Kindly Comment on RA-Masters & DETC-Doctorate Combination

Respected Esteemed Forum Members.

I would likeb your enhanced opinion about the prospects of candidates posessing RA(Bacherlors & Masters) + DETC (Doctorate). How they will be looked upon in Teaching for community colleges.

Do these candidates hold any future.

thanks in advance.

 

At the very least, and depending on their subject, they should be able to teach using their RA Masters.

 

A master's is often all that is required in the community college. It will depend on the school as to whether they count the DETC doc for salary and/or promotion. Many will some will not.

 

I think it would depend on your subject and your professional experience, the needs of the college and how you fit into the mix of their other instructors.

(That said, I would imagine those are all factors regardless of whether it is a RA or NA doctorate.)

 

It isn't known yet how useful doctorates at DETC-accredited schools will be for teaching at community colleges. Community colleges are accredited by the same regional associations that accredit 4-year colleges and universities. This may hamper the acceptance of such doctorates in that environment.

With so many RA options available, I'd suggest avoiding it for now until the situation plays out. There is nothing that points to the acceptability of doctorates from DETC-accredited schools, but much that points away. For now.

 

That said (and I'm going on a limb here), if it's a DETC-doctorate or nothing (usually due to a cost issue since DETC doctorates are far less costly), a DETC degree is looking better than it was just a few years ago.

Just to be clear, given the option an RA doctorate will get you much further, so I'm not really endorsing the idea, I'm just throwing this thought out for discussion.

 

I'm going out on a limb here because I"m offering an opinion on a subject whee I have no experience. I'm going to use the "all things being equal" argument.

All things being (almost) equal, two candidates apply for a CC teaching job. They both have RA Masters degree from the same, well respected school. They both have the same amount of relevant work experience and they both interview well. Candidate A has a DETC doctoral degree. Candidate B does not. Who gets the job?

With all things being equal I give the edge to the doctoral degree owner based on additional dedication and committment and perhaps even some extra knowledge.

Of course, we know that in the real world, all things are never equal. The gray area remains gray and different hiring managers will behave differently. In general, additional credentials are seen as positive regardless of whether they are certs, experience or degrees. You'll need to decide for yourself if the cost of such a degree (monetary + opportunity cost) is worth this possibly slim edge.

I'd only want to add one additional thought. If, instead of spending countless hours of reading and writing, the RA Masters degree owner instead chose to do a bit of research, write a journal article, go to a few national conferences and maybe even make a presentation of her research, might not this person gain the same or even a better advantage than earning a PhD (from any school). There's more than one way to be ambitious. Earning a degree is not the only way to standout from the crowd.

 

In my humble opinion, I think it depends on what you intend to use your doctorate for. If you intend to use it to teach in a traditional RA community college, they will not even look at your DETC degree. For those that have applied for adjunct position/s, you know most application only ask for RA degrees - that means they don't even want to see or know about your DETC degree - to them it's worthless. However, if you want to use such doctorate to work for the government, then it certainly will be very useful.

Another issue is the area of discipline in which your doctorate is in. For example, if you have a DETC Ed.D, such can help you secure promotions in administrative positions (non-teaching positions) in schools and depending on other variables, while a DETC business doctorate may be worthless because most business degree requirements are only at the master's level (MBA).

For schools that offer these degrees, I'm thinking it's got to do with their accreditation requirements because they keep offering degrees that don't serve their students well instead of focusing on practical doctoral degrees in areas like criminal justice, homeland security, security management which are not discriminated against in areas of government employment.

So depending on what u intend to use the degree for as well as, its cost (it must be cheap) and area of discipline, then a DETC doctorate may not be a bad investment.

 

Thank you for expressing what I was thinking.

 

The only thing I'd add is that some colleges want to be able to say "x percent of our faculty possess doctoral degrees" and in that situation, a DETC doctorate might just be better than no doctorate at all, even at an RA school.

Likewise, I'm not convinced that a school making a hiring decision would necessarily dismiss a DETC doctorate outright; while the registrar's office will (should) know the difference, I'm not convinced that someone in HR will necessarily notice, or even that a department chair will infallibly notice. I agree with Rich that if there's any way to swing an RA doctorate, it's definitely the safer, higher utility choice, but I can see that it may not be an option for some people.

Schools don't always check that carefully; there was an incident some years ago where an apparently well liked and qualified professor, with an RA masters degree, was teaching at a well-known regionally accredited school. She got a Columbia State doctorate for which she did a minimal amount of work (a 20 or 30 page thesis). The school apparently just added this to their website and nobody thought to check.

In that case, it did not end well, but if it had been a DETC doctorate instead of a fraudulent one, it seems very unlikely that anyone would have noticed or cared. Of course, more scrutiny is likely in the hiring process than in a review for a raise or to add information to a website.