DETC Doctorate Pilot

Because cool is COOL, man

I imagine that a person with a MS in military studies might want to put the effort in and earn a doctor of military studies degree. It'd be nice to have a legitimate credential that indicated that you've put the work in to be at the top of your chosen field of expertise.

Plus, not only would that person be able to introduce themselves and Dr., but they would have the degree in a wicked-cool sounding subject (impress the adolescent nephews and all).

As for why anyone would want a DETC DBA or the speculated about DA, DM, DCE, etc? Getting an accredited doctorate degree for less money than RA and no pesky residency about does it for me. Once I finish an RA masters I'm headed right for the DETC doctorate. (Assuming that they are still around by then)

 

If unknown schools with basically zero reputation, productivity or participation suddenly start churning out doctors, and insist that their products be accepted simply because of accreditors' initials or something, then I don't think that they are going to be very successful.

There's nothing radical here. DETC could just encourage their more ambitious schools to create a few centers, institutes and research groups, the same as the B&M schools do. Encourage faculty and graduate students to get involved, again just like the B&M schools do.

The regional accreditors should do precisely the same thing with their RA DL doctoral schools, for that matter. The principle is the same.

The only difference with DETC is the non-RA accreditor's initials. A weak RA program can try to pass simply on the strength of its regional accreditation, but a DETC program can't do that. But if enough DETC programs acquire a reputation for strong programs, then the non-RA accreditor thing wouldn't matter nearly as much.

New B&M doctoral universities put work into building their reputations. So what's wrong with suggesting that DL doctoral schools do it too?

 

1. I was merely trying to point out that you would not want them to compete head-on. In business, it is not usually considered a very good idea for the new guy, the start-up, to try to go head to head with the huge established competitor in the field. If you (or anyone else) were to start a new computer company with the idea of going head to head with Microsoft, you'd better have a few more billions laying around the kitchen table than I think you do. This is so (both the you v. Microsoft example and the DETC v. RA example) because the big established competitor usually has more money than you and will try by any means allowable to bury the new guy if anyone threatens his domain. In business and marketing, we speak of target marketing, niche marketing, and uniqueness. Target marketing involves defining who you think is most likely to buy your product or service and gearing your marketing towards them. Niche marketing is basically target marketing on a much smaller level, as in finding a market so well-defined (and so small) that the big guys have overlooked them. Uniqueness asks: what are you doing that is so different that I would shop at your store rather than going to the other guy down the street? What I am suggesting is that rather than going head to head with the RAs, the DETC (and ACICS) should pick a small niche market that the RAs are either not doing (or not doing very well) and then run with it.

2. The example used in the previous posting had to do with hiring PhDs in industry and government. Generally speaking, corporate PhDs would tend to mean those with their docs in scientific and business disciplines. Since it has already been established that the PhD in Business (and it practitioner counterparts, the DBA and the DM) can viably be offered via DL, I focused my example on science docs. At any rate, the notion of a corporate PhD rarely conjures up visions of entire regiments of PhDs in History working for private businesses. Another reason I mentioned the scientific disciplines only is that the cost of establishing research labs for science and engineering docs would far exceed any amount of cash outlay that a university would likely be willing to spend on buying rare books for their history and literature docs.

3. Well, Colorado Tech already offers a DCS and some school in NY offers a DPS in CS. What's their point, if it's not the same point as the ACICS DCE from NPU?

4. The point of the DBA, as contrasted to the Business PhD, is to prepare broadfly-trained individuals for upper-level management positions. Sorry, but citing two exceptions to two general rules hardly overthrows the rules. The example of Steve Jobs (or the comparable example of Bill Gates) notwithstanding, I seriously doubt that every cfollege dropout is going to become a fabulously wealthy computer billionaire. And, whatever letters were martialled behind the name of the former Coke CEO who became Apple CEO, I seriously doubt that every DBA (or even every MBA) is an arrogant (bleep)! Entrepreneurial success starts with a vision (which doesn't necessarily require lots of letters behind one's name or lots of fancy wallpaper), but having some formal business training (whether it be just a few classes or full-fledged pieces of wallpaper) can give one the knowledge, the intellectual toolkit, to figure out how to marshal the resources to make one's business idea happen.

