DETC Doctorate Pilot

Whatever. We're all still waiting for the documented case of a person with a doctorate from an unaccredited school getting a teaching job because of that degree (not merely in spite of it).

Here's one: show us the cases where people with unaccredited masters degrees are teaching at universities. (Not in VO-Tech programs, but in academic ones that require a master's.) Good luck. So please don't suggest that this person's CCU doctorate was somehow "accepted" by the university at which he taught, unless you have some evidence to support it.

 

I already showed you evidence of a Marlene Palazzo, with an MBA from CalCoast(received pre-accreditation from DETC) teaching business and communications at Seattle Community College. Is business and communications not an academic program anymore? You change the subject again, Rich. Please define academic program, too. Then, we'll see if we can find teachers at RA schools, in academic programs, who only have a bachelor's. I'm guessing we can.

The question you posed was "Where are all the people teaching with master's from DETC-accredited schools? They aren't there." I showed you that and I offered up bonus fodder where three people had un-accredited doctorates who were teaching in ACADEMIC programs at regular 4 year RA schools(unless engineering is not an academic program anymore). Each time I answer your questions you change the subject to a different question. I show you that people with DETC master's do teach at RA schools and then you come back with the next level...."yes. but, show me a...."

Now it's "in spite of" rather than "because of"?

Do you propose that people get hired by an RA school to teach only because they have a doctorate from an RA school? I know a few PhD's out there from top schools still looking for work. You already state that you don't know. Here is what I know for John Russ. He is an imaging engineer with a PhD from an unaccredited school. Before retiring he was a professor at North Carolina State University...teaching engineering(still adjunct there). Even in their engineering news they list him with the title of Dr. http://www.engr.ncsu.edu/news/news_articles/cyberspace.study.html and again, the guy is listed as retired professor....http://sasw.chass.ncsu.edu/forensic/contributors.html with the title of "Dr." at the school. The fact remains that the school does list his doctorate and he was/is teaching there(this guy is a genius type in imaging analysis and was a huge authority in microscopy imaging) and he is well known in the industry and ACADEMIC circles as "doctor".

The only way we are going to get this solved is for someone to ask the Dean(or his supervisor there) if they had knowledge that the school lists him as having a PhD from CalCoast. Right? You take the stand that the school did not know anything about his PhD or the fact that it is listed in their web pages and splattered across industry journals and corporations. Is the school really going to offer such proof to quench the thirst of this forum? Are they going to take away his retirement? So, your position then, that the school does not recognize his doctorate, seems unprovable then, given the circumstance. Already, I have shown proof that the school at least acknowledges his doctorate via numerous entries and across departments. NOW, whether that be acknowledged in hard pay we don't know and you won't likely be able to show otherwise. I might assume, based on Tony's post, that he is paid some sum that might be initially based on an MS degree. Of course, we don't know that for a fact and you have the burden of proof that he doesn't get paid as a doctor. Will you make the assumption that other PhD's at NCSU are paid for a doctorate?

Why don't you write John Russ at [email protected] or [email protected] and ask him? He might be able to clear this up. I'd like to know what he says but don't care enough to expend the energy to ask him. (Also, I am pretty sure he was on at least one doctoral committee at the school, too. Do master's normally sit on doc committee's. I don't know the answer to that. I do know that one of his doc students lists him as a reference and calls him Dr. Thus, he had the title of "Dr." by students and faculty alike, as well as those in industry...having full knowledge that he had a PhD from CalCoast...as he does not hide this).

 

I am not sure that DETC docs will ever compete head-on with RA docs. It is my impression, for starters, that the DETC will not be getting into the PhD accreditations business, so the DETC docs would have alternative nomenclatures.

It has been suspected that DETC schools would not likely offer science-related docs due to the expensive research facilities that would be involved. On the other hand, I do think that science-related DL docs could be doable simply by arranging for students to rent facilities from local science-related businesses, though I would think that would probably be an RA proposition.

Columbia Southern University is DETC and is offering a DBA. I wonder if California Coast University will

There are already DETC-accredited JD programs at Concord University and William Howard Taft University.

It has been suggested that DMin programs could receive DETC accreditation. I'm not sure, however, whether any exist yet?

American Military University at one time had Virginia state approval for a DMS (Doctor of Military Studies) in their pre-RA candidacy days. I wonder whether they will renew this or do only the PhD once RA is achieved or both.

There is a serious need for an accredited DL DA in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Wonfder if College of the Humanities and Sciences will fill this void with a Great Books DA?

University of South Africa is, I believe, DETC, but, up to now their DETC accredititation has not extended to the PhD. I wonder whether that will change. If DETC ever wants to get into the PhD accrediting business, this may be the key.

