Something new at NCU - this is a good thing!

Looks like NCU will hire salaried FT facilty members to serve as dissertation committee members (no coursework). Check out NCU's employment section. This is certainly a step in the right direction and moves them a notch up (in my opinion). There is hope for them after all! arty:

 

That's good news, and I definitely agree that it moves them up in legitimacy.

So Randell, how long did it take for you to send your application and resume? :tongue:

 

I applied for an adjunct position when I graduated...that whole "I want to change the world/system" thing and they promptly said, thanks but no thanks

 

This is good news and is comforting for me as a new PhD student. I have a good bit of apprehension about the dissertation process but this is a good sign. I'll be much more comfortable knowing that my chair is available 9-5 and is not distracted with other concerns. Hopefully it will reduce attrition rates that can be detrimental to a student's progress in the dissertation phase.

 

Do any of the other online universities do this, such as Walden, Capella, etc?

 

I am assuming and hoping I guess.

 

My impression of the NCU adjuncts was that they were severely overloaded with students. Hopefully, NCU will not do this to the doctoral committee staff.

 

I will let you guys know how it works out. I intend to take days off of work to complete significant portions of my research design and dissertation writing. I will make it a point to schedule phone calls, skype calls etc with my chair during these times. I expect to get significant blocks of his/her time during these periods to answer my questions.

 

We shall see. So many changes in the last couple years that were supposed to improve things. Now gone.

BTW: Saw the full time chair ad. What are "virtual residencies?"

 

From what I gather, the virtual residencies get students and a mentor together to hash out the dissertation process online over the course of a few days or a week. I haven't heard any reports yet of a virtual residency so we will see what happens.
For what its worth, my friend went to Nova and left during the dissertation process due to chairs quitting and the same problems I hear occurring at NCU. He said his friend has been stuck in the dissertation phase for about 4 years getting the runaround all the time. So I don't think these problems are unique to NCU.

 

I do not think so.

 

Walden has full time faculty serving in dissertation committees. The problem with part time faculty is that not all are really committed to the institution. In few words, if I get paid 2K per dissertation supervised, it is in my best interest to get the dissertation rushed out as soon as possible and this might compromise the quality of education. If I'm being paid 500 bucks to serve in a dissertation committee, how much time I really spend checking that dissertation?

I believe that full time faculty is critical for the credibility of the institution. It costs money to make a credible product. The abuse of poorly paid adjuncts might increase profits but it costs in the long term if those dissertations are not being checked by committed faculty.

I believe NCU is realizing this and it is doing something to fix it. The full time faculty will be required to publish in peer reviewed journals and this will increase the reputation of the institution.

Good for NCU.

 

Most Universities would not hire their own graduates as faculty. There are many exceptions but it is more likely that UoP or Capella would hire a NCU graduate than NCU.

 

That is what they said when I asked.

 

Within a minute I found two business instructors at the NCU mentor page that are NCU PhDs. Might be a change in policy or something. Like changes there never happen.

My cousin has it right.. NCU should stand for No Clue University:slaphappy:

 

Oh there are some but my understanding is that they do not hire anymore because they do not want "academic inbreeding".

How clever...

 

Academic inbreeding is one reason but also there is the political issue. Most PhD graduates from NCU would want to teach there after graduation, if you say yes to few then then whole faculty soon would be just NCU graduates.

This happened at one place where I used to teach, the president soon created a policy that stated that graduates on that school could not be faculty otherwise you would start getting most new faculty from the same school.

 

Their loss. I receive consistently positive feedback about you as an instructor.

 

Interestingly enough, I find that universities routinely break this rule. Of course, Ivy League schools have no problem with the idea of academic inbreeding and the large number of faculty with terminal degrees from their own school is quite large. A while back, I decided to look up how many faculty out our local state university (University of Louisville) had their terminal degrees from U. of L. After I reached 100, I stopped counting.