Capella Faculty Member Named President-Elect of APA Division 50

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UAB Students to Present Scholarly Papers at Conference
Posted on August 30, 2004 at 10:58 a.m.
BIRMINGHAM, AL — Two undergraduate students at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) have been selected to present scholarly papers at the International Studies Association-South annual conference, October 22-24, in Columbia, South Carolina. The students selected to present papers are Mila Heersink, 20, and Mary Hawkins, 22.
http://main.uab.edu/show.asp?durki=69600

 

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Somehow I missed the brazen advertisements on the Harvard blogs - unlike Capella's, they appear to be the personal blogs of students. Of course, they don't carry the disclaimer at the bottom of each (as do those operated by Capella) that:

"Capella University is a sponsor of this Web log and maintains and updates its content."

Perhaps Harvard students are just too intelligent to let someone else "maintain and update" the contents of their blogs. Then again, maybe Harvard wouldn't think so little of their students that they would insist upon such an overwhelming need to control the content.

The titles of the Capella Blogs are also quite revealing:


Navy SEAL dives into online degree: Navy SEAL charts his course pursuing a PhD degree

One Marine's Journey: A Marine from Egypt serves his new country while pursuing an MBA online

Soldier Targets PhD: Army First Lieutenant Linda Lee on a mission to earn a PhD online

 

Associate professor and professor are both tenured ranks. What I suspect happened here is that these people were hired with masters degrees, at a time when that was common for smaller colleges. They may have received tenure with masters degrees. And then at some point there was pressure for faculty to get doctorates. Since the reputation of the doctorate probably didn't matter as much as ability to earn while continuing to work full-time, these faculty chose DL doctorates.

The exact same thing is happening at my current employer, though faculty with masters tend to earn their doctorates at the 2 big state research institutions (though we do have both a Walden and a Union doctorate holder on faculty).

 

Entirely possible.

Regards,
GME

 

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Hi Douglas,

I agree the titles of the blogs seem to show evidence of an advertising copywriter.

I'd be very surprised if the content of the blogs was fake. Is that your belief?

(BTW, until you mentioned them, I didn't know they existed. Are they featured in advertising, or did you come across them while visiting the website?)

Regards,
GME

 

Another faculty member who seems to have followed this path with Capella:

Justice Studies Faculty & Staff
Dr. Brian A. Kinnaird
Department Chair
B.A., Sociology, Fort Hays State University
M.L.S., Criminal Justice, Ibid.
Ph.D., Human Services/Criminal Justice, Capella University
http://www.fhsu.edu/jus/faculty.shtml

I have more than a passing interest in monitoring this as it is pretty much what I'm doing.

Regards,
GME

 

And there will be many more to follow. DL is here to stay and I expect to see a lot more graduates from Capella, Touro, NCU, Walden and many other distance learning schools teaching at respectable institutions.

 

here's a discussion over at chronicle of higher ed that pretty much parallels this one (perhaps with a little less fervor).

http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,26595.0.html

 

I did a google search with the terms "capella university" professor faculty

Very interesting results

I had assumed that most Capella docs would be adjuncts. That may be, but there appear to be plenty with tenured positions at very legit schools.

 

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I have no particular beef with Capella - but I do observe this about for-profits. If you examine their financials (at least those that are publicly traded), you'll see an interesting fact - for-profits spend as little as 50% of their revenue stream on providing education. The rest goes for marketing, administration, profit and taxes.

Even agressive non-profits, such as Nova Southeastern, spend significantly more on education (85% or more).

At a recent AACSB conference the executive director made clear that in his opinion for-profit models provide second rate - and hence, unaccreditable by AACSB, education.

So if you are going to pay the typical outrageous tuition that many DL programs charge - where do you want the money to go? Into library holdings and full-time faculty? Or into profits?

Regards Andy

 

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You highlight something that should raise eyebrows and generate a closer look.

For the sake of argument, can we assume that the average for-profit online university spends 50% of its tuition revenue on instruction while the average B&M spends 90%?

Could some of that difference be accounted for because for-profits are only going to offer programs for which there is a large demand? And that non-profit B&M schools typically offer a number of programs that cost more than they take in?

I'll use my own non-profit B&M school as an example. There are two very popular programs at our campus. They generate a pretty serious 'profit.' I"m not sure what the figure would be if we figured instructional costs as a percentage of income, but I would not be surprised at all if it was 50% or even less (a lot would depend on what is included in 'instructional costs').

However, the vast majority (sometimes all) of that 'profit' is eaten up by the three other degree programs that have been in the red for the last 30 years. If you figured total instructional costs of all programs here against all tuition revenue, I wouldn't be surprised if it approached 90%.

That surely can't explain all of the discrepency between the two types of schools, but I think probably explains a chunk of it.

Regards,
GME

 

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Nova's DL doctorates are outrageously expensive, more so than Capella and NCU combined.

 

There are some DL grads that hold full-time positions (some with tenure) at solid schools (although rarely at top tier institutions). But don't fool yourself here - a DL degree is a definite handicap in obtaining employment at top schools. I am very aware of this - as a DL grad (NSU) I am a tenured prof at at a fairly well regarded school. I know that I most likely would not be able to gain employment at most AACSB schools. I also know that as my school pursues AACSB we will probably have to hire folks with doctorates from AACSB schools.

I can wish it weren't so - but it is. My best answer? Conduct research, publish, and teach well.

regards - Andy

 

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Andy, you have a Doctor of Business Administration degree from Nova University, for crying out loud! Are you telling me that you think that marketing and profits are evil things for business schools to be spending their money on? Also, I would guess that the Executive Director of the AACSB would probably have a business doctorate as well, but he seems to think that for-profit business schools are evil for making a profit. What's going on here? I thought the objective of starting a business was to make a profit and, to do that, you spend money on marketing in hopes that people will buy your product! Did I miss something here?

 

I think you are right on in this. I did not find any top tier school in my scanning of the search results. And many of the folk I looked at seemed to be following the already-on-faculty-moving-up model.

Without a doubt my doctorate would be a strong (quite likely fatal) disadvantage were I to try for a faculty position at UCLA. (Of course, a doctorate from Obscure State U would do the same).

You are also correct in observing that a vita containing scores of articles published in peer reviewed journals can offset a lower tier doctorate.

Regards,
GME

 

But there is a real question about the degree to which a doctorate from Obscure State U or a degree from Online U would hinder your job prospects at an R1 school.

To make it more concrete, would a PhD from Cleveland State still have a better shot at a UCLA job than someone from Capella? In both cases, the candidate's research record would have to be superb. But does one of them have an even greater credibility deficit to make up? Based on comments about DL I here from many faculty, I suspect the Capella grad is still at a disadvantage.

That said, I have nothing against people getting doctorates from either Obscure State U or Online U. They both serve their purpose.

 

Cleveland State University is AACSB accredited, so they will certainly have an advantage over a Capella candidate in getting hired at UCLA, another AACSB school.