I doubt that anyone shooting for a DETC doc (or even an RA DL doc) seriously believes that Harvard and Yale will fall down at their feet and beg them to join their faculty upon becoming doctored. Rather, I would think that, personality-wise, a DL doc holder would probably desire a DL professorship or a professorship at the local community college, four-year college, or night school master's program.

 

Right. I doubt it will happen that DETC's will seriously compete with RA docs. Even though there might be spots here and there I still think it unlikely to gain any big mainstream steam. Yet, with schools like Western Governor's, UNISA, Deakin, FLET, Queensland, and University of New England getting DETC accreditation doesn't that push it up a notch? Why not just attempt RA accreditation for these schools rather than DETC if they really wanted to be serious. Just for financial aid title IV entitlements? Even if Title IV was the reason then DETC must be a bargain and a half investment for them.

I have only seen the DA programs in schools like Music and Humanities. After some of your postings I searched some DA schools out. I saw North Dakota's DA program mainly geared for teachers. It did not require a dissertation. Do DA programs typically require a dissertation.

 

Rich,

1. When you say that doctoral programs are very expensive, is this on a relative basis or an absolute basis? If doctoral programs are not profitable, why are there so many for-profits in the field?

2. When you say that doctoral programs require a different set of activities (comps, orals, proposals, the dissertation, and the defense) that are not germane to DETC programs, what exactly do you mean? Wouldn't the faculty, being doctored themselves, be competent to know what goes into a doctoral program?

3. Why did the DETC deny first professional degree status to the IMCA DBA when Columbia Southern University is offering a DETC DBA?

4. Were you aware that when you post part of your replies inside the "originally posted by" box, that those parts of your replies don't show up when I hit my "quote" button?

 

The DA typically requires a dissertation but the dissertation usually has a pedagogical component. In other words, the PhD candidate in History will write a dissertation on something incredibly obscure, like the Civil War diaries of black women preachers, while the DA candidate in History, IIUC, will write a dissertation on how to organize a unit (or a course) on Civil War history (or black history or women's history or church history).

 

And AMU. (I'm not biased, am I?)

 

I'm wondering whether the costs of getting DETC are somewhat lower than getting RA. As to the foreign schools, which RA would they belong to (unless they established some physical presence stateside), as each RA covers only certain specific states?

 

Cheaper most likely at DETC(maybe in terms of actual cash outlay to the accreditors and prep work for the school). I did not add the costs up by I suspect it is cheaper.

DETC costs can be found at http://www.detc.org/downloads/accredhandbook/2005/I[1].1.%20Accreditation%20Fees%202005.pdf .

Middle states info on costs can be found at http://www.msche.org/documents/dues0705.pdf .

Neither of these costs above reflect the costs associated with a school to get ready for a visit, though. My wife worked at Purdue, math department, when they were going through accreditation review a few years back. It was tension city and a lot of overtime. It reminded me of an FDA audit.

 

I have no personal experience of this but judging from the world of legal education, the doctoral degree is only a PART, albeit a necessary part, of the would-be professor's portfolio. He must also show promise of scholarship, which means he must ALREADY have conducted research and published. Teaching experience is also considered desirable but not to the exclusion of scholarship.

Now it seems to me that possession of an accredited doctorate should be seen as ALLOWING a college or University to consider an applicant. If they like the work he's doing, THEN they might hire him. No one gets hired MERELY because he possesses a degree.

 

The DA in History is offered by Clark Atlanta University, Middle Tennessee State University, the University of North Dakota, and Saint John's University. The DA in Political Science is offered by Idaho State University. The DA is, I think, an endangered species. In the two decades since I graduated college three DAs in History (Illinois State University, University of Miami, and the University of Northern Colorado) have been shut down and only one (Saint John's University) has been opened up. The University of Northern Colorado's DA in History was closed down thanks to a greedy, tight-fisted Republican legislature and doubtless the same is true of Illinois State University. The University of Miami, no doubt closed down their DA in History because they already had a PhD in History. I have heard some nasty rumors to the effect that Middle Tennesssee State University may be closing down their DA in History, possibly transforming it into a PhD in History. The University of North Dakota now has a PhD in History that is jointly offered with North Dakota State University.

While most DAs are in "soft" disciplines (Humanities and Social Sciences), I have seen DAs in Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Economics. There are not many DAs offered via DL. The only DL DAs I have seen - Heed University, Honolulu University, Warnborough College/University, and Whitefield Seminary - are unaccredited. Maybe Uncle Janko knows the web address for the professional association for DA programs.

