NovaSE Criminal Justice PhD

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by JLJ, Jan 9, 2018.

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  1. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    I can't find anything on Howie Carr's position, but Mel King was an adjunct instructor.
     
  2. chrisjm18

    chrisjm18 Well-Known Member

    In case anyone is interested, below is the degree plan for the two-year professional doctorate in criminal justice at the California University of Pennsylvania.

    Year 1 - Summer

    CRJ 800 Leading Criminal Justice Agencies 3 credits
    CRJ 890 Applied Criminal Justice Research Methods for CJ Leaders 3 credits

    Fall
    CRJ 805 Using Theory to Improve CJ Practice 3 credits
    CRJ 810 Improving the Administration of Juvenile Justice 3 credits

    Winter
    CRJ 895 Legal Research Methods for Criminal Justice Practitioners 3 credits

    Spring
    CRJ 830 Corrections: Crisis and Management 3 credits
    CRJ 840 Advanced Criminal Law, Procedure, and Evidence for CJ Leaders 3 credits

    Total Credits (Year 1) 21

    Year 2 - Summer

    CRJ 850 Contemporary Forensic Science and Technology for Criminal Justice Leaders 3 credits
    CRJ 860 Criminal Justice Training: Needs, Problems, Solutions 3 credits

    Fall
    CRJ 870 Understanding Civil Liability for Criminal Justice Managers 3 credits
    CRJ 880 Adjudication: Achieving Justice More Often 3 credits

    Winter
    CRJ 820 Police Management for the 21st Century 3 credits

    Spring
    CRJ 900 Case Studies in Criminal Justice Management 3 credits
    CRJ 910 Sentinel Event Reviews 3 credits

    Total Credits (Year 2) 21

    Total Credits 42
     
  3. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    I'd bet dollars to dimes that anyone else you find who is/was any sort of instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will have a similarly impressive record in the real world.

    Again, my point is that a prestige degree is not always the be-all and end-all, real world experience counts for a lot. Those who don't think so tend to not have much real-world experience themselves.
     
  4. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    What is your point? My point was that the high-ranking criminal justice/criminology programs want their tenure-track professors to have degrees from high-ranking criminal justice/criminology programs. I don't know what adjunct instructors at MIT has to do with any of this. Besides, I'm pretty sure that MIT has a good number of professors who have gone straight from high school, to undergrad, to PhD programs, to academic positions with hardly any work experience other than Starbucks, being graduate assistants, and completing postdoctoral fellowships. Actually, I'm very sure. You can find many of their CVs online.

    I don't know what you're trying to imply, but I've been working since I was 17 years old in full-time jobs in all but the couple of years in which I had part-time jobs. Once I graduated from high school, I never had the luxury to not work. I'm not as old as most of you, but I'm not 20. I'm in my 30s. I guess that's like being 12 when you're in your 60s and 70s, but that's not hardly "much real world experience" for the rest of the world, especially considering that most people get their first tenure-track jobs in their 30s.

    Those who think that they can just waltz into a position at a school like University of Maryland just because they were a lieutenant at some police department tend to not have any experience with the academic job market for tenure-track positions. Since you've been a police officer for many years, why don't you send them your CV?

    I live in the real world. I don't live in La La Land. I know that someone with a PhD from Arizona State University and absolutely no work experience in a criminal justice department would get an interview over me at the top schools.

    http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2015/02/university_hiring_if_you_didn_t_get_your_ph_d_at_an_elite_university_good.html
     
    Last edited: Jan 23, 2018
  5. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    The article gets better.

    Among the 10% who were able to move up in prestige, they did so by proving themselves in post-doc, research jobs.
     
    Last edited: Jan 23, 2018
  6. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Hoo boy. I could win big betting against you on this one. You didn't even specify a school or a department; I expect MOST people in arts or sciences would only have academic and research backgrounds; a book published at Harvard University Press will beat almost any "real world experience" in social sciences and humanities; article in Nature or Cell will beat experience developing proprietary drugs at GlaxoSmithCline.

    Here's the first guy, alphabetically, listed in Faculty Directory at MIT Sloan Business School:
    http://economics.mit.edu/faculty/acemoglu/cv
    A pure academic, with boatload of publications but absolutely no "real world" experience (as if universities are somehow not "real"). And, oh yeah, PhD from LSE - a top school.

    In fact, here is the whole letter A:
    Acemoglu, Daron - LSE
    Akula, John L - Harvard
    Ali, Robleh - not listed, but appears to be a lawyer and has "real world experience" as a cryptocurrencies expert. Rank of Lecturer.
    Allen, Thomas J John - MIT
    Amengual, Matthew - MIT
    Ancona, Deborah L. - Columbia
    Aral, Sinan Kayhan - MIT
    Arnold, Kirk - "real world" tech executive. Lecturer. Bachelor's from Darthmouth
    Ashford, Nicholas A. - University of Chicago
    Asquith, Paul - University of Chicago
    Aulet, William Kenneth - "real world" cerial tech entrepreneur and author. "Professor of Practice" teaching in the Executive program. Master's from MIT
    Azoulay, Pierre - MIT

    From this sample, 75% (9/12) of MIT business school faculty have doctorates from top schools. 33% (4/12) have one from MIT. 100% of tenured and tenure track professors have top school doctorates. At least 2 out of the remaining 3 lecturers have elite educational background.
     
