Cal Coast to begin three doctoral programs

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by JWC, Jan 16, 2010.

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  1. JWC

    JWC New Member

    Received an email today from Natasha Franklin, Development Coordinator, California Coast University informing me that within three weeks the school will begin three doctoral programs: Ed.D. in Ed. Admin,; Ed.D. in Organizational Ldrshp.; and Ed.D. in Ed. Psych.

    I am excited and plan to enroll in the Ed.D. in Ed. Psych. program. Anyone else interested my contact Cindy Nash, Admissions Department, on February 1st to receive more information. (714) 547-9625
     
  2. jek2839

    jek2839 New Member

    Now That's Nice!!
     
  3. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    All of the obligatory cautions about taking a degree from a DETC-accredited school apply here, and in spades. While one might expect such a degree to slide by in many workplaces, you can forget its traditional use: academia.

    With that in mind, good for them.
     
  4. Robbie

    Robbie New Member

    There is nothing wrong with DETC accreditation in respect to any professional doctorate or any other degree offered by a DETC accredited school. It is the narrow minded who look down on nationally accredited schools vs. the regionals when it comes to academia. All accreditation agencies go through the same recognition process with CHEA and the Secretary of Education - USDE.
     
  5. ITJD

    ITJD Guest

    Nothing except it's the bottom tier of accreditation.

    Nothing except the regionally accredited doctorate programs are readily available and have no shortage of candidates coming down the pike.

    Nothing except that DETC as the bottom tier will be the last place academia sources for job candidates.

    I'm not coming out and saying that the program is any less rigorous than any other program regional or not. But what I am saying is that it's not about closed minds, it's about being culturally relative. Until the government pulls all of the charters of all of the regional boards and establishes DETC as the only accreditation model it's a substandard model in the eyes of academia because they don't directly cohort.

    Part of being smart is working the board the way its laid out. Nothing personal.
     
  6. Mighty_Tiki

    Mighty_Tiki Member

    I usually keep to the shadows on this board but I want to ask something. Nothing personal here but can you substantiate this blanket accusation? As someone who is actually a grad from a DETC / regionally accredited school (WGU) I would think you'ld be more open minded about accreditation. I have no idea if a DETC accredited doctorate would be accepted in academia and in fact, I would be willing to bet no one on this board could speak to the subject as I do not recall anyone on here as of yet graduating from a DETC doctorate program and testing the waters. This discussion at best is all theoretical and opined from heresay anecdotes. I do agree there are a large amount of regionally accredited doctorate programs or GAAP programs which are available and there are numerous applicants seeking admission into the multitude of programs. However, there will be a market for DETC doctorate grads just like there is a market for regional for-profit college grads. The extent of the scope of that market which encompasses academia is stil TBD I would think. Hypothetically, if a college was to come along and interview two equally qualified candidates, one with a doctorate from a for profit regional, the other with a doctorate from a DETC school, and their research / publishing product, dissertation qualities, and teaching experience were the same, also they were being judged on their actual doctorates and not on say their masters degrees, why would you disqualify the applicant based solely on the accreditation? DETC doctorates = less opportunity/funding (if any) for research which possibly could limit utility, but does not in any way change the fact both doctorates in question would be equal in the eyes of having legitimate accreditation. I have been around these boards long enough to hear just about every angle of these types of arguments. I wish someone would duplicate the John Bear / Rich Douglas studies done quite a few years back where they surveyed on accreditation. I think there are many people here who would be suprised by the results. You have to realize just how big academia is in this country and how many colleges/universities there are. What I am not saying here and where I agree - a DETC grad will not get a job in academia in a top 100 research university, but how many people with regional doctorates from lower than tier 1 research universities would? However, after that I bet the lines would blur the further you move down the university food chain. This is of course again speculation as I don't think there has been enough (if any?) graduates of these doctoral programs to even test this theory yet. DETC is aimed mainly at practitioners / working adults, many of whom are less concerned with getting that prestigous tenure track position and more so with landing a promotion / better job. Saying DETC is the bottom tier of accreditation is fine if it is your opinion but to construe it as a general consensus without the facts to substantiate it....why is not ACICS or TRACS or ACCSC or other (insert accreditor name) the bottom tier of accreditation? My whole point here is less utility does not = bottom tier of accreditation.

    Disclosure: I have degrees from both regionals and nationally accredited schools.
     
  7. ShotoJuku

    ShotoJuku New Member

    I've been waiting quite some time now for CCU to revive their former PsyD program but this new Ed.Psy sounds interesting.

