DL doctorates in top universities

I was phone-interviewed by a national tier-1 university and have been selected to appear for in-person interview in March. I was wondering whether a graduate of a lower tier university has any chance of being hired by a top-tier university but when I searched Google, astoundingly I found out that there are several Nova Southeastern University graduates in top-tier universities, including the Ivy League. Many are also tenured at several regional tier-1 universities.
Prior to searching Google, I had thought that DL graduates are confined more often than not to community colleges and lower tier colleges. That appears not to be the case. Shown below are Nova graduates that are employed by top-tier national universities.

Ivy League and Tier1: Brown University
Geoffrey Tremont, Ph.D. (Clinical Assistant Professor)
http://bms.brown.edu/DPHB/pages/training/training_psychology/npfaculty.html

Tier1: University of Maryland (College Park)
Robert W. Cook, DBA Nova Southeastern University
http://www.umd.edu/catalog/0405/chapter9.pdf

Tier 1: Drexel University
Lee Leitner, PhD, (Assoc. Professor)
http://www.cis.drexel.edu/people/faculty.asp

Tier 1: Boston University
David Barnes, PhD Nova Southeastern University (Lecturer)
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:6rjbuhru3JgJ:csatmet.bu.edu/people_parttime_01_print.htm+%22Phd,+Nova+Southeastern%22&hl=en

Tier1: The George Washington University
Patricia Ulanet, PhD (Assistant Professor)
http://www.gwupsychiatry.org/faculty.html

Tier1: University of Massachusetts (Amherst)
Jeffrey A. Fernsten, DBA (Associate Professor)
http://www.umass.edu/grad_catalog/htra/

http://www.umass.edu/htm/department/faculty_pages/Jeff_Fernsten.html

Tier 1: University of Washington
D.B.A (Lecturer)
http://www.tacoma.washington.edu/pdc/schedule/marketing_cert.html

Tier 1: Howard University
William Brent, DBA (Professor) ----- Page 61
http:// www.howard.edu/facts/Facts2004.pdf

Pace University
Booker, Donald M, DBA
http://appserv.pace.edu/execute/undergrad_catalog_2004_2006/catalog.cfm?page=catalog_171.html

Florida Institute of Technology
John Patton, DBA (Associate Professor)
http://www.fit.edu/faculty/profiles/profile.html?value=175

 

Thanks for the informatiom, though beyond an MBA for me is not likely, I do find it very interesting to see how doctorates earned from NSU are being utilized. Just on a side note, my management principles instructor received her doctorate from NSU, I found her very knowledgeable and it was on my most memorable undergrad classes.

William

 

Dr. Okonkwo,

Your list is highly informative, and here are surely many Nova Southeastern graduates at higher education institutions. However, there are a few caveats that someone looking at your list would need to know:

1) Although Nova Southeastern is an established leader in distance learning, it is also a well-established brick and mortar university in Florida, which awards hundred of non-DL doctorates. So, one cannot assume that someone with a Ph.D., Ed.D. or D.B.A. from NSU, earned that degree via DL.

2) Several on your list are Clinical Assistant Professors or Lecturers, neither of which are tenure-track faculty (although the Associate Professors on your list would be).

3) The real evidence for the acceptance of DL degrees would be to see faculty with doctorates from completely DL programs (e.g. Capella, Walden, Northcentral, Touro, etc.) in tenure-track positions at major universities. I hope that we can see this soon.

Tony Pina
Administrator, Northeastern Illinois University

 

Hi Tony,

I am in concurrence but I also have a few comments to make. I agree that it can’t be supposed assuredly that DL doctorates are viewed the same as doctorates from traditional institutions until hiring of DL-doctorates becomes a common custom or occurrence in top-tier traditional universities. Like you stated, Nova is now a well-established B&M university and it has been around for a long time. Yes, it is also wrong to assume that all PhDs from Nova were earned nontraditionally. In fact, several Nova doctorate programs can’t be done at a distance. However, the Nova DBA program (with short residency) is for the most part a nontraditional program, so it’s not out of place to assume that these folks with DBA (in my list above) earned their doctorates nontraditionally.

 

Ike's and Tony's points are well taken here. There are some DL grads teaching at top universities - it is possible. But on the other hand exceptions don't make the rule.

Tony's right that coming from Nova, the person may have completed a traditional PhD program - such as in psychology or the medical fields - where Nova has no distance offerings. Also, there are cases I'm aware of where a person may have been hired with a masters degree a long time back and they went to Nova to earn a terminal degree. Don't assume that the credentials of the current faculty of an institution are indicative of the school's hiring practices for the future.

The point here is to keep some perspective. While it may be possible to gain a teaching position at a top school with a DL degree, don't bet on it. If you really want to teach in a top ranked university - earn a doctorate from another top ranked university. Indeed, if you were to sample 100 Nova DBA grads that are in teaching positions and compare them to 100 Harvard DBA grads that are teaching I'm highly confident you'll see a definite difference, on average, in the sort of schools the grads are teaching at.

This isn't to discourage anyone from aspiring to develop themselves. Before I completed my Nova DBA, the chance I'd be hired tenure track at an ACBSP school were nearly 0%. DL institutions can really open doors for students. However, folks need to be realistic about the probability of reaching the top.

Regards - Andy

 

The information is first-class and brilliant, on the other hand, what is a American tier – 1 institution of higher education?

 

The UMass professor on Ike's list has two degrees from the department he's teaching in. That probably had an influence on his hiring.

 

What is an "Auxiliary Associate Professor" - sorry for the ignorance, just have not heard of that title before.