  7. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    In short, Nova doctorate is definitely not the way into teaching at the ranked, PhD-awarding CJ department. If an individual with Nova PhD can get such post on strength of his "real world experience", he doesn't really need a Nova doctorate. But this is OK, because Nova grad can probably get a job somewhere in the remaining 90% of academia. According to sanantone, there's no glut of CJ PhDs.
     
  8. sanantone

    sanantone Well-Known Member

    This was what my first post was about. You're not going to get a job at an elite school, but there are still plenty of other jobs out there. But, some wanted to harp on one part of my post and throw the thread off topic with fantasies and hypothetical, unrealistic situations.

    The "real world experience" thing doesn't exactly apply to all fields. For the sciences, real world experience is often working in a lab. It doesn't matter if the lab belongs to a government agency, private company, or a university. A lab is a lab.
     
  9. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    What types of jobs? Major positions in the command staffs of large police departments or federal investigative agencies?
     
  10. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    Try reading for comprehension. Sanantone made an absolute, definitive statement that someone with a Nova Ph.D. had absolutely no chance of being hired by a prestigious CJ school.

    No chance. None. Absolutely, positively no chance, out of the question.

    That is clearly not true.
     
  11. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    Sanantone, you are wrong. Again.
     
  12. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Technically, you could get hired to teach CJ at Stanford with MFA in Pot-making as your highest degree. Yet, making this statement does not help anyone, especially on the board like this one. BTW, logic was my field; there's a reason we're not all communicating in formal FOL statements.
    I'd like your comment on the fact that most faculty at MIT Business School have elite doctorates, and anyone who doesn't ("real world experienced" executives and entrepreneurs, all very successful) all have non-tenure-track, "special case" type of appointment. I will make a conjecture that there's in fact no TT Criminal Justice professor at the top 25 CJ programs. I'd bet there are plenty of Nova PhDs in every other level of academia, as well as in senior positions in LE and elsewhere.
    Degrees open specific doors. Nova doctorate is good for opening almost any door. I think this is pretty clear.
     
  13. heirophant

    heirophant Well-Known Member

    The question that I still have is: What determines which Criminal Justice school is "prestigious"?

    Is there any widely accepted university ranking in that field? Or do people in the field have their own informal ideas about which schools they respect the most?

    How much agreement is there on which programs are the "best"?

    Would the results be the same if you polled professors, politicians, lawyers, activists, high level police management, technical specialists in particular areas or cops on the street?

    My suspicion is that perception be all over the map. Some people might favor a very technical approach to Forensic Science and favor programs that are doing lots of scientific research in these areas. Others might favor schools that turn out extraordinarily skilled practitioners of those skills, even if the school they graduated from isn't producing as much research. Many others might favor many other aspects of Criminal Justice. Some people (professors, politicians, activists) might favor schools that generate lots of SJW's and publish race/class/gender obsessed deconstructions of the justice system. Professors might favor schools with great pay and perks for professors.
     
  14. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Quite a bit of agreement, actually. Elite program is a program other elite programs perceive as such. Eg., I'm out of academia at the moment, but can tell you that Stanford, Berkeley, and UIUC have top CS programs. Take a survey of, say, faculty of every existing CJ PhD-granting department at Carnegie R1 Universities; excluding outliers, you'll get your list. To your further point, note that "top" or "elite" does not necessarily mean "best for everyone at every moment".

    For the purpose of this discussion, only opinion of search committees at top and top-aspiring programs matter. These would be based on things like trendy books from top academic presses, articles in "good" journals, known stars on faculty, and first and foremost - opinions of other academics. Yes, it's a popularity context.
    Of course, this does not exhaust the universe of "good" programs. I think for many people Nova itself is a "good" program. I wouldn't mind working there, not necessarily any less than at the "top" school or a "top wannabe" like U. of Florida.
     
  15. FTFaculty

    FTFaculty Well-Known Member

    PhD program tend to transcend rankings. It's true that all else being equal, without knowing a thing about what type of program it is, if someone told me I was accepted at Harvard and at Directional State U for a doctorate, and I was otherwise blind to any other data, of course I'd rather go with the former, but that said, who your adviser is means a ton, probably more than the prestige of the university in general, and there are some very top academics who don't care to teach at elite universities, could not care less. But you go to their lower-ranked university and come under their wing, you'll probably have a better track to a top job than getting into an elite university without the top-notch adviser. Also, of course, what you do with the degree after the fact means a lot more than the quality of the degree. So, for example, my colleague friend who went to a lower-ranked university for his doctorate, but managed to hook up with a legend within his subfield of taxation there as an adviser, is now on the fast track to getting a tenure track spot wherever he wants at $200K+ a year--should he want it. He teaches for my very average university because although he is a publishing beast, he doesn't want anyone breathing over his shoulder demanding it and he likes to teach at a uni with more of a teaching focus.
     
