Making use of the NCU Ph.D. degree

Huh?

TUI and Nova are both RA and International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education (IACBE) accredited. Neither is accredited by Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).

NCU is RA and a candidate for Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP).

 

Sorry I stand corrected. IACBE Is right. I hope NCU gets the better ACBSP.

 

Jim, where do you teach? In another thread, you said you were a masters instructor at a local college.

 

I can't speak for #1.

Since you are looking at RA schools (TUI, Walden, NCU, Nova), there are only two fully DL doctorate programs in business: TUI and NCU. The others require residencies.

Also, I believe what Jim wrote above is very accurate. "Don't plan on "moving in academia" with an NCU degree - a few will succeed, but most will not." Will a doctorate from one of these schools help, probably, but don't count on it. The one thing you are overlooking is publishing. Having a doctorate is not the be-all end-all of landing a FT teaching job. You will need to establish a strong record of research and publishing if you want to be taken seriously.

 

I just hope they get it before I graduate.

 

NCU, Touro and others are not worth the time if you want to teach full time at a major university. Getting a good job in academia is still hard for those with traditional doctorates, so imagine what it would be for those coming in with a 100% online degree without any residencies completed and without publications.

Another poster mentioned AACSB schools. Look into those first.

 

I have no experience with it, I just know that there are a lot of professors at teaching colleges with "just" masters degrees. There are also a growing number with masters plus a for-profit doctorate, be it DETC or RA. I'm just saying that any doctorate at all at many of these schools would only bolster your resume.


But I've never seen anyone teaching at a non-profit university who does not have at least one non-profit RA graduate degree on their CV. I don't know if such an animal exists.

To more specifically address your question, at a small teaching college, I'm not really certain they'd know the difference between a DETC and an RA non-profit doctorate. They probably haven't heard of NCU any more than they've heard of CCU or CSU. About the only school for DL doctorates that's mentioned on this forum regularly that I think rises above the rest in terms of name recognition is Nova. I know for a fact that with a doctorate from there, you can go as high as you want with a Nova doctorate at a small teaching college, as our college president, recently hired, got his doctorate and masters from Nova.

 

Most US DL schools are very new with little reputation in academia. Most of them would be very hard to sell as they are not known as "strong" schools.

Although the US is relatively new in the DL business, the UK and Australia have been offered "external" degrees for ages. You will find many good opportunities at top UK and Australian schools that would be easier to sell the academia.

I believe that a degree from Glasgow, Henley or Melbourne would be a lot easier to sell that any of the US DL schools.

When hunting them, don't look for "online" or "DL but "external" degrees. PhDs in the UK and Australia are normally research based only and "external" means that research is conducted "off-campus".

 

Try their frequently asked questions:
www.huizenga.nova.edu/doctoral/DoctoralFAQLocator.cfm

 

This is also another issue with "for-profit" schools. They graduate too many PhDs or DBAs as this is their main business.

A traditional University normally graduates a handfull of PhDs because they want to keep the degree as "prestigious" and want to give the graduates a good chance for employment in the local market.

We can imagine what will be the feelings of a hiring committe that get 10 out 100 resumes from NCU, Touro or any other pure DL schools graduates.

 

As this is the problem with DL schools, are there any publishing requirements at NCU? If so, what journals?

You might think that this is the responsability of the students. However, can you imagine a father with a full time job taking the time to publish?

If one already has a PhD from NCU as is looking for a big time gig at a top schools. I believe is possible if this student takes a couple of years off to complete a post doc at a good school that can give him the time to complete good publications. However, this means two years of on-campus work when the idea was to avoid this on the first place.

At the end, is like trying to get a job in an industry without any experience in that industry. If one wants to work in academia, you need to have experience as an "academic" before trying to be one.

 

DBA vs PhD has been discussed before. Some schools offer only one type of degree while some others offer the two options.

In general, Universities accept one or another but more than the degree designation, it is the reputation of the school and accreditation that counts.

A DBA from an AACSB accredited school would be more easier to sell than a PhD without this accreditation. A DBA from Harvard would be a lot easier to use than one from a DL school.

In the case of having both options, I would go for the PhD. It is better to have a PhD from NCU than a DBA as the PhD is normally perceived as more prestigious.

I personally went for a DBA but in my case the University only offered a DBA for MBA graduates as the PhD was reserved for M.Phil graduates. So if I wanted a PhD that would require another year of work that in my opinion was not worth the time.

