Easy PhD

re: eay PhD

I appear to have offended you. If I did, I apologize. I'm sure your program at Oklahoma State was very rigorous.

My guess is your perception regarding education docs has to do more with personal bias, than with reality.

No, that's not the case. I have extensive experience with education PhD's and EdD's having taught them for many years. My "perception" is widely shared.


Many of the greatests minds in the world had ed docs, such as Malcolm Knowles, Stephen Brookfield, Charles Houle, and John Dewey.

Frankly, it would seem that your example proves the opposite. Those you mention have done some good work, but with the exception of Dewey, it is very difficult to believe that anyone would consider them among "the greatests (sic.) minds in the world".

 

There are few PhD programs within the CSU system because of the 1960 Master Plan for Education. The primary architect was Clark Kerr, then President of the UC system. Among many changes, was the idea that the UC schools would be primarily PhD research universities, and most of the CSU schools would terminate at the masters level, and would be responsible for much of the training of teachers.

Some CSU schools have developed PhD programs based on their expertise (as Bill Dayson points out with SFSU). Most of these programs need another "research" school to cosponsor the program, else it violates the spirit of the MPE.

There is recent controversy between CSU and UC, as more and more CSU faculty are pursuing active research (many CSU faculty always have, they just couldn't "legitimize" it through a PhD program), and more CSU PhD programs are being developed. Thus the "bright line" of 1960 has become blurred, and many UC researchers feel their territory is being invaded.

Personally, I think PhD programs within the CSU system are a good thing. Clearly, many of these institutions are able to support the entire program without the "help" from UC.

 

From Warguns:

Those who can, do.
Those who can't, teach.
Those who can't teach, teach teachers.

Also from Warguns:

I teach research methods and statistics in one of the "best" RA Education PhD programs in the West.

From Tony:

Am I mistaken, or did you insult yourself?


Tony Piña, who, despite being one of those who, apparently, "can't do", has..

...developed technical training at Intel Corporation for highly skilled operators who, it was found, could "do", but could not teach other to do what they do.

...served as a paid consultant to Fortune 500 corporations, the U.S. Department of Defense, the U.S. Coast Guard, city and county governments, small businesses, law firms, economic development agencies, research & development agencies, law enforcement agencies and university consortia

...served as President for a national professional association

...taught teachers for nearly 17 years, many of whom are highly capable and intelligent individuals who would do just fine in other disciplines.

 

re: eay PhD

It's not an insult to know your own limitations. I do the best I can.

 

Re: re: easy PhD

I used to think that education degrees were easy to the point that I wanted to
do a DBA in business education. My background is in egineering and IT and I thought, how difficult can it be to do a dissertation in the education field?

I was really wrong, after several attempts to get a dissertation proposal together, I was rejected many times due to my lack of education background and lack of education theory on my proposal.

So after getting an F on my proposal, I switched major to IT and learned my lesson. "There is no easy field".

 

In the last few years joint-doctoral Ed.D. programs have been multiplying like rabbits. Or at least they were until the recent budget implosion.

To my not-entirely-impartial eye, the problem is a basic disconnect in California higher education. The CSU system developed out of the state's teachers colleges and still is by far the largest single source of CA school teachers. But the CSU is prohibited by the old 1960's state master plan for higher education from offering doctoral degrees, except jointly with another non-CSU institution. The result is that the CSU has the practical experience in teacher education and is joined at the hip with the state's school districts, many of whose administrators were educated by and/or teach at CSU campuses, while ivory-tower UC is busy churning out education dissertations in post-modern political critique.

So the CSU approached the state legislature about being permitted to offer doctorates in education and predictably, the UC system started having convulsions. UC stubbornly defended their turf and insisted that the moon would crash into the earth and dogs would start sleeping with cats if anyone tried to change the sacred masterplan that made California great.

So the legislature compromised, keeping the master plan in place in exchange for UC's commitment to open up the joint-degree program.

Subsequently a whole bunch of new projects were put on the fast-track. Scroll down on this page for a few of the new Ed.D. programs.

http://www.ucop.edu/acadinit/uccsu/jointeddsummary.htm

There are some new joint doctoral degrees in non-education fields in the works.