5. I doubt that there are any totally non-competitive academic hiring situations, even at Friendly Neighborhood Community College. And the little school wanting more docs on its faculty knows exactly why: because their accreditors require a certain percentage of doctorally-qualified faculty. And, for those purposes, a DA from Friendly Neighborhood DL College (provided it is accredited) will work just as well as a PhD from Harvard.

6. The difference between an Great Books MA and a Great Books DA would be the same difference between any other MA and DA: one is a master's-level qualification and the other is a doctoral-level qualification. The DA would require a pedagogical dissertation (as would any other DA), in this case on how to integrate the Great Books into a four-year college curriculum in political science or history (etc). Publishing would not be as relevant for the DA as for the PhD. But, even within the context of the PhD, to see the terms "publishing" and "relevance" used in the same sentence almost caused me to go into shock. Very few people will ever read anything published by a PhD. In short, the vast majority of PhDs do not market their works to an intelligent reading public. When he was nut a lad of eight, the future Dr. Heinrich Schliemann read Dr. Georg Ludwig Jerrer's _Universal History_ and swore that he would one day excavate Troy, and he did. But I would be hard-pressed to think of any twentieth- or twenty-first century book written by a PhD that has helped anyone find their calling in life (well, except John Bear's Guide, of course).

7. You are wrong on this one. Even the traditional RA B&M schools have enough common sense to realize that the DAs, being teaching doctorates, are best taught in the small to medium sized universities that historically were teachers colleges.

8. I never said that the law of nature dictates that RA DL or even DETC will always be (or even are) inferior to B&M RA. My meaning, even if I failed to convey same, is twofold: (a) that DL docs attract a different beast than RA B&M docs and (b) many on the hiring boards at RA B&M schools probably do think that RA B&M is superior (and it may take a long time to overcome such perceptions).

9. Indeed. Promoting scholarship is a good objective.

 

None, and I think you've demonstrated my point. It isn't DETC doctorates per se, but doctorates from DL schools without significant research efforts. I buy that, but again, that's a different argument. It applies, as you've said, to both DETC-accredited and RA schools alike.

But you also asked what one would do with such a degree. I think I've made my point that there are a lot of uses for doctoral degrees from such schools.

 

No feelings hurt here, Rich. Not to worry.

I have few feelings one way or another on a DETC master teaching in an RA school. DETC seems to have standards at least. All my degrees are RA and my personal opinion is that RA is better than DETC...and DETC is better than nothing. However, as I look at the cost of education today, I feel that the DETC undergrads are smart. My research turned up a number of people who got DETC bachelor's and master's(some not even DETC) then got an RA doctorate. Cheap and smart.

One thing I did notice in my search of DETC masters degrees is that there are a HECK of a lot of RA schools employing adjuncts with PhD's from un-accrediteds or DETC masters. Is there a trend then? I talked with a retired education prof at Indiana Univ last week and he thinks so.

What will the future bring? Lots of schools seem to be saying that they are in the acceditation pipeline(DETC at least). There are around 15 in the DETC pipeline. DETC will eventually be quite large. As schools lose tenure tracks( i think BYU-Idaho doesn't have a tenure track at all) then won't that have an affect on the standards employed in a school's hiring? Is the finger in the dyke at this point? I bet that if this conversation jumps 5-10 years into the future it will look a bit different.

Personally, I might consider a DETC doctorate after I see what one looks like. But, my guess is that the costs won't likely justify the difference. Meaning, I bet the doctorates are not going to be super cheap compared to the RA schools like NCU(they could surprise me). If it is within 10K then they won't be a big bargain in my opinion. Even NCU's parent, SCUPS, is close to 10K and that has no accreditation. For roughly 10K more you can get an NCU PhD.

 

Some of the newer DRTC members from Australia are already offering doctorates by distance education. Shouldn't be too hard for DETC to perhaps use these instititutions to benchmark their doctoral assessment.

And if the RA can accredite the likes of NCE and Capelkla with 100% distance doctoral programs, what is the problem in DETC doing the same?