiring of a PHD holder at a tier 1 school with an online doctorate whom isn't already employed by the university. I suppose if an individual has a strong established publishing record they may be able to overcome the "So call perception in some committee members minds about the quality of an online doctorate"

Many on this post have clearly indicated that obtaining a PHD from Walden NCU, Nova etc will not allow you opportunities to teach at the Ivy league schools such as Harvard , Yale etc.

Below is a link of a Senior professor of Surgery at Havard school of medicine who is a PHD candidate at Walden University.

Background:

Senior Lecturer, Department of Surgery, Harvard Medical School
Professor of Surgery, Harvard Medical School
Member of the faculties of Columbia University, College of Physicians and Surgeons, and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
Executive Vice-President and Head of Cancer Control, American Cancer Society, Florida Division
Clinical research interests have focused on surgical oncology of complex skull base neoplasms as well as new technologies applicable to immediate craniofacial reconstruction


http://www.hmi.hms.harvard.edu/about_hmi/who_we_are/ivo_janecka.php



There are always exceptions to the rule. Will there be a plethora of hiring at major brick and mortar universities maybe not. Then again not everyone who obtains a PHD wants to lecture/ teach at a university.

Maybe having professors with online doctorates on faculty staff at these universities could serve to change the preception in hiring committee minds?

I am interested in hearing an opinion on this topic.

Thanks for sharing.

Karl

 

Also there is Heidi Jo Blair 98 graduate of Harvard who is getting her doctorate from an online university "Walden"

http://www.dce.harvard.edu/pubs/alum/2006/19.html

There is a Walden graduate at Columbia however I don't have the information at this time

 

Actually, I'm not sure that earning a non-traditional RA doctoral degree will keep eliminate opportunities to teach at an Ivy League school. However, I do think the candidate will have to either be hired before earning said doctorate or come to the opportunity unusually well-qualified.

As for grouping NoCentral U with Walden and Nova, which have residencies and known reputations, this is a little premature (and amusing?); NoCentral U is an unknown newcomer to the world of doctoral granting institutions, with only JIU offering a newer program exclusively through the online modality.

Dave

 

Bing and Dave have both made solid points here. The bottom line is that every person tends to be a snob, and doctoral screening committees tend to look to "their own type" (whatever that happens to be).

Earlier this year, I happened to attend the homecoming concert of the glee club at Penn State University. The club has been under the baton of Dr. Christopher Kiver since 2005 - Chris is a class act, originally from from the U.K. (although he also taught in Australia for several years). My impression was that they surely had hired him based on a doctorate from Oxford or Cambridge. But noooooooooooo - Chris earned his doctorate (a Mus.D.) from the University of Michigan, topping off a master's in choral conducting from Florida State and a B.Mus. from the University of London. (I am not aware of whether the B.Mus. was distance or residential.)

In short, state colleges tend to hire people who graduated from state colleges, ivy's hire those who went to the ivy's, etc. Not everyone is looking for people with a "top tier" doctorate - indeed, I would think some schools would reject candidates with a top tier doc just to get their jollies from doing so. Likewise, some schools will hire (or not hire) candidates based on their publication record (or lack thereof) or their ability to succesfully get research grants; other schools will pass up the great researchers in favor of great teachers.

Those of us with doctorates of any level (presuming they are RA or otherwise validated in terms of credibility) can say that we have something that the proverbial 99-44/100% of the population does not have. So I, for one, don't give a flying fart about whose doctorate is better than the next person's (notwithstanding that I still think most online doctorates are a joke).

Unless you have an enormous ego, it just doesn't matter - with any doctorate and fifty cents, you can get about a quarter-cup of Starbucks...