In some countries as the UK and Australia, the PhD is the normal route for faculty positions and the DBA for professional jobs. In the US and Canada, DBAs are acceptable for faculty positions at most of the business schools.

 

As I can only assume you want to teach business, here's what I've seen, for what it's worth:

Try to get employment with an MBA or 18 hrs MBA credit, and be sure to look into the local colleges and on-ground teaching opportunities

You could stay with what you have, as an MBA from TAMU is probably enough to get you in the door of some small teaching colleges, certainly a CC somewhere. But first, before I shot for FT (assuming that's your goal) I'd look into adjunct teaching opportunities at local colleges. Surely there must be some colleges within driving distance that hire adjuncts. If you want to teach at a teaching college, the best thing to do is get experience teaching on ground. Of course, continue to pursue online teaching opportunities, as they will be helpful, but I really don't think you'll stand any chance at securing a FT position (if that's you ultimate goal) with just online experience.

Don't limit yourself to for-profits

As for online colleges that don't require 2 yrs experience, I'd broaden my horizons beyond the well-known for-profits. There are a lot of small colleges out there with online teaching opportunities. So long as you have 18 grad credit hours of business, you'll qualify to teach for a lot of them (but some of them will require 18 hrs in a specific area, such as accounting or marketing). Do not expect people to throw jobs at you--it just won't happen, but if you start contacting department heads and the heads of continuing ed or distance programs at B&M 4 yr colleges and CCs, sooner-or-later, something will click. But your best opportunity would be to take the local business program dept head of a small college out for coffee, and ask about in-person and online opportunities. Throw your net out wide enough, you may have to drive a ways to teach classes, they may have extension sites that are tough to fill with instructors, take what you can get (I'll be teaching classes within a 45 mile radius next semester). Some schools have opportunities for one who's willing to teach one night a week. I picked up class through a small university just with a phone call when they were having trouble filling a once-a-week 6 week class at one of their extension locations. It was easy money and fun.

How about foreign business doctorates?

Cheap option: South Africa
For education, look into foreign schools. If money's an issue, how about South Africa? I know of at least one dept head at a very nice little teaching college who got his PhD from a South African institution: F.R. Bosch. (note: I've posted on this guy here before, questioning his credentials, but as I subsequently discovered his PhD from an SA school was legit, I backed off) You could get a cheap doctorate in Business through UNISA if you're willing to do the work and have the acumen. As UNISA is a good school, they won't be handing out doctorates like Dixie Randock. But if you're serious about this, it's a legitimate program and very inexpensive due to highly favorable exchange rates. I'd take it hands down over any U.S. for-profit. UNISA's MBA, for example, is ranked 3rd in South Africa out of 14 programs; Pretoria, another school that offers a DL business doctorate, is ranked 5th--very respectable. Where else are you going to get a doctorate for about $2K or $3K a year?

More expensive--but AACSB--option: England
If you have the financial wherewithal, there are very prestigious DBA programs in England: Henley MC, Aston, and Manchester. These are great schools, comparable to US top-50 business school programs, and they are all AACSB accredited. But they are expensive: $40K and up for the whole program. They are also rather competitive to get into, even for DL.

What about another degree, like an EdD?

Outside of that, you could also look into some of the graduate education or educational leadership programs in the U.S. Unline business, there are some legit B&M Ed programs that offer doctorates at a distance in the U.S. There are no shortage of business professors in the U.S. who have an MBA coupled with a doctorate in Education (usually an EdD, though there are a handful of PhD programs out there). This includes the prestigious universities, and particularly the smaller colleges. You could likely emphasize business administration in your elective coursework and dissertation, this would be a very legit way to go if you're confined to DL, and would kill for-profit business PhD degrees for marketability in academia. Why? Because it's a ho-hum common and accepted path to business academia: MBA, EdD. I can't even begin to tell you how many business profs take this route, there are hundreds, probably thousands in tenured and tenure-track positions in the U.S. right now. The beauty of it is, you can find some good to super schools with online/DL educational doctorate programs: Purdue, Nebraska, Oral Roberts. Clemson also offers A PhD in Ed Leadership at a distance, but I can't confirm if this program is only state-wide at a distance or truly online. But you could check.

There are other possibilities for DL doctorates that are related to your field: Regent offers a doctorate via DL in organizational leadership, and Indiana State offers a PhD via DL in Technology Management, that can be structured to emphasize business, production, etc.

