My university has arranged for me to teach Western Civilizations. The course is interdisciplinary, so it covers government, history, art, etc. evenly and its in a lecture format. At most universities, what teachers are considered qualified for this? Can a school put anyone there, regardless of their qualifications?
Ted's right if the course is listed as a history course. I'm actually going to be teaching HIS 101-102 - Western Civilizations this fall at the local community college. Our community college also has a humanities course that is VERY similar to Western Civ, but it's coded HUM. It's taught by a lady with a degree in humanities. She also has a few history credits, so she teaches history classes too. -Matt
This one is not coded as a history class. It is coded as "general education". Would that still require a master's degree in history?
Well, since there are no master's degrees in general education, I would think the master's degree in history would be required.
If this is the rule... 1. Teachers of World Civilizations must have a Master's degree in history. Can I say this? 2. People without a Master's degree in history are exempt from teaching World Civilizations. It does not seem like I have a very strong argument to state 2. The university seems to not care that I don't have any qualifications relevant to this course. Can they also hold me to the same standards as a qualified teacher, responsible for conducting the course at the same acceptable terms as a qualified teacher? If things go wrong, can I show copies of my resume, and a letter warning the school of this fact, to protect my job?
As I understand it, a person does not need to have any degree at all in order to teach at a university. There's always some waiver in fine print that say something like "in the event of an emergency we can do whatever we want." If a person writes a series of novels that win aclaim, awards, etc. and a university want to hire them to teach English Lit then it won't matter if they have a degree or not. The university, like any other employer, can hire whomever they see fit. Does this happen often? I'd guess it happens virtually never. Can they force you to teach a course for which you are not prepared? I suppose you could refuse but wouldn't you be more interested in showing them that you can catch anything that they throw at you? Don't see it as a problem, see it as an opportunity.
I don't think you would be able to do anything "to protect [your] job." If you are not tenured or under contract, you can be dismissed for virtually any non-discriminatory reason in most contexts. Even if under contract, your contract might not be renewed. That being said, if they want you to teach the course, it probably isn't going to be as big of a deal as you might think. In terms of evaluation, I would imagine that if you were contracted to teach the course, you would be evaluated as any instructor would be evaluated.
