Grad classes taught by an Master's?

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by TESOLer12, Dec 16, 2015.

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  1. TESOLer12

    TESOLer12 New Member

    I am in a small grad program for an MA. The school has had cuts and has let go of our only professor. I have been told we will be taught by someone who only has a master's degree. I have complained and told them this is a horrible decision. However, I don't think they can legitimately do this can they. Even if they can it completely destroys the legitimacy of the program.
     
  2. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    It is perfectly reasonable for someone with a master's to teach in a master's program. This is routine.

    There have been major exceptions made for certain lecturers without doctoral degrees to teach doctoral students, too. Rare, but it's happened.

    I'm not sure about the basis for your complaint.
     
  3. TEKMAN

    TEKMAN Semper Fi!

    80% Instructors at Georgetown University's School of Continuing Studies are taught by folks with only Master degree. However, they have extensive experiences in the the industry in the area they teach.
     
  4. Neuhaus

    Neuhaus Well-Known Member

    Of course it's legitimate. And no, it doesn't "destroy" the legitimacy of your program.

    FYI, organizations love it when unqualified individuals tell them how a decision they made is "horrible" based upon that individual's uninformed opinion. Nothing builds goodwill quite like questioning people, whose full time job it is to make these sorts of decisions, because you have a knee-jerk reaction to something largely inconsequential.

    Perhaps surprisingly, I'm not saying this to be snarky. What I am saying is that there are a lot of bad things that happen in the world. We have to choose our battles. If your university is honestly doing something unjust then you should absolutely raise that concern (or reconsider the program).
     
  5. rook901

    rook901 New Member

    I'm also not sure what the complaint here is. I see nothing wrong with someone who has earned a credential teaching to the limits of their credential. Can you explain in concrete terms why you think that a PhD is needed to teach to the Master's level?
     
  6. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    To go an absurd step further, who would be qualified to teach the doctoral students, someone with two? (Never! :smile:)
     
  7. rook901

    rook901 New Member

    Hah!

    Or perhaps someone with one of those "super doctorate" degrees that was mentioned here awhile back?
     
  8. jhp

    jhp Member

    A visiting scholar with a middle school education can teach a doctoral course.
     
  9. TEKMAN

    TEKMAN Semper Fi!

    If something wrong that someone with a Master teaches Master level course, then there should be something wrong with somebody with a Ph.D teaches Ph.D level course. Also, who taught the first Doctorate graduate?
     
  10. scaredrain

    scaredrain Member

    I taught a graduate course when I only has a masters degree at Devry. The course was for their instructional technology graduate degree.
     
  11. Kizmet

    Kizmet Moderator

    There's a pretty clear history of this that's been well documented . . .

    "In the universities of Medieval Europe, study was organized in four faculties: the basic faculty of arts, and the three higher faculties of theology, medicine, and law (canonical and civil). All of these faculties awarded intermediate degrees (bachelor of arts, of theology, of laws, of medicine) and final degrees. Initially, the titles of master and doctor were used interchangeably for the final degrees, but by the late Middle Ages the terms Master of Arts and Doctor of Theology/Divinity, Doctor of Law, and Doctor of Medicine had become standard in most places (though in the German and Italian universities the term Doctor was used for all faculties). The doctorates in the higher faculties were quite different from the current Ph.D. degree in that they were awarded for advanced scholarship, not original research. No dissertation or original work was required, only lengthy residency requirements and examinations. Besides these degrees, there was the licentiate. Originally this was a license to teach, awarded shortly before the award of the master or doctor degree by the diocese in which the university was located, but later it evolved into an academic degree in its own right, in particular in the continental universities. So in theory the full course of studies might lead in succession to the degrees of, e.g., Bachelor of Arts, Licentiate of Arts, Master of Arts, Bachelor of Medicine, Licentiate of Medicine, Doctor of Medicine. There were many exceptions to this, however. Most students left the university before becoming masters of arts, whereas regulars (members of monastic orders) could skip the arts faculty entirely." The article goes on to describe the history in Europe and the U.S.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctor_of_Philosophy
     
  12. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    i say quit complaining. regardless of whether your prof has a doc or only the ma , you are just an ma student; you night become an ma or you might becaome an ex ma student or an ma washout or something like that, your profs all have a bigger piece of paper than you have. learn from your profs, move on and, hopefully will be an ma (but maybe you might became an abt == all but thesis) or an ma(c), short for master of arts candidate. maybe after you get your ma, you might get a job as an ma only prof or maybe get a few adjuncting gigs while trying to be come a phd wannabe and maybe you will end up phd(c) or abd, but i hope you become an actual phd and hopefully you will become one of those prestigious people who gets his name called to be a full time tenure track professors. good luck on your ma & phd!
     
  13. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    I have an ba in history fro, a small liberal arts college. said slac had a small ma only grad program, which was the first of my so far five washouts from master's programs in history. the hist program had 6 profs when i started in 1983 and only four when i left (short of the ma) in 1985. The history of the department of history from 1960 to 1989 was loke this: tghe great buildup, 1960-1989; the halcyon days, 1969-1981; and the great decline, 1981-1989; and the great rebuilding, 1988-present.

    im tired, i think i'll just hit the send button and revisit this tomorrow. ciao!
     