San Diego State is adding to its lineup with a Ph.D. in Evolutionary Biology with UC Berkeley, CSU Fresno has a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice with UC Davis in the works and San Francisco State has recently added a new and strangely titled Doctor of Physical Therapy Science (D.P.T.Sc.) to its existing joint Masters in Physical Therapy offered in conjunction with UCSF. This is another nationally prominent program. USNews' graduate issue rated the UCSF-SFSU PT program up there with some of the ivys, if I recall.

http://www.ucop.edu/acadinit/mastplan/edd/csuucjtdoc.htm

I strongly agree with you that the CSU system could easily handle doctoral programs. The opposition to them by UC and its supporters is 100% political, in my opinion.

Of course, UC would argue that the reason the UCs are such international research powerhouses is that there are only 9 of them (the 10th on the way) in a state of 36 million people. Compare that to England, with about 46 million people and maybe 100 doctoral research universities. The California emphasis on a handful of schools means that they get lots of funding, something they probably fear would be diluted if some of the stronger CSUs were more directly in competition with them.

I do think that the joint-doctoral arrangements have their advantages. They force collaborations and allow schools to pool their strengths. The SFSU program in Visual Impairments combines SFSU's practical hands-on expertise with UC Berkeley's School of Optometry and with its impressive scholary resources in areas like psychology. They clearly make each other stronger.

Another observation of mine is that all of these struggles to justify, design and start a single doctoral program contrast strikingly with all of those non-accredited schools like Henrick's Knightsbridge that suddenly come out of nowhere offering Ph.D.s in everthing under the sun.

 

Bill,

Yours is an excellent and accurate summary of the CSU/UC situation in California. In Palm Desert, branch campuses of CSU San Bernardino and UC Riverside are being built side-by-side from each other, with the commitment to articulate programs and share resources. This is seen as an historic event in California higher education when, in fact, such things should have been commonplace long ago.

Tony Pina
Faculty, Cal State U. San Bernardino

 

CSULB/UCI

My alma mater, CSULB, sent a postcard about a beta PhD program in conjunction with UCI. That was several months ago and I have not heard anything more about it, so perhaps the state's budget crisis shot this idea down.

 

Palm Desert

Tony, it will be interesting to see if the two Palm Desert campuses can remain separate if they will be eventually merged into one. There were a lot of private funds donated for those Cook Street campuses and more untapped money in that Valley.

The Master Plan is antiquated and desperately needs to be replaced. The CSU system has developed far beyond the "teachers college" phase and should be allowed to independently offer doctorates.

Some of joint programs are a joke - I'm thinking of the Ed Tech doctorate between University of San Diego and San Diego State University. The SDSU Ed Tech Department is very strong with top notch nationally recognized faculty. The USD Dept is very small with just enough faculty to offer a masters degree.

 

Plus a local developer is planning to build a campus of the World Trade Center University about 1/2 mile away.

 

WTC University

It looks very ambitious and includes another frigging golf course - the Desert already has over 100 golf courses. Still too far in the future to discuss specifics.

World Trade Center University

 

Re: CSULB/UCI

It's been put in temporary limbo (as has a CSUSB joint degree with UC Riverside). I have heard that both are still "in negotiation" and that we should hear more soon.

Tony Pina
Faculty, Cal State U. San Bernardino

 

Hi Tom57: Just suppose if all those CSUs started offering DA degrees... (sigh!)

 

Re: Palm Desert

But UC Riverside and Cal State San Bernardino have had programs in the Coachella Valley (Palm Springs area) for quite a few years, so I do not predict that the two campuses will be merged into one (although that would not be a bad idea). The two campuses are required to share physical plant, telecommunications and other facilites and to articulate their programs so that the CSU and UC are not offering redundant programs and that students can transfer seamlessly from AA programs at College of the Desert to BA/MA programs at CSU to MA/PhD programs at UC. If it works, it will be a good model for the rest of the state until they get their act together and break down the wall between the UC and CSU systems (which both you and I believe would be the best thing).

I also agree with your observations about the joint doctoral programs in general and the SDSU/USD program in particular. Instructional Technology is my field and I know the SDSU faculty, both personally and by reputation. San Diego State definately has the superior program in Ed Tech in the state and is the driving force behind the joint docotrate (they only need USD because they cannot offer the doctorate by themselves). USD is a good school with a beautiful campus, but you are right about the relate merit of their two Ed Tech programs. If someone is looking for a doctorate in Ed Tech in California, the SDSU/USD program is currently the one to beat (Pepperdine would be next). Otherwise, the nearest good Ed Tech doctoral program is Arizona State U.