    One other thing - the DETC schools certainly fill a niche for many schools and students alike and are far-far from being bottom feeders. :mad:
     
  8. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    That does not make them, nor the accreditation they bestow, equal. Not by a very long shot.

    By the definition offered above, most of academia is "narrow minded."

    The doctorate is a research degree that should be situated in a research environment. That hardly describes the very transactional world of DETC-accredited schools. (With a tiny set of exceptions, of course.)

    Setting that opinion aside for a moment, it is a fact that a degree from such a school would be useless in the vast majority of academic situations where a doctorate is require. Even UoP won't accept one. (UoP!)
     
  9. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    I can. According to my survey of HR professionals, which was the basis for my Ph.D. thesis, DETC (and other forms of NA) accreditation were significantly less acceptable to employers.

    According to John Bear's survey of admissions officials and registrars, upon which I performed the statistical analyses, the same proved true in academia. John presented those findings to AACRAO at one of their conventions.

    Sorry, but it's true. These facts may not affect any one person's situation, but they're still true overall and continue to call for caution and careful consideration when choosing a school.
     
  10. BillDayson

    BillDayson New Member

    Perhaps the first thing that we need to do is expand on what 'accepted in academia' means. Accepted as what, exactly? By whom? For what purpose?

    My guess is that the DETC Ed.D. programs will compete head-to-head with the for-profit programs. Both of them don't really seem to be aiming at producing tenure-track professors for research universities. I think that these degrees are more often resume boosters for teachers who want to move into K-12 administration.

    This is one point where I think that I disagree with virtually everyone who posts on Degreeinfo.

    On the doctoral level, accreditation is largely irrelevant. I say 'largely' instead of 'totally', since specialized accreditations can be big deals in certain professions and because some employers might use accreditation in screening applicants for generic-type positions (like adjuncts).

    But when it comes to competitive faculty and (especially) research positions, I don't think that employers pay very much attention to accreditation. What moves employers at research universities and in corporate R&D is departmental reputation. Since research-productive departments are vanishingly rare at non-accredited schools (I can think of one California exception), accreditation is simply assumed.

    That was one of the points that I was kind of subtly making when I started my thread about the NY Regents accredited schools.

    http://forums.degreeinfo.com/showthread.php?t=32667

    These include several non-RA PhD-grantors whose graduates almost certainly won't encounter any more difficulty being hired than graduates of similarly prestigious RA programs encounter.

    Does that mean that we can say the same thing about DETC doctorates, just because they have recognized accreditation? Of course not, until the far distant day arrives when the DETC ranks include world-class Nobel-prize winning research institutions.

    The thing that's holding DETC schools like Cal Coast back isn't their DETC accreditation. It's the fact that they are comparative non-players in an academic sense. That's why their graduates are unlikely to fare well in the kind of competitive hiring situations that require research degrees.

    I thoroughly agree. DETC accreditation doesn't taint a school. It's just that DETC accreditation all by itself isn't sufficient to launch a program into scholarly competitiveness.
     
  11. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    Regionally accredited state universities will not accept DETC doctorates.

    Regionally accredited state universities will not allow DETC doctoral holders to use their doctorates as a credential to be used for employment.

    DETC doctorates will almost always be accepted by people who don't know what regional accreditation is. :)
     
  12. Tireman 44444

    Tireman 44444 Well-Known Member

    Regionally accredited state universities will not allow DETC doctoral holders to use their doctorates as a credential to be used for employment.

    The community college I work for will ( Houston Community College). They will recognize it. Now credential...I am not sure, but if they recognize it, they would surely accept it.
     
  13. ShotoJuku

    ShotoJuku New Member

    Why would someone want to limit themselves to RA employment only?
     
  14. me again

    me again Well-Known Member

    Per the regional accreditators, community colleges only require from their instructors:
    • A regionally accredited A.S. in the field that they wish to teach, if they are teaching at the A.S. level.
      .
    • Eighteen regionally accredited graduate-level credits in the field that they wish to teach, if they are teaching at the A.A. level.
    Subsequently, a doctorate isn't required to teach at a community college, nor is a doctorate required for employment at a community college. As a side-note: Garbage companies will recoginize a DETC doctorate for employment to be a garbage truck driver, but it certainly doesn't fulfill any requirements for employment purposes.