I fear that the DA is perceived by some (including the legislators that fund them) as a "lesser" doctorate than the PhD and this may explain the troubles it has had "catching on" in academia. But it is a different, not lesser, degree and it's focus is on interdisciplinarity and teaching. Thus, a DA in History would tend to appeal to one who would like to teach a broader range of history classes than would be done at a major university (e.g., maybe a combination of Ancient, Mediaeval, and Renaissance History as opposed to just Mediaeval Economic History) with maybe even a few outside minor classes in other departments (like maybe History of Political Theory or Economic History). The DA in History would likely end up teaching in four-year colleges and maybe small MA-only graduate programs. I do wonder, however, whether there are any DAs teaching in DA programs or even smaller regional PhD programs.

 

Yes, but it helps when commenting point-by-point that the responses sit next to the points made, like above.

 

Pardon my ignorance, but what is a CLO?

 

Chief Learning Officer

 

Nosborne, well said. I agree.

In response to your earlier question in this thread about whether or not the DETC accredits professional doctorates already. I was under the impression that they already did. Excluding the GAAP institutions (outside the United States) that are now DETC accredited, not only are there the two JD programs (Taft & Concord), but also the doctoral programs offered by University of St. Augustine for Health Sciences. USA-HS has two first professional doctoral programs (DPT & OTD) as well as post-professional programs of the same kind. While I believe (correct me if I am wrong, anyone) these cannot be completed without on-campus classes and training, they still are DETC accredited programs, are they not?

I also remember reading something on the Distance Education Training Council’s site that mentioned accrediting first professional programs at the doctoral level. Of course, at the time it was late and I was tired, so I might have misread.

This brings up another issue I wanted to raise… Some time back I read someone’s assertion that it would be unlikely for a DETC program that wasn’t also RA, to gain professional accreditation. Admittedly, I believe that this was in response to the suggestion of such a program hypothetically gaining AACSB or another business accreditation. Yet USA-HS has “professional accreditation” and they are also DETC. Now, comparing business programs in contrast with health science programs, in terms of professional accreditation, may be like comparing apples and oranges. It seems to me, however, that USA-HS proves that it is possible for a nationally accredited program to receive professional accreditation.

See the USA-HS site:

http://www.usa.edu/licensure.htm

http://www.usa.edu/education.htm

 

Back to a point I made previously. When evidence is shown to answer your initial question you then come back with ..."yes, but show me a ...." Again, your question was that no one was teaching with a DETC master's degree at an RA school. Then, you come back with further criteria in hopes that I am not able to provide additional evidence for your next layer of requirements.

 

Look, the underlying question is whether or not degrees from DETC-accredited schools are accepted by RA schools for faculty. Your examples fail to demonstrate that. I didn't lump further criteria, I clarified them for you, because you clearly didn't understand them. (Or you purposely chose examples that didn't meet them. Either way.)

That you have to scramble to find even a couple of (ill-fitting) examples demonstrates my point, and clearly indicates that doctorates from DETC-accredited schools face little acceptance in academia. (The same thing we've known for years regarding doctorates from unaccredited schools.)

The master's issue came up because having a doctorate isn't always necessary to teach, a master's is--provided we're talking about academia. (No, vocational programs at CC's don't cut it. Sorry.) And we don't see examples where RA schools have employed faculty members on the basis of DETC-accredited master's degrees. Your examples have the same fatal flaw: they don't demonstrate the point.

For example, if I found a case where a cab driver had a DETC-accredited master's, could I conclude that the cab company considered that degree and hired him on the basis of it? Of course not. Well, examples of ROTC instructors, vo-tech instructors, and instructors with unaccredited doctorates teaching on the basis of their RA master's degrees just don't support your point. Sorry, but you're wrong.

(Ironically, I would love to see examples where master's-qualified instructors with their degrees from DETC-accredited schools were teaching in RA academic programs. I'm all for it. But I'm not seeing it, and I'm going to say so, even if it hurts someone's feelings.)

The definition of politically correct is when we consider feelings over facts. Well, I'm not PC. And while I hope to see the acceptability of DETC-accredited schools' degrees rise, I'm not going to let my feelings get in the way of reality. Try it.

 

Then why offer "docs" at all? In my original post I asked: "What are DETC doctorates, exactly? Why would a typical student want to earn one in the first place? What use would he or she have for it afterwards?" That question still stands. One reply was that the degrees would be used in government and industry. My biotech-interview post suggested why I didn't find that reponse very helpful.

But the issue here doesn't just apply to science, does it? The suggestion seems to be that while doctoral-level government and industry hiring in the sciences might value research and scholarship, hiring outside the sciences doesn't. I'm not convinced that's true, and if it is, then why hire non-scientific doctors in the first place? Just hire people with masters degrees and save on salary.

