Teaching at non-RA scools: Good or Bad?

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by Roscoe, Oct 24, 2002.

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  1. Roscoe

    Roscoe Guest

    Since many here advise against studying at non-RA and non-GAAP school, I'd like to hear feedback on teaching at such schools with a good (as in RA/GAAP) DL degree.

    Let's say you have your DL doctorate and you find few or no openings in the bricks and mortar schools. Would it help or hurt to start teaching at the non-RA or less than wonderful type of schools? What about using the DL credentials to teach at non-RA DL schools?

    On the surface, it would seem that one's RA DL degree could bring some credibility to the schools that are lacking. In the least, one would be making a good contribution to the students who know little or nothing about accreditation.

    Roscoe
     
  2. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    Besides the fact that they won't add too much your resume, some of the unaccredited schools pay peanuts to their part time faculty. Read the thread for Kennedy Western University faculty, it seems that faculty members working for KW earn about 2000 dlls a year. Not worth the effort if you ask me, even if you work few hours a week, it comes like 10-15$ an hour.
     
  3. John Bear

    John Bear Senior Member

    The three times I was involved in recruiting faculty for what I believed (and still do) were academically-sound schools with little hope of GAAP accreditation,* we made very clear that applicants teaching at traditional schools should first check with their main school or department to be sure that it was OK with them. I have no firm data on the numbers in the various logical categories (checked and told no, checked and told yes, checked and got ambiguous answer, didn't check), but clearly all were represented.

    As for pay, it was not uncommon for people to serve as an adjunct at two, three, even four different schools, simultaneously. Same thing happens in the traditional world, where something like half of all faculty are part time or adjunct. My wife teaches 1/4 time in a community college. At least two of her colleagues, who teach 1/4 time at this place also have three other 1/4 time jobs at three other local colleges -- obvously not by choice, but by necessity.
    __________
    * Columbia Pacific 1978, Fairfax 1986, Greenwich 1990.
     
  4. telfax

    telfax New Member

    This proves the point!

    I've never earned huge sums of money. However, I have spent many, many hours with masters degree level students and doctoral students (especially) 'burning the mid-night oil over their thesese. For one year's work where I have an 'adjunct doctoral supervisor' with 4 candidates I have earned £1,750 (roughly $2,000) less tax, less Nagtiona Insurance Contributions (a central govt tax) and yet I have gained more from doing the work than from earning the money which, at the end of the day, simpky has not been woth it (money wise). There is a huge problem to be resolved here on both sides of the pond. But I do my job because I always wanted to be a 'teacher' not to earn big bucks and...despite what some commentators post here, not all people who are involved with non-accredited institution are doing it to earn money...they genuinely want to make education and learning DIFFERENT!
     
  5. RFValve

    RFValve Well-Known Member

    Re: This proves the point!

    Most of the Faculty members at unaccredited institutions are full time tenured faculty member at RA institutions, so the extra cash won't hurt for sure. But if you read the original question, the person is not able to find work in an accredited institution so therefore turns into unaccredited ones, but the reality is that they pay so low that you can hardly make a living, so it wouldn't make sense for someone trying to earn a living as a adjunct for such institutions.

    If someone one has a full time job that pays the bills, then of course one can have "hobbies" as being a faculty member for a startup university.
     
  6. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    I wouldn't have a problem teaching at a non-RA school, as long as they either had recognized accreditation (DETC, etc.) or were serious about gaining recognized accreditation.

    Accepting a position at a mill or a less-than-wonderful school is just asking for trouble. I can't recall a "timebomb" involving someone who simply taught at such a school, but it certainly isn't worth the risk for what I would consider dirty money.


    Bruce
     
  7. uncle janko

    uncle janko member

    The only problem I see would be if the unaccredited institution used its instructors' RA/NA/GAAP credentials to blur the issue of its own lack of accreditation. My own religious denomination's college and seminary are not accredited and don't claim to be, so the instructors who teach there with RA credentials are not contributing to any "false advertising" problem. On the other hand, I can think of at least one school (I won't name it else Bill Grover will claim it--as a target!!!) which parades its instructors' legit degrees while fudging its own accreditation status.
     
  8. Bill Grover

    Bill Grover New Member

    ========================================

    Why, what school would that be Unk?

    "aletheuontes de en agape" ,
    Paulos
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Oct 24, 2002
  9. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    Well, I have a horse in this race, so I think I'll comment. I teach (part-time adjunct) at an unaccredited, brick-and-mortar university. The school is state-licensed and is preparing for its accreditation application. It has sent its representatives to the mandatory workshop offered by the RA (SACS), and is beginning to address the issues it knows it must overcome before even an application should be submitted.

    The school has a student body of about 150 students, every one of them from overseas. Presumably, their degrees will be more accepted there because of government (state) approval. That seems to be the prevailing notion. Not one student has ever expressed concern about accreditation.

    Still, accreditation is the number one issue. Without it, the school cannot hope to expand its student body to include domestic students. Nor can it hope to grow the revenues necessary for its long-term success.

    I would consider teaching at a non-accredited school that had no intention of becoming accredited, assuming their intent was to put on an adequate program. And that they made no misrepresentations about their accreditation status or the utility of their degrees. But I've never seriously considered it.
     