Tony Pina
Faculty, Cal State U. San Bernardino

 

Re: WTC University

I spoke with Richard Oliphant (the developer) a few months ago and he said that ground should be broken on the first phase of the World Trade Center University soon and that they are planning to be up and running in 2005. As a private school, they can get the building completed much fast that the two public universities (Cal State is a year behind schedule and UCR is two years behind schedule with their campuses).

The WTCU project was stalled somewhat because the original 9000 acre plan included two or three gold courses, 7000 upscale residences, a high tech industrial park and the university. The problem was that this development bordered both the Joshua Tree National Monument and the Coachella Valley Nature Preserve. There were some who feared that golf carts might run over some fringe-toed lizards, so the original plans had to be modified. Apparently, the developers and the environmentalists had come up with an accord.

Tony

 

Incidentally, these two campuses sit on a 160-180 plot of land in the middle of the valley (a prime location in an upscale area). The city of Palm Desert has given 20 acres to UC Riverside for their graduate school of business and 55 acres to CSU for their Cal State San Bernardino Palm Desert Campus. If Cal State is able to grow the campus suifficiently to become independent of CSU San Bernardino, Palm Desert will give it the remaining acreage to develop the CSU Palm Desert Campus. It is actually quite a visionary move on Palm Desert's part, as they could have made a ton of fast money by developing that plot for residential or commercial.

Tony

 

R F Valve:

Those who can, do.
Those who can't, teach.
Those who can't teach, teach teachers.

A variation on your mantra:

Those who can, do
Those who can't, teach
Those who can't teach run the teachers' union
Those who can't run a union become university administrators
Those who can't adminster become university principals
Those who can't become principals become Ministers of Education

 

...and those who can do none of the above become degree mill operators

Tony

 

Palm Desert

Tony:

Indeed, the USD campus is one of the most beautiful campuses I've seen and it is located on one of the best pieces of property in San Diego. If I lived in SD I'd like to apply to the joint program because of the SDSU affiliation and access to their outstanding faculty.

Any word on what WTC University will offer ? With their name I figured that the degrees would be in international business, marketing, economics and finance. Up and running by 2005 is an ambitious goal. Then fast track WASC accreditation ?

Yes it will be very interesting to see if the Palm Desert will be spun off as a new CSU campus in the near future. The last one was CSU Channel Islands, a spin off of CSU Northridge and earlier CSU San Marcos a spin off of SDSU.

 

Re: Palm Desert

Originally posted by DL-Luvr
Tony:

Indeed, the USD campus is one of the most beautiful campuses I've seen and it is located on one of the best pieces of property in San Diego. If I lived in SD I'd like to apply to the joint program because of the SDSU affiliation and access to their outstanding faculty.

Yes, being able to study with the likes of Allison Rossett, Fred Saba, Bernie Dodge and Donn Ritchie would be a treat. I see them often at ed tech conferences and they are nice people (and Allison is very clever and very funny). Marcie Bober and I were in the same doctoral program at Arizona State--she is also very nice.

Any word on what WTC University will offer ? With their name I figured that the degrees would be in international business, marketing, economics and finance. Up and running by 2005 is an ambitious goal. Then fast track WASC accreditation ?

The current emphases are business, international commerce (particularly e-commerce/trade), leadership and hospitality administration. They have had partnerships with Harvard, NYU, Regent U. and U. of Nevada-Las Vegas. The idea is to have a physical campus where their students will do their short-term on-campus residency and attend lectures given by business and political leaders.

Yes it will be very interesting to see if the Palm Desert will be spun off as a new CSU campus in the near future. The last one was CSU Channel Islands, a spin off of CSU Northridge and earlier CSU San Marcos a spin off of SDSU.

The CSUSB Palm Desert Campus is operating under a model similar to CSU San Marcos:

1) Grow the upper division/graduate program attendance until it reaches sufficient number to exist separately from San Bernardino (probably 2000-3000 students).

2) Continue to use College of the Desert as a the lower division feeder school (as CSU San Marcos did with Palomar College) for a few years until CSU Palm Desert is of sufficient student/faculty size to begin offerring freshman and sophomore classes.

My cousin is a sociology professor at San Marcos and she told me that the strategy worked really well for them. The Palm Desert Campus seems poised to follow suit.

If you are ever around the Palm Desert Campus, drop in and say "hi". That goes to our other "Palm Springs local" Ian Anderson as well.

Tony Piña
Faculty, Cal State U. San Bernardino
Palm Desert Campus