DETC & Regional Accreditation

Your correct on your statement of certain law enforcement agencies do not require an undergraduate degree. Certain agencies do not require a degree, while others do.

If you want promotional opportunities an undergraduate degree or graduate degree is perferred and it must be accredited. It does not matter whether the degree is NA or RA. Proper accreditation is the main concern and RA and NA are both legitimate and valid accreditation bodies.

You are correct on issues that could come up with wanting to teach at a RA school with a NA degree. But, I've also seen NA graduates become teachers at RA schools. It all depends on the school.

As for work, show me an employer who will not accept my degree because it's from a NA school.

 

Okay, how about the University of Phoenix. You can be admitted to UoP on the basis of a degree from a nationally accredited school, but you cannot teach for UoP on that basis.

From a quick search using Google:

I see that St. Leo University has the same requirement. (It's pointless to continue listing schools; this requirement is all too common.)

I see a listing for Housing Works, Inc., in New York that requires a regionally accredited degree.

The city of Kansas City not only requires a regionally accredited degree, it takes the trouble of listing the 6 RA's.

I see a listing in Montgomery County, New York for a case worker's position requiring an RA degree.

And so it goes. One could compile a huge list of examples, but you get the idea.

 

<<The city of Kansas City not only requires a regionally accredited degree, it takes the trouble of listing the 6 RA's.

I see a listing in Montgomery County, New York for a case worker's position requiring an RA degree.>>

Most states, if not all, require RA degrees. NA is accepted at the federal level but usually not the state level.

Pug

 

There are a large number of employers that only recruit at a small number of schools. These are typically either local schools or the top teier schools in the country. The importance of the degree is magnified when hiring right out of school. Once the job candidate has a few years of experience, the school becomes a less critical piece of the resume.

 

<<Really? Where? Please show us examples of people teaching at regionally accredited schools while holding a degree from a nationally accredited school as they're highest credential.>>

Are we talking about college level teaching or secondary school teaching? I know at the elementary and highschool levels NA grads are sometimes taken conditionally when there are teacher shortages. The standard is RA but exceptions can be made in certian situations.

At the college level I think you'd be hard pressed to find a NA grad teaching at a RA school unless it's in the area of religion. I would think one could reasonably expect to find some that ATS (NA) degrees teaching in RA schools. I haven't checked yet but I wouldn't be shocked at all.

Pug

 

I agree that there are many references to "regionally accredited" in policies and regulations but I speculate that these are misnomers in many cases. When I was but a lad (not that long ago) the term "regionally accredited" was loosely tossed about by the unknowing being synonomous with what we know as accredited today. In fact, I think it's still a problem. This is changing slowly... case in point: I believe it was the Air Force who recently changed their policies regarding "regional" vs "national" as entry to OCS for what I believe was the same issue. These things get written in stone for one reason only to be corrected if taken too literally.

 

the unfortunate truth....

The unfortunate truth about the RA/NA degree dilema. While I agree with, jugador makes a great point. I made sure my BA and MA were from an RA school. And I encourage all those that come to me for recommendations on which school to choose: 'make sure it's regionally accredited. With all the phony degree mills out there (particularly targeting military monies), you know you can't really go wrong with a RA degree.'

Even through a Toyota Camary may have better gas milage, crash test statistics, than a comparable body style and colored BMW, which one will turn more heads? Which one will get more attention from the valet?

 

I know a former Chief of Police who possessed a non-accredited doctorate and who was very successful in his career, although his BA and MA were from RA schools. I have also seen community college faculty hired with non-accredited doctorates, but they were hired in spite of (not because of) these degrees and were not paid at the doctoral level.

Now NA degrees are a different story, because they are legitimate accredited degrees. However, I have yet to see a full-time tenure-track faculty with an NA degree as the highest degree teaching at a regionally accredited university that was not a theological seminary. Since you have seen examples of this, could you please share examples with us. This would provide good evidence of the increasing stature of NA in academia, something that many of us are looking for.

Tony Pina
Administrator, Northeastern Illinois University

 

I suspect as well that this is the case. I suspect it is even possibly the reason that some RA schools won't accept DETC credits and graduates.