  10. uncle janko

    uncle janko member

    (sings) South of the border, down Evansville way...
     
  11. levicoff

    levicoff Guest

    Miscellaneous Thoughts . . .

    After a few years in the game, you begin to get a different perspective on teaching as wel as studying.

    When I was pursuing my Ph.D. and for the first few years afterwards, I got my rocks off of teaching and, having written NIFI during that period, was careful to only teach at RA schools. I have been offered opportunities to teach for degree mills over the years and have turned down each and every one of them as a matter of policy. (In fact, I even turned down the mills' requests to use my books as texts for their courses. The most unique one I received was from the Trinity folks in Newburgh, who said that they were willing to use my book Christian Counseling and the Law if I stopped calling them a degree mill. I laughed my ass off and told them to schtup it.)

    After several years, my position regarding teaching at degree mills has not changed, but my position on teaching at RA schools has. Namely, if any school wants me to teach, they have to pay me what (I think) I'm worth - because, as a general rule in the liberal arts fields, even RA schools do not pay squat.

    Five years after I graduated, I was eligible to serve as an adjunct for The Union Institute and, in fact, did so for several students. But Union pays by the meeting and, at the time, they were only paying in the range of $400 per meeting. (Remember that doctoral committees at Union meeet twice: for the Certification Meeting and for the Pre-Graduation Meeting.) That means that working with a Union learner for anywhere from two to four years on the average paid a total of $800. That was even less than the pay of Vermont College of Norwich University (nor V.C. of TUI) which, at the time, paid about $1,300 for working with a student for a year-and-a-half M.A. program.

    Considering all the work a Union adjunct has to do - reading the Learning Agreement, Program Summary, and P.D.E. (Dissertation) as well as advising the student, attending the metings (which are often out of town), holding hands and kicking ass as appropriate, the pay was pathetic. And while I was willing to "give back" for a few years, there is no prestige for me to do so now. Why? Because I've been there, done that, and have several Union t-shirts.

    The only reason to work for gruel is to pad your résumé, and once you have a fairly impressive résumé (or C.V. is you want to be bourgeois), the only reason left to work for gruel is to get your ego jollies. When I can make more doing one or two lectures than I would for serving as, say, a Union adjunct, why bother with the latter?

    At the same time, I would still not teach for the great unwashed majority of non-accredited schools. But that's me (as a former author), recognizing that my teaching any school could become an implied endorsement of that school. ("Levicoff teaches here, so we must be legit.")

    I have known other teachers in RA programs who have padded either their résumésor their wallets by teaching at non-RA schools (whether or not they were degree mills). And yes, it sometimes does take them down a notch or two in my book. But at the same time, I recognize that 99-44/100% of such teachers don't have a clue with regard to accreditation issues, knowing less about institutiuonal credibility criteria than most of the people who read this forum. So in that sense, I don't hold it against them.

    An anecdotal reflection - As has been discussed in anothe thread, I am also playing student these days. I am scheduled to take a course in residence in a few weeks, and the teacher is a well-known practitioner and media personality in a clinical field who is an adjunct at both universities and colleges in Canada. In fact, the course I am about to take is offered by him at at least legit three schools I have found thus far. For this course, the primary textbook he requires is a little tome he wrote and self-published through a commercial self-publisher (as opposed to a vanity press, which is different). It is, by far, the worst book I have ever read - poorly researched, atrociously written. And the self-publishing company he used is a front for a porn publisher. I have no idea where the guy received his doctorate (though I plan to find out), and he is clearly a whore. I am taking the course - at a major, hjighly respected university - because I have an interest in the subject matter. But I would never take the guy seriously as an academic.

    At one time, I wouldn't have even bothered taking a course taught by a whore (unless the course itself was about prostitution and the teacher had a lot of, um, field experience). At this point, however, I can think critically enough for my own satisfaction, and as long as the three credits are from a major university, what the hell. (Truth is, I'm doing it for the vacation as much as anything else.)

    So here we have the same principle in reverse: Just as teaching at a whore school can bring down someone with legit credentials, someone who is a whore teaching at a legit school can bring down the school a notch or two in terms of reputation. (One need only remember the woman teaching at the legitimate Mercer University with a degree from St. George International and the fun we had with them. It hurt Mercer as much as the teacher.) Because schools often don't have a clue either (and I'd like to think that the school I'm attending would can his ass if they knew about the connection between his "publisher" and the porn biz, or that they would can him if they knew the shoddy quality of the book he is foisting on his students).

    Finally, we must remember that since not all people with legit credentials are aware of accreditation issues, they can become victims as well as perpetrators. Think Larry F. and Canyon College - this is something that happens quite commonly. (Readers can find out about that one by doing a search on Canyon College here on the board and reading the letter I wrote to get someone's ass off the hook who had been teaching for them and was afraid of breaking his so-calle contract.) Some people will ge their rocks off by "teaching" for schools like Kennedy-Western, not realizing that the schools are a joke. I played activist for enough years that, at this point, I don't particularly give a hoot, so more power to 'em.
     

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