  14. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    The story of the first doctorates in America. This comes from William Dean Edmondson's (BA, AUGUSTANA; MA, VANDERBILT; PHD, CLAREMONT; PROF OF HIST, WETERN STATE COLORADO UNIV, 1960-1983) HIST 301: AMER LIFE - THOUGHT TO 1865. According to Daniel J. Boorstin's book (Forgot The Title), the entire faculty of John Harvard's College voted an honorary doctorate. So Dr. Mather [I think] doctored the entire theological faculty, three members, and they began taking doctoral students.

    Was that Daniel Boorstin or John Bear or both or maybe someone else? Well, maybe the reason I thought it might be Boorstin was that there is this other story that sounds like this one. The origin of the master's in America were like this: (1) get your BA; (2) STAY OUT OF JAIL FOR TWO YEARS AND (3)YOU WILL GET YOUR MA ; AND (4) GRAD SCHOOL IN AMER HAS BEEN GOING DOWNHILL EVER SINCE. ORE WAS THAT J. B. Bear?
     
  15. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Why not two docs? Why not more than two? Why not six?
     
  16. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    like the Chancellor of Philosophy that Dr. Bear mentioned. But who would teach the first Ch.P.? (AW, That's cheap,cheap, cheap.)
     
  17. Tim D

    Tim D Member

    I did once take a Master's level class that was taught by someone with only 18 graduate credits in the subject. I did feel that was odd, as I had more credits in the subject than the professor, who had no practical experience either.
     
  18. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    at any rate, the great buildup to the halcyon days of nine history professors was like: William Dean Edmondson, 1960 (BA, Augustana MA, Vanderbilt PhD, Claremont ... Amer Life - Thought & Brit Hist; Mining Tours; Baseball History); Duane Lee Vandenbusche, 1962, the Trivial Pursuit Historian, (BA, Northern Mich MEd, EdD, Oklahoma State ... Western History, ESP gUNNISON hISTORY AND mINING tOURS ) ; Abbott E. Fay, He Of The Red Tie, 1964 (MA & CAS, Western State College ... Asian History); Dave Menke, 1967 (MA & PhD, University of Denver ... Russian History, Latin American History, International Relatuions) ; The Reverend Doctor Professor Harold M. Parker, Jr., 1967 (BA, Park College; BD, ThM, Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary; Thd, Iliff ... King Solomon's Mines ... Ancient History, Old Testament History; The Josianic Reformation; Thucydides; Mediaeval History, Rennaissance and Reformatiob History; Avignon Papacy; Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism; Church History, esp. Southern Presbyterian History; Civil War, incl. Nineteenth Century Church History; Latin Amer Hist, esp. the Confederadoes); The Most Germanic Herr Doktor Professor Clarence Dempsey von Beck, 1968 (BA, MA, PhD, New Mexico ... Modern European Military History; Austrian Empire; Nazi Intrevention in the Spanish Civil War; Mediae val Econ Hist ory, esp the Black Death; Reformation History; Wars of Rekigion; Thirty Years War; The Old Regime; French Revolution & Napoleon, Nineteenth Century Europe; Twentieth Century Europe) ; Max E. Bramble, 196 9 (BA, Western State College?; MA, University of Colorado Boulder?; PhD, Michigan State University ... Alexander Hamilton; Amer Life - Thought; American Intellectual History; Marxism; East Asia), he who was a leprochaun; Philip Dean Jordan, 1969 (BA,ht Alfred University; MA, Rochester University; PhD, University of Iowa ... Amer Life & Thought; British History; African History; Colonial America). Charles Livermore (PhD Cand., University of Denver ... American Revolution; Civil War), 1969.

    So, for eleven years, 1970 to 1980, the faculty of the history department remained at nine profs.

    EDIT: I'm tired. going to bed ... see you tomorrow . G'nite!

    edit again: Then came the great decline of 1981-1989. In 1981, Chuck Livermore died. The Department of History promptly elected the Late Chuck Livermore Department Chair. In 1982, Abbott Fay was terminated because a student of his complained when a class on Indian discipline got out of hand. In 1983, Prof Menke left to complete his doctorate at the University of Denver. Also in 1983, Bill Edmondson went on transitional retirement and was riffed one semester too soon to get his 25 yr. retirement. In 1984, Phil Jordan was riffed. In 1987, the good Rev. Harold M. Parker took his 20 yr retirement. In 1988, Beck took 20 yr retirement. In 1989, Max the Leprachaun Bramble took 20 year retirement. In 1995 Vandy took retirement.

    The great rebuilding began in 1988 with the hiring of Jim Stuart (PhD, Modern European History).
     
  19. FTFaculty

    FTFaculty Well-Known Member

    Absolutely a person with a masters can teach graduate classes. What in the world would make you think otherwise? There is so much information available out there on the net, this is something that you could look up yourself. My favorite professor from my MBA program was a masters-only entrepreneur who owned a chain of restaurants and taught an MBA class in developing a business plan, he seemed to know more about what he was teaching than the professors who had PhDs.

    Unless your instructor is incompetent, drop your complaint or you'll look very foolish to the administration of your school.
     
  20. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    transitional
     

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