Thanks,

 

The information is first-class and brilliant, on the other hand, what is a American tier – 1 institution of higher education?
---------------------------------------------------

Well American higher education is quite snobbish in many respects. This despite the fact that we are supposed to be an egalitarian meritocracy. A tier-1 institution is a university like Yale, Harvard, Darmouth, Penn State, Brown, Princeton, Stanford etc... These are schools with instant "name recognition" and associated prestige. They probably do more research than other schools. Now whether they provide a superior education than other schools is another matter entirely. I believe a degree is a degree is a degree . What you get out of an education is what you put into it. Frankly, I've met students from Harvard and Dartmouth who were in no way "superior" intellectually to anyone else. Remember that George W Bush went to a "tier-1" school : ) : ) : ) : ) I believe that small liberal arts colleges are probably the best B&M schools in the country and provide a better educational environment than the Ivy league or so-called "tier-1". In the area of psychology, my area, Harvard has (or had) a Ph.D. program in psychology that was not APA accredited. Harvard believed that, since it was Harvard, it schould not change nor seek APA approval. This limited the ability of graduates of the program from getting licensed. Shows you how arrogance and stupidity can often be found among the "wisest of the wise!"

 

Hmmm...oxymoron or redundancy?

A meritocracy would be equalizing, as were the works of Sam Colt, but not egalitarian.

 

The most common use of the term "Tier 1" for colleges and universities, comes from the U.S. News and World Report magazine's annual "America's Best Colleges" edition. It is a good faith effort to try and quantify several factors that measure the quality of an educational institution. U.S. News uses a four-tier system for doctoral granting institutions, masters granting institutions, liberal arts bachelors institutions and comprehensive bachelors institutions. The doctoral institutions are compared nationally, while the other three types are compared within their own geographic regions (west, midwest, north and south).

The U.S. News 4-tier ratings are helpful, but not without their limitations. The top three doctoral programs are always Harvard, Yale and Princeton (they take turns at the top). At the other levels, there is a certain amount of "tier hopping" by institutions (e.g. one that may be a 3rd tier one year becomes a 4th tier the next or vice versa). I saw one extreme where a change in the calculation formula or a change in the classification scheme took a school from Tier 1 to Tier 4 in one year. This kind of thing hurts the reliability of the U.S. News rankings.

Other problems include the fact that a big chunk (up to 25%) of a school's ranking is based upon the opinions of admissions officers and deans surveyed by U.S. News, rather than on more "objective" data. Another limitation is that entire schools, rather than individual academic programs, are the focus of the ratings. It might be that the "Tier 4" school that you are considering actually has one of the top programs in the country in your particular discipline and the "Tier 1" school does not. Another issue is that the U.S. News rankings may be irrelevant for someone who is searching for a masters or doctoral program, since the U.S. New survey only captures data about a school's undergraduate programs and students, not graduate program data.

There are many ways to rank schools. Another popular classification is by the Carnegie Foundation. Carnegie's system classifies schools by the number and types of degrees that they offer. Unlike U.S. News, Carnegie does not attempt to rank schools by "quality". An institution classified as " Doctoral/ Research University-Extensive" awards at least 50 doctorates per year in at least 15 different disciplines, while a "Doctoral/ Research University-Intensive" awards at least 20 doctorates per year. A doctoral granting institution that awards 9 doctorates per year would be classified as a "Masters College/University 1".

Several different publications, professional associations and other sources publish rankings on colleges and universities. They can be useful resources (along with those listed above) if one understands their strengths and (especially) their limitations.

Tony Pina
Administrator, Northeastern Illinois University.

 

I have seen this title used for faculty who have their full-time appointments in one discipline, but who teach courses in a different discipline (e.g. a faculty member of the psychology dept. faculty who teaches courses in counseling for the women's studies dept.)

Tony Pina
Administrator, Northeastern Illinois University

 

The tier-system, if it is a system, is not a construct of "snobbish" American higher education but of journalists who wish to perform a service for their readers by "ranking" American colleges and universities.

decimon is right. "Egalitarian meritocracy" is an oxymoron. A meritocracy means that people rise or fall (i.e., NOT remain equal) based on their merit, rather than based on birthright, social status, wealth, or some other criterion which has nothing to do with how well you do your job. It is why the goal in America is "equal opportunity" not "equal status."

The rest of chrislarsens post, IMHO, is equally uninformed.

marilynd

 

Sorry. I posted the previous message not knowing that Tony had posted his lengthy--and well written--description of the "tier-system" and other attempt to rank higher education institutions.

marilynd

 

Back to the original point of this thread, it is worth remembering that the Ph.D. is an entry-level degree in many ways, particularly if you are in a research area.

Once you begin to produce research, the amount and quality of your production matters much more than where you got your degree or whether it is B&M or DL.

marilynd

 

Not always. There was a little engineering school down in Pasadena that was ranked #1 a few years back.

 

I thought the original point of the thread is that RA degrees can earn you a spot in a tier 1 school. I think the discussion thus far is not outside of the topic.

I think everybody is attempting to analyze the links, and get on a common terminology.

Intersting to me that none of the links I went into (about half of them) were Business, all were physcology. Are any business programs - that may be the trend - professional accreditation may only be necessary in Business - not sure.

 

You're right. I do recall that Cal Tech did take the blue ribbon some years ago. For the past several, it has hovered at #4-5--a massive drop, to be sure. Someone must have noted a decline in the number of pocket protectors and lowered the school's raking

Tony

 

Actually most of the links point to business schools. The individuals are mostly DBA holders. Two of the links point to Psychology schools. Only one of the links points to Information Systems department.

Thanks.

 

I must be missing something - I went into three and all psychology, one techonology IS (not their business department), and one leadership (not business department).

Can you point me to which one is the busienss department, I did have a couple not work, so maybe those are it, but I can go look on their website.