    The fact remains: State universities will not recognize or accept DETC doctorates for teaching purposes, nor for employment. Nonetheless, DETC doctorates will almost always be accepted by people who don't know what regional accreditation is. :)
     
  15. Mighty_Tiki

    Mighty_Tiki Member

    There are at least at 2005 count - 4,140 two and four year colleges in the USA. The number of public ones in that count are 629 4-year and 1,070 2-year schools. That is 1699 public colleges. You must have obviously surveyed every one of the HR departments at these schools to make a statement like you have above. If you haven't then you must just be generalizing and giving your opinion which of course you are entitled to. However, if you have some facts to back up these opinions I and I'm sure others would like to see them. I know Rich D. surveyed HR departments for his doctoral thesis and that was what 8 - 10 years ago. Have you updated his findings? I have no dog in the DETC doctorate fight, however with that said, I will not allow someone to come in here and state if someone who knew the supposed difference b/t DETC and Regional Accreditation would discard a DETC doctorate outright because it is inferior in some theoretical way. I don't buy it. Can some one please clue me in to the differences between say Aspen's EdD program and Northcentral's which makes Northcentral's EdD superior in nature just because it is regionally accredited? I think Bill Dayson approached this topic the best in his post and I agree with it almost entirely. I do agree DETC doctorates will have less utility in certain situations, but to write them off just because of arrogance in thinking processes is just bad business. Unfortunately this type of thinking pervades higher education and it will take some time to change. Frankly, I don't care where my or any degree comes from (DETC / RA / GAAP etc.) as long as its accredited; it is, after all, only one check mark on the application.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 17, 2010
  16. major56

    major56 Active Member

    There's an interview /discussion with About.com: Distance Learning and Michael Lambert regarding this issue (e.g., DETC's CEO Michael P. Lambert shares his knowledge about the accrediting association, its achievements, and its struggle with regionally accredited institutions). Realizing that Mr. Lambert has a vested interest ... as do RA's; nonetheless, IMO he does bring forth some interesting points and facts.

    http://distancelearn.about.com/od/accreditationinfo/a/DETC_Interview.htm
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 18, 2010
  17. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    This, of course, ignores the science of statistical sampling. It doesn't take too many samples before the number in question begins to stablize and not move very much.

    What the poster is suggesting instead is a census, which is almost never attempted in science for the reason above, among others.
    To my knowledge, no one has. But that points to the condition remaining unchanged. Without evidence to the contrary, there is no reason to believe anything is different. A lack of evidence is not evidence.
    Why "theoretical"? You use the term as if you mean "hypothetical" instead. Theories are based on a great deal of evidence already at hand; hypotheses are conjectures to be tested.

    By the way, there is a great deal of evidence--research based (John, myself, and even DETC's own surveys) and anecdotal--to believe doctorates from DETC-accredited schools will have little or no use at RA universities. As I noted in a previous post, not even UoP will accept them. (I used to make those decisions for several campuses.)
    Neither would be very good in training someone to be an assistant professor at the beginning of an academic career. NCU doesn't have the process that would track students into academia, and Aspen's accreditation would make it nearly impossible for them. Existing, non-doctoral academics might find NCU's degree useful in extending their careers. They would not find Aspen's degree at all utile. Sorry, but that's the case.
    There is reason to believe that doctorates from DETC-accredited schools might get past some (many?) employers; they don't seem to understand accreditation at all, much less the difference we're discussing. But other than pursing a niche field, why would anyone do it? Why not choose a much more respectable and acceptable university at which to study?
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 18, 2010
  18. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

    If I'm with the regionals, I'm asking, "Why do we need DETC?"

    What do they bring to the table? Aren't they a low-rent version of regional accreditation? Don't they just replicate what the RAs do, institutional accreditation?

    Regarding DL, they don't bring one unique thing. Instead of taking the lead regarding the delivery of DL and the recognition of such learning, they've just hobbled along, using their trade school approach to degree-granting schools.

    There isn't a single paradigm used by DETC accredited schools that cannot be found at RA schools, except for standards that are more liberal (like transfer credit at the graduate level). And now we've seen the beginnings (finally) of a migration to RA for some schools. How can this not be perceived as anything but relegating DETC to the minor leagues?

    DETC would have been better served to have fashioned itself as a programmatic accreditor of DL programs, focusing on androgogical and technological processes and outcomes. Instead, it's just an advance version of "Draw the Pirate."

    They seem to have no other function than to accredit schools that cannot become RA. That's why their accreditation is perceived to be inferior.
     
  19. Ian Anderson

    Ian Anderson Active Member

     
  20. Rich Douglas

    Rich Douglas Well-Known Member

     

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