Detc Phd??

DETC Ph.D Proposal

David

Thanks for your quick reply! Should I receive any further info. from DETC, I wish post it.

Oscar

 

Although I am a mere daily troll, that knows a great deal about people because I read this board religiously, my opinion is that it all started with the word "absurd" and the eye-rolling icon.

 

That's interesting. However, it was a joke. Sarcasm. The person to whom I was responding certainly didn't react in any other way. Tony gets it, another guy doesn't. It couldn't have started there because that person (Tony) didn't join the flame war. Heck, the sarcasm wasn't even pointed towards him.

I realize that to know this you'd have to know what's been said elsewhere on this board. It was a sarcasm directed towards another poster's comments on another thread. It should not have set off Rod's reaction. Unless, of course, Rod was already pre-cocked in that position, something commonly found in people engaged in sheer degree-defending.

 

Fishnet, not sheer.
Note dissertation-sized and proposal-sized holes in doctoral degree,
which some would like to see accepted as-is by DETC in a future life.
On-topic.

 

Congratulation to those who are currently working on CCU Ph.D.!!!

Even though you will be getting a unaccredited doctor's degree, you can always get around it by saying that the school is accredited.

 

Re: Congratulation to those who are currently working on CCU Ph.D.!!!

Yep, but it is deceptive. It leaves an impression in others' minds that isn't true. It isn't reasonable to expect someone to, without knowing why, discern on their own that the degree comes from a school that (a) wasn't accredited when the degree was awarded or (b) its accreditation doesn't extend to the doctorate.

 

Even though I'm crushed against the craggy shores of this incredibly thoughtful and logical response, I'll venture a response:

On.

 

Rich, I am curious. What is the difference between a CCU DBA and Ph.D? Is CCU Ph.D. without a dissertation as well. I know that my google search at one time indicated a lot of Ph.D. holders from CCU. Except being unaccredited, do you think that CCU Ph.D. requirements are structured similarly to RA programs? Thank you.

 

Re: Congratulation to those who are currently working on CCU Ph.D.!!!

I think sshuang has a point. I agree that the DBA at CCU might not be at the doctoral level and unaccredited, but it seems that DETC will allow schools to offer Doctoral degrees soon so a DBA earned at CCU before accreditation can still be useful. It depends on the use of the degree, it wouldn't be useful to teach but I wouldn't be ashame to put it in my resume.

 

The CCU Ph.D. programs required the dissertation. This is just one more reason to indicate the inappropriateness of their DBA designation.

Because I like CCU, I'm inclined to believe those holding a CCU Ph.D. probably did good work behind it.

 

Thank you, Rich.

 

I should clarify this. What I really mean is that I have a favorable impression of CCU. Thus, I'm inclined to think their Ph.D. graduates did good work. I don't really know that, however. It's just my operating assumption.

(I wanted to remove the tone of my first post, which sounded as if the basis of those Ph.D.'s doing good work was that I liked the school. Not so, obviously. )

 

I agree with Rich, having looked at a couple of old CCU EdD disses. It was never that CCU didn't know how to do a real doctorate; they knew how and they did;
it was, I guess, that the DBA sold well.

If it were repackaged & relabeled analogously to an EdS (mutatis mutandis), the DBA program would be OK as far as I'm concerned. Right now, it's an abortion.

I believe that doctorate diversity is good, but doctorate honesty is essential.
(That includes not passing off an unaccredited degree as accredited because the school subsequently got accreditation upon condition, inter alia, of dropping the degree in question.)

 

Yes, I got the joke. Since I did not have anything funny to add to Rich's cleverness, I did not repond. It's too bad that others decided to make such a big deal out of a little bit of sarcasm.

Tony

 

I agree with Unk. The DBA is recognized by the US. Department of Education as a research doctorate--not a first professional (i.e. applied/non-dissertation) doctorate. Below is a quote from the Dept. of Ed's U.S. Network for Education Information (USNEI):

"Regardless of the entry point, doctoral studies involve three stages of academic work. The first stage involves the completion of preliminary course, seminar, and laboratory studies and the passing of a battery of written examinations, usually called 'writtens' or 'comprehensives.' If successful at this stage the student is permitted to proceed with doctoral studies, called advancement to candidacy. If not, he or she is withdrawn from the program, in some cases with the possibility of earning a master's degree. The first stage is often longer for students that do not already possess a higher degree.

The second stage consists of a set of advanced seminars and consortia during which the student selects a subject for the dissertation, forms a dissertation committee, and designs his or her research. American educators call the doctoral thesis a dissertation to distinguish it from lesser theses. The dissertation committee consists of usually 3-5 senior faculty in the student's research field, including his or her academic adviser. They do not necessarily have to be from the student's own university. Once the student has developed and presented a research design acceptable to his or her adviser and committee, the independent research phases begins.

Independent research and writing the dissertation can take anywhere from one to several years depending upon the topic selected and the research work necessary to prepare the dissertation. When the academic adviser is convinced that the dissertation is of an acceptable standard to put before the dissertation committee, the student delivers it to all committee members and is scheduled for the dissertation defense. The defense consists of an oral examination in depth before the committee and invited guests during which the student must establish mastery of the subject matter, explain and justify his or her research findings, and answer all questions put by the committee. A successful defense results in the award of the degree."

