Does where you received your degree from matter when applying for adjunct jobs

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Bucephalo, Jul 14, 2002.

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  1. Bucephalo

    Bucephalo New Member

    I would like to hear any opinions on how much it matters where you received your Masters from when you start applying for adjunct teaching jobs.

    Example: Would it be worth it for me to spend the extra 10K (over what my current plan will cost) to get a MS from Boston University (or maybe Tiffin) in Criminal Justice, or just stick with Indiana State for much less. I have several years of police experience and am trying to get in a position to teach at a community college when I finish up.

    I would appreciate anyone's thoughts!
     
  2. Mike Albrecht

    Mike Albrecht New Member

    The simple answer is that it does matter. But, the qualifier is, depending on where you are applying and for what level.

    The second part being that ISU is a good school, and not much below BU and Tifflin.

    IMHO, it would be more important to have an accredited masters, perferrably regionally accredited, then not, and beyond that for a community college postion the school is not as critical.

    I have found in my recent search, that even at the next level up (local 4 year programs) the accredidation is more important than from where.
     
  3. Wes Grady

    Wes Grady New Member

    A very good friend of mine teaches CJ at Dutchess Community College here in New York. He is a retired Sargent from the local Sheriff's Office (25 years) and has a Bachelor's in CJ from a local SUNY school. While he was still on the force he started teaching and when he retired, he went full time. He and I have discussed his thoughts of a Master's and it appears that it is totally unnecessary, at least for his current position. You might want to look into a local community college and see if you can get in now to teach one course a semester.

    Wes
     
  4. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    THINKING OUT LOUD...

    I will paraphrase what a representative at a university told us:
    If the above is true, then does it matter where you get your doctorate from e.g. Capella, et al?

    At my local university, there are only two professors who have police experience (and one of them is retiring soon, so they will only have one professor with police experience). The rest of the professors are academics. Which leads to a question:
    • If you’re a cop who has a DL doctorate, there seems to be a ”push & pull” effect. The major universities want you to be their professor if you have real experience as a cop. Contrarily, will they push you away if they find out that your doctorate was via DL?
    I’m just thinking out loud. These are thoughts have have recently gone through my mind….
     
  5. irat

    irat New Member

    depends on the type of adjunct

    There are several different types of adjunct.
    One is a visiting prof. type who comes in with an expertise the host college does not have.
    Another is more of a sometime position. Filling in for certain classes.
    Finally some college has semi-permenant part-timers who go on forever.
    The special skill adjunct who comes for a short time and moves on, seems to be well qualified. Regionally accredited. etc. It does matter where they went to school, but more important where they publish.
    The sometimes fill in is more vague. Often it is somebodies friend who fills in. The "old boy" network is crucial.
    Finally the regular on-going adjunct, must have a regionally accredited degree. When I teach at the local community college they very much want someone that will meet their needs for regional accreditation.
    All the best!
     
  6. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Yes. I wouldn't expect prestigious universities to get too excited over my National MBA.

    No. I've found that the schools with whom I've worked as an adjunct faculty didn't give a whit about where I earned my degree, as long as it was regionally accredited.

    Maybe. I have no idea how my Union Ph.D. will play. I expect it to perform about the same as my run-of-the-mill MBA, only better because it is a Ph.D.
     
  7. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    In my opinion, the extra 10k would not be worth it in that scenario. ISU is a fine school, and their graduate programs in Criminology and Criminal Justice are excellent.

    As mentioned already, the source of your degree is but one part of the package that hiring committees look at. I have a Master's in CJ and almost 15 years of experience as a police officer, but I was once passed over to teach a course in budgeting & planning. The guy who got the class only had a Bachelor's degree, but he was a retired chief of police with loads of real world experience in the subject, while my entire career has been as a street cop.

    If prestige of the degree is an issue, the two best Criminal Justice DL graduate degree programs are, IMO, Michigan State and Florida State.


    Bruce
     
  8. cogent

    cogent New Member

    Where you get your degree for adjunct?

    I often hire or help hire adjuncts for the business and CIS division of my community college. If we have a need for a CIS person, for instance, I look heavily at the person's experience and teaching background. A master's is ok, but not that important. For instance, I have two adjunts with only bachelor's degrees who are OUTSTANDING instructors and darn good with the subject matter. To get hired fulltime, I want to see a master's. A doctorate? I just got through interviewing about 24 people for a fulltime business faculty slot. The people with doctorates tended to come off as "high in the sky" types that would bore our students to death. They should stick with universities. We ended up hiring a lady dynamo with some amazing business experiences who was an adult education pro and displayed that in her "micro teach" to the committee. In addition, I felt a real connection to her. We were also looking for "fit" to our division and college. I think far too little time is spent by people in improving their interpersonal skills. How do you get along with people? How do you communicate? Work on that... it will serve you far better than collecting a bunch of degrees. By the way, we had over 400 applications for this fulltime slot. Some were incredibly bad... one guy kept telling us about his high level research background at a university and how he considered himself to be a scientist. This is for a community college faculty slot, remember.

    Now, if you want a fulltime slot at a university, forget everything I wrote above. That's a whole 'nuther ballgame. Many of the applicants to the position we just hired would be much more comfortable in a university setting, especially the "scientist."
     
  9. Tony Schroeder

    Tony Schroeder New Member

    Tough competition!

    Cogent,

    I was suprised by this part of your excellent post:

    Is the competition this intense for all teaching jobs, including adjunct positions? That's a broad question, but I'm wondering if higher education is feeling the effects of the so-called "teacher shortage" so prominently discussed in the media.

    Have you had similar responses to other help wanted postings?

    Thanks,


    Tony

    (still a Junior Member, I think)
     
  10. defii

    defii New Member

    Re: Tough competition!

    And along the same vein of Tony's inquiry, Cogent, do you have any idea if that level of competition (a) reflects economic conditions where people with masters degrees are driven to teaching by necessity; (b) the state or region where you live; or (c) the particular discipline in which you were seeking a teacher?
     
  11. Re: Re: Tough competition!

    All of the above, I'd say. If you can teach computer science in Idaho (or some other relatively less populated area), you'll probably have more luck than if you want to teach English in Hawaii.
     
  12. cogent

    cogent New Member

    Faculty Competition

    To answer some of you, economic conditions have thrown many who would have scoffed at teaching at a community college into our applicant pool. We had some outstanding applicants and a whole bunch of lousy ones, too.

    For adjunct slots, for some reason our college held a job fair for adjuncts and we got about 400 people show up. Many again would never have considered teaching until they got laid off. Why did I say "for some reason?" Because my department chair said he averages about four or five calls a DAY from people interested in adjunct teaching! The competition is high even for parttime teaching.

    I think of myself as one of the luckiest people around. I came here out of the U.S. Army in 2000 and had little competition, I'm told. I teach computers and at the time most of my competion were making bigger bucks in the corporate world.

    By the way, years ago I tried many many times to get a teaching slot full time in speech. I discovered I had to retool myself to get a fulltime job and I chose computers. Guess what? It worked. Guess what again? I developed a connection to speech communication as I started a college Toastmasters club! Bottom line: you have to get noticed, you have to be creative, and you might have to retool to get a fulltime teaching slot at a community college.
     

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