  16. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Yes. Star advisor, as well as an amazing publication record (eg., in sciences, first author article in Cell) will go a long way in all but super-elite universities. Well cited article in Cell can land one a spot on Harvard faculty (alternatively and more likely, on faculty at a place with a lab that's actually better than what Harvard have in that specific speciality). Actually, my advisor made this point to me: he suggested that I should try to transfer to UMD to a currently more-in-vogue advisor.

    To be clear: we're talking about an AACSB-accredited department in a Regional Comprehensive, with solid MAcc program and impressively accomplished faculty. I heard they force Lecturers to have a publication record and research programme. Your colleague sounds like a very smart person. But you are correct: he could have gone to a R1 and he didn't; clearly, he thought it's best for him. His concern about publishing pressure is spot-on; unless one lives for research, it can (and likely will) be a burden. OTOH, if one DOES have this goal in life to produce research, publication pressure is still a burden, but is offset by 1:1 teaching schedules, research budgets, and other accommodations R1s are in position to offer. To each their own. Hypothetically, I would lean towards teaching-oriented places if I was in position to make this call.
     
  17. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    Nice attempt at obfuscation, so allow me to redirect you back to my original point.

    Sanantone stated that there was absolutely no way that anyone with a Nova Ph.D. would be hired by a "prestigious" CJ school. There was no ambiguity, there is absolutely, positively, no way in hell or heaven that anyone with a Nova Ph.D. would ever be hired by a "prestigious" CJ school, according to sanantone. There was absolutely, positively, no wiggle room whatsoever. None. An absolute, positive statement.

    Then, I gave a few examples, just off the top of my head, where real-world experience would be even more important than academic credentials. One was Bill Bratton, a legend in law enforcement, and I asked sanantone if he would be rejected for a faculty position at a "prestigious" CJ school because he only has a B.S. in Police Science from Boston State College.

    Crickets.

    I then asked is he would be rejected for a faculty position at a "prestigious" CJ school if he held a Nova Ph.D. in Criminal Justice.

    There are those damn crickets again.

    Why? Because anyone with a room temperature IQ knows that ANY school that teaches CJ would be absolutely thrilled to have Bill Bratton on their faculty, given his real-world experience that I don't care to rehash once again, as it's available earlier in this thread.
     
  18. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    And what I keep trying to convey is this discussion is completely irrelevant to Nova CJ PhD program. You can replace "Nova Ph.D." with literally anything, and it will not break logic. "Will Bill Bratton be rejected for a faculty position at a "prestigious" CJ school if he had eggs for breakfast this morning"? Err, no, but eating eggs is not a credential for a faculty position. Also, "can I be hired to teach high school if I have a Nobel Prize in chemistry?" is probably "yes" - but getting a Nobel is not the fastest or easiest way to get there. Another example: answer to the question "can I become a professor at Oxford if my highest credential is a diploma for a 2-year teacher college?" is "no"; saying "you totally can - Wiggenstein did it" is pointless, because when you're the top name in philosophy in the world rules don't apply to you.

    Also, I'll go out a limb here and say that, yes, Bill Bratton can very well be rejected if he'd apply, unsolicited, for a TT line at a research-active (not necessarily "prestigious", mind you) department. The reason is, what they are typically looking for in new recruit is someone who'll add to scholarly production at a school, and Bill Bratton is not a scholar. Schools invite men like this to faculty when they want to add a celebrity to the roster - and these are usually special posts, not regular TT lines. In short, Bill Bratton will be rejected for a job that is, essentially, one of a writer of academic monographs for "prestigious" presses - because he objectively lacks qualifications. Conversely, vast majority of CJ faculty at research-active programs will be rejected if they'll apply for police chief positions, pretty much everywhere in the country. Or apply to be a beat cop, for that matter. Reason is, Harvard PhD is NOT a credential to be a cop, cop supervisor, or police chief (but is a quite good predictor of someone capable of cranking out that first book for Harvard University Press). Different jobs, different requirements.
     
  19. Stanislav

    Stanislav Well-Known Member

    Couldn't resist. Technically, as Neil Armstrong is the first man on the Moon, he is in a class of his own: literally not a single person like him. Which makes him a lousy example for anything.
     
  20. Bruce

    Bruce Moderator

    Once again, you're trying to change the narrative. First of all, I disagree about Bratton, I think almost any school would be thrilled to have him on their faculty list. If a school rejected him because of a lack of scholarly potential, that says a lot more about the elitist, out-of-touch attitudes at "prestigious" schools then it does about his qualifications to teach CJ.

    Secondly, I'll once again redirect you to my original point; academic credentials are not the be-all and end-all. Practical experience, especially in the field of CJ, can be just as important, if not more so, than having a prestigious degree. One of my favorite professors at UMass-Lowell (who's now at Penn State) has his Ph.D. from Michigan State, but was very honest about his lack of practical experience. When asked by a civilian student about actual law enforcement work, he pointed to the police officers in the class (we all sat together) and said "You should ask those guys, not me".
     

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