I'm apologize for the long quote, but it is unambiguous in its message. Research doctorates (including the Doctor of Business Administration degree) culminate in a dissertation. This is true of other research doctorates (Ph.D., Ed.D., S.J.D., Th.D., etc.).

The quote can be found at the following URL, along with a list of degrees recognized as equivalent to the Ph.D.:

http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ous/international/usnei/us/edlite-research-doctorate.html

Tony Pina
Administrator, Northeastern Illinois University

 

Thanks Tony. I agree that what you've presented is the convention. There are alternatives to this approach however. For instance, Union requires a PDE which is described thus:

"...More flexible than the traditional dissertation, the PDE may be a research project, a philosophical or theoretical contribution, a biographic case study, a historical, critical or analytic inquiry, a social action project, or a creative artistic project.

Your PDE can take many forms including:

a formal traditional academic dissertation
a publishable book
a unified series of essays or articles
a documented project of social change
and an outstanding creations in poetry, theater, media presentation, dance, painting, musical or other artistic composition..."

Comparing Union Phd and CCU DBA programmatic features (both non-traditional) they look like this:

Open/Qualified Entry: Union=Yes CCU=Yes
Prescribed Courses: Union=No CCU=Yes
Testing Per Course: Union=No CCU=Yes
Comprehensive Test: Union=No CCU=Yes/No*
Learner Designed Studies: Union=Yes CCU=No
Formal Dissert/Project: Union=Yes CCU=Yes/No*
Doctoral Committee: Union=Yes CCU=Yes
Accred./Approval: Union= RA CCU=State

*CCU Comprehensive Test includes a significant written work including literature research, philosophy, and application of solutions to business management issues. Critically evaluated by a doctoral committee.

Considering the USNEI discussion above, even RA programs deviate from the guidelines as shown. My guess is that CCU will require a smaller comprehensive testing component than what is currently required and will add a dissert/project component so that the program is more conventional. I wouldn't be surprised to see this introduced in 2007 in order to be approved by DETC.

 

We agree, if DETC begins accrediting doctoral programs, and if CCU is selected for the process, and if CCU choses to pursue it, and if DETC approves them. I see you finally acknowledge that the current DBA is one lacking a dissertation (or equivalent), hence your suggestion that CCU will someday implement one. THAT took awhile!

BTW, how do you come to the 2007 date? That's only two years from now, and DETC hasn't even made a move in that direction. Even if they do, it seems unlikely (as Mary A. has noted) that DETC would include newer schools like CCU. Your projection of 2007 seems a bit ambitious. Wishful thinking, perhaps?

 

hey Rich - Using my name in vain again eh No news on what the pilot will look like and really I suppose there are a lot of issues around selecting schools for a pilot that have to do with being fair that could impact participation by CCU and the other DETC schools so to speculate is, in my opinion, a waste of time.

At the moment, frankly, I trust the commissioners to have given this much thought and to have debated it carefully before coming up with a plan that may or may not look like what we originally thought about when we prepared the materials. I do know this much to be true and that is that we will all know soon enough

Mary A

 

Indeed. Nor do we know what the participating schools will have to do in order to participate. For example, we don't know if CCU would have to (if selected to participate) change their program, in what way they'd have to change it, whether or not they could include students in the pipeline, whether or not those changes would apply to those students, etc.

"Concrete" speculations to questions that haven't even been asked (publicly) yet seems, well, speculative!

While I acknowledge the reservations of some board members to having teaching schools (like those accredited by DETC) offering degrees that should come from major research efforts, I don't think it's any more out of line than seeing UoP offering them. There are many RA schools with no significant institutional history of research offering DBA's and similar degrees. If DETC is up to accrediting such programs, I suspect they'll move right along.

 

Let me clarify for those who may be still working through the program in its current form... the scope of the work to produce a satisfactory product (comp) can take up to a year depending on the individual's time constraints. It should not be viewed as a sit-down, turn-around affair. Typically 6 separate philosophical and pragmatic issues (economics, finance, technology, management, etc. ) must be addressed at the appropriate level and depth. The doctoral committee through an advisor works with the student through design of the response, any iterations, and will work with the student through completion. I know this first-hand. The response is expected to offer new knowledge, insight, creativity. A regurgitation of theory and current literature will not suffice. Even though it is not a dissert and doesn't proclaim to be, it should not be taken lightly as the school is very critical of the response, both depth and magnitude. I've taken traditional comps at the RA Masters level. The CCU comp is nothing like that and shouldn't be viewed as such. I do think there is a need to be more conventional however. That's why I think that CCU may cut down the current comp requirement and add a separate dissert/project component in the future.

2007... The current DETC proposal calls for a school to be accredited for at least two years before they can be approved for doctoral programs. That puts 2007 as the earliest CCU would be able to qualify under optimal circumstances. This may also coincide with DETC's progress to gain full approval to recognize doctoral programs following a preliminary evaluation period which I think will occur over the next two years. Time will tell.