 

Originally posted by jagmct1

"The U.S. has never been the top educators of the world and as a matter of fact, our country had been inferior to others when it comes to education. "


I disagree with your thesis. The USA has most of the top schools in the world; CalTech, Stanford, Princeton, University of California, John Hopkins, U of Chicago, and Columbia to name but a few. One factor sometimes used to compare schools is the number of Nobel prize winners their faculty win.

 

Very true. I cited Oxford and Cambridge as two obvious examples. As you rightly point out, there are many old and prestigious universities outside the U.S.

Tony

 

I think that a large part of that might be due to the fact that most of the "NA" schools grant few if any doctorates. In the course of the second half of the 20'th century, doctorates gradually became the de-facto union card in the university teaching profession.

Maybe "NA" graduates will begin to be hired by universities in larger numbers when these accreditors get recognition to accredit doctoral programs. But frankly, I'm not holding my breath.

Most tenure-track faculty hiring that I've seen from my student's perspective wasn't just looking for any generic Ph.D. that happened to walk in off the street. The university wanted somebody who would add to the luster of their department. So they wanted to see publications, teaching skills, recommendations, reputation and a history of significant work in the areas to be taught.

So DETC, ACICS and all the others will probably need to do a lot more than to just have the Dept. of Education recognize their competence to accredit doctoral programs. They need to start work right now to help their schools with doctoral aspirations to begin turning themselves into something more closely resembling research universities.

The extreme example of what I mean is Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. It recently started a Ph.D. program, which is currently NY Regents approved but not yet RA. But given CSHL's 100 year history and the 4 Nobel Prizes earned by its researchers (before the degree program ever appeared), I don't have any doubt that its graduates can find tenure track positions. It's the institution's proven scholarly reputation that does it.

 

Heck, I'd LOVE to take a Magister del Derecho from the Autonomous National University of Mexico.

But they DON'T offer one online!

 

Sorry; they call it a "maestra". My day for stupid mistakes.

 

Graduates of NA-accredited doctoral programs will have at least two very significant strikes against them when looking to use their degrees in an RA environment. First, the lack of acceptance of degrees from NA for teaching. This is already quite profound at the master's level; I would imagine it would be even more so at the doctoral level, especially for full-time employment/teaching.

The second, quite significant limitation I see is in the acceptability of DL doctoral degrees in general for that purpose. While we can identify people in responsible academic positions on the basis of their RA DL doctorates (I used to hold one), it is not a natural progression to go from being mid-career in some other occupation or profession, earn a doctorate, then drop everything and go into the traditional academy. Not only that, there isn't a natural recruiting process for such situations.

There may be situations where, like we see with RA DL doctorates, people already in full-time teaching situations might advance their careers with NA doctorates, but only to the extent these kinds of barriers can be overcome.

I suspect that, like RA DL doctoral programs, the target market for NA DL doctoral programs will be mid-career professionals looking to advance in their present careers, not to become an assistant professor somewhere. I further suspect such degrees will be quite useful in that regard, except in situations where a doctorate from an RA school is specifically required. (There are a lot more of those situations than some NA grads want to acknowledge.)

 

In this situation, how would pay work? Would the payscale be based off the RA masters or the DL doctorate?

 

Your point is well-taken Rich, but I have a counter argument for you. Wouldn't DETC doctorates be intended as professional and not academic in nature? If they are geared towards the former, then it is for sure they are not designed for teaching anyway. My point is that it doesn't make sense to talk about DETC doctorates from an academic career sense since they are not designed for a teaching career to begin with... but are rather practitioner doctorates like the JD or DBA etc.

 

Good point...however there are plenty of full-time university faculty with JDs and DBAs from regionally accredited schools.

Tony

 

In my experience as a higher ed faculty and administrator, faculty with an accredited doctorate would be paid at the doctoral level, regardless of whether it was earned traditionally or by DL. A holder of a non-accredited doctorate (e.g. CCU, PWU, etc.) would be paid at masters level.

Tony