I suppose that one reply might be that less scholarly programs prepare individuals for professional licensing as practitioners. But even those cases, I think that the more research productive graduate programs will have an advantage. That's why I pointed out that my biotech example was also hiring D.Pharms. But not just any D.Pharm walking in off the street. They wanted D.Pharms capable of helping the company shepherd a new drug through regulatory hurdles and human trials. My point is that even in practitioner-oriented hiring, employers often want specialized and advanced skills and not just a generic practitioner. That suggests that employers might favor graduates of programs where graduate students are actually involved in the things that they are interested in.

In a long-lost post I once suggested that state governments prohibit non-accredited schools from offering conventional degree titles. I suggested that they might offer a 'Wizard of Arts' degree, for example. That way non-accredited "non-traditional" schools could have their freedom to design innovative programs as they see fit, but their degrees would be unable to simply pass and would have to sink or swim on their own merits. It would be up to the non-accredited school and its champions to convince employers and clients that W.A. degrees actually mean something.

So suppose that somebody earns a 'Doctor of Computer Engineering' (DCE) degree. That's one of the degrees offered by Northwestern Polytechnic University's ACICS pilot. What are graduates going to do with it? What are employers going to think of it? 'Practitioner orientation' or not, I expect that DCEs are going to market themselves to tech firms looking for high level computer expertise and that they will find themselves in direct competition with Ph.D.s in CS and CE for the same jobs. That suggests that it really does matter what kind of computer engineering work is being done at NPU, nomenclature or no nomenclature.

I find it hard to comment about DBAs because I'm not sure what the point of the degree is. If employers are looking for high-level cutting-edge expertise in finance or something, then it's probably relevant to ask what the graduate program is doing in finance.
If the goal is just to find a superior manager, then I wonder if a DBA is even relevant.

(Stanford's commencement speaker last week was one of America's best known college dropouts: Steve Jobs. No doctorate! No MBA. No bachelors, for that matter. (Jobs dropped out of Reed College in Portland OR.) It's telling that after he and his youthful pals founded Apple Computer and took it public, its board fired him as CEO and went searching for "professional management". They brought in a soft-drink executive with all the right business letters behind his name and the company started on its slow death spiral. Meanwhile Jobs had crosed the bay and was rockin' at Pixar Animation, scooping in the accolades, academy-awards and the big-bucks. Finally Apple begged him to... please... come back, where he rolled out the i-pod and started making the company cool again.

Jobs has also singlehandedly spearheaded the new Silicon Valley male business look: execs wearing black t-shirts.)

But maybe simply having (accredited) initials after your name might help somebody get a generic and non-competitive teaching job (assuming that such things exist... apparently they do in business, unlike most other academic fields) at a college that wants to maximize the number of doctors on its faculty list, but isn't quite sure why exactly.

What's a doctor of military studies degree and why would a student want one?

What's the difference between a great books MA and a great books DA? Students read more books? Or do people need to start thinking about what they read at some point? If original ideas are important, as opposed to memorizing the classics, then isn't publishing relevant?

It is probably true that a less scholarly, more coursework-centered DA might be better than a highly-focused narrow-dissertation research Ph.D. at producing faculty capable of teaching the entire breadth of the undergraduate curriculum in some subject. That might make the graduates very useful at small liberal arts colleges and he like.

But even here, I'd suggest that the university best able to produce these DAs might be the large diverse university department with demonstrable strengths across the entire curriculum. That's the biggest and broadest departments, not the obscure schools emerging from out of nowhere.

(The latter might find it easier to quickly establish some impact in a narrow research topic where there's little competition and where any work is valuable work.)

I'm not sure what law of nature dictates that DL RA or DETC doctors must always be inferior to conventional B&M graduates. If DL embraces the separate-and-unequal ideology, then DETC doctorates (and DL doctorates generally) will just be inferior right out of the gate. Case-closed.

If Yale is looking for an individual with high-level expertise in a specialized subject, and if a DL RA or DETC school has a prominent program in that specialty, then why wouldn't Yale be just as interested in the DL graduate as in a B&M one?

All I'm suggesting is that DETC might want to promote scholarship at those schools of theirs with doctoral aspirations. Encourage the schools to create research units and to generate a little scholarly involvement. It's not unreasonable and it's certainly not impossible.

The low-end DL (and non-DL) RA doctoral programs obviously should be doing the same thing.

 

Bill:

It looks like you're struggling with diplomaism, not DETC-accredited doctorates. Different issue.

If employers are willing to look favorably on doctoral-qualified applicants, then the question is whether or not that will extend to holders of doctorates from DETC-accredited schools. I suspect it will.

Your questions could just as easily be posed regarding RA doctorates that do not directly lead to research positions. Well, guess what, many, many doctorate holders work in other places and their credentials are highly valued. I find this out on the 5th and 20th of every month.

Again, your issue seems not to sit with DETC-accredited doctorates, which is the subject of this thread.