As far as teaching criminal justice at a community college, which is more valued. I will have two years of experience with a MS from University of Cincinnati in CJ. If I am going up against somebody without a MS but with say ten years of experience all other things being equal who would be hired?
>> At my community college, the criminal justice program is in the arts and science division (college transfer), which means the masters would be a minimum requirement. If the CJ program is in the applied tech division (not college transfer), I'm guessing they will look for someone with hands-on. (Just my observation based on where I work)
The minimum requirements for the postion is either a bachelors degree and two years of experience, an AA with 6 years of experience or a masters and no experience.
Sounds like it's vocational, not academic. In that case, the person best prepared would be hired. If you're going up against someone with a lot of experience, your master's might not make up for it. Tough to call.
I look at it this way. Who would I rather take a class from, the degree or the experience? I believe it comes down to the individual. Some people get a lifetime of valuable experience in a few years. Some people get 1 year experience 10 times over. Now that you have (or are close to having) the degree, maybe it's time to work on the experience.
>> I agree with Rich. The requirement is the clue. This program is a career training track, so there are probably teachers in that program who work full time in industry and teach part time (adjunct). If the position is for a full time position, you might have a better shot because often times, industry folks won't leave industry to "just" teach. If it is for part time, my money is on the guy with industry experience being first choice. Community colleges especially enjoy forming real connections to industry, and need it in order to have any success with student placement. (Our culinary program would never hire a chef-instructor for a lab who wasn't actually a full time chef somewhere for the very reason I mentioned; we need places to put our apprentices and we need connections to the industry for grads.) Don't take this the wrong way, but sometimes the applied tech departments can get desperate to fill a slot, and they will take whoever they can with any resemblance of qualification ("qualification" being defined by the dept. chair). If that is the case, count your blessings and go kick butt!
Adam, I have been looking at the UC program for a while now. If possible, can you give a summary of your experience so far? As a LEO, I have seen several retired members get teaching jobs at the community college level. In my opinion, it had more to do with their LE experience than degree. Several who teach CJ have MPA degrees. I'm sure contacts made during their career didn't hurt as the process can be quite competitive. Joe
The UC program is very good and very extensive. That's not to be confused with lots of work. They cover large amounts of information but it is managable. I am on the one year track and half way done. In each ten week quarter I take two modules of five weeks. In each module I take two courses. This works out to 16 courses in a year. Each course requires about 150 pages of reading a week. Some of it is articles online and the rest is text books. There is a weekly discussion board. Some classes require weekly papers while others only two over the five weeks. The written assignments average two pages. The easiest course I took had multiple choice quizzes each week and a 100 question multiple choice final. The questions were provided in advance. The goal of this class was knowledge rather then grades. I did learn alot trying to find the 400 different answers throughout the course. The hardest (most work intensive) course required three three page position paper and a 15 page final. It can be a lot of work at times but it is a great program. It moves very quickly. The faciliators are great about providing specific feedback to the entire group. You may or may not have the problems they list so you have to read over the problems and adjust accordingly.
It really depends on what the experience consists of. At the community college level, most CJ students are looking to get into the field as practitioners, be it police, probation, parole, etc. As a result, practical experience will often trump academic credentials, as long as the minimum academic requirements are met.