Realize, many of these programs require residencies, but you want that. You want to be able to tell a hiring committee that you doctorate was really not all that different from most of theirs, in that you were resident for a time (even if only a week or two a year), and were working on it remotely while teaching other classes. Most of them can relate to that scenerio.

Best to you!

 

Two notes: When I checked their site, I could not find info on the Pretoria business doctorate, though I did confirm all of the others I mentioned.

Second, let me reiterate: the most important thing you can do, Gwindel, is get on-ground teaching experience. Your A&M MBA, as fine as it is for an online degree, is probably not enough, by itself, to secure a tenure track position even in small college business academia. There are too many of us out there with teaching experience and similar degrees (I'm finishing up 3 yrs PT B&M teaching experience, and will--God willing--finish a UMass MBA by this time next year).

You need the ground-level experience to be competitive even at small schools, even if only teaching a couple night classes. I'd worry about that 10 times more than I'd worry about securing a teaching position online for UoP. They pay diddly squat, and I just don't think the experience would enhance your CV. You've done the wise thing by going well-known B&M for the MBA, but if I were you, I'd frankly--no offense intended--not want any more for-profits on my CV than you already have. UoP for undergrad is enough. A TAMU-Commerce MBA will help hiring committees forget that "stain" (and don't kid yourself, it is a stain for the academies, they'll view it that way), but teaching experience back in for-profit land will only bring it back up in their faces.

Go bug them at the local CC or small college about traditional adjunct night class or extension site adult ed positions and such, trust me on this.

 

Fauss,

Thanks for all the feedback. I apreciate it. The problem is where I live. I live in Orange County CA. When I went to CC out here MOST of my Professors where all Professors at USC, UCLA etc. They also taught at the CC becuase it was closer to their big huge Newport Beach Homes. So my point is that I can call my local CC all i want but I do not think that I will have the same luck as if I was in a small town or a different state per say. But I will look around. Keep the adive comming I am always open to ideas and thank you for your feedback. I am a business owner and like doing what I do so my ultimate goal for now is not to teach full time somewhere but would really like to get into online teaching for the extra money and obviously the convienience of being able to do it after work and from home etc.

 

Re: Re: Making use of the NCU Ph.D. degree

RFValve,

You seem to be very knowledgeable about this topic, but I think that the high number of doctorates from small private or "for-profit" schools is not really an issue because research I academia won’t hire many of them. The real problem is that there a lot of traditional large universities producing too many doctorates and this has been going on before the explosion of the "for-profits" in the late '90s.

http://chronicle.com/data/articles.dir/art-41.dir/issue-42.dir/42a01602.htm

Another article from 2001 shows some large traditional universities graduating up to 78 PhDs in education alone! No wonder some people consider education schools cash cows. I know that this is not always the case but it makes you wonder.

http://chronicle.com/free/v47/i49/49a01901.htm

Incidentally, where there is a surplus of PhDs in some disciplines, there seems to be a shortage in others.

http://chronicle.com/free/v50/i44/44a01001.htm

 

Sorry, I misunderstood your meaning, I thought you were shooting for FT academia when you talked about opening the doors to the ivory towers and whatnot. Now I understand.

So then, if you're not worried about FT teaching, it's not as great an issue. I'd still steer clear of the for-profits for online when there are so many small non-profit colleges that don't require that 2 yr thingie and have online programs. They typically pay more than UoP.

I'd look in a few websites: www.cccu.org, for online academic positions at Christian schools (if that fits with your belief system), I'd look into the Chronicle of Higher Ed careers section www.chronicle.com, which has job postings, and www.higheredjobs.com. There are probably more out there, maybe some of the others here can direct you. All of these sites have search tools that enable you to search with key words like "online" and "adjunct" to refine the search. Once you hit 18 cr hr, I'd think you'd have a fair shot at teaching a course in entrep, as you certainly have the experience.

 

I am Christian so I will look at that site. Thank you very much for the links and I will look into it. I want to teach and publish articles but dont think that Full time teaching is for me. Unless its high school with a coaching psition attached to it but I dont think the wife will like that to much time away from home.

I will look into these thanks again Fauss and if you find anything else please do pass it along.

Take Care,

Joe

 

corrected link: www.cccu.org

Click "career center", hit the "faculty" button, enter search terms, and you're ready to go.

I'll keep looking, I think there were one or two other sites I've used before. I'll post 'em when I find 'em.

BTW: you're quite welcome, glad to help. Now we get to compete against each other for those spots! Hopefully this time next year I'll be gearing up to move to the fine institution of higher learning that's just hired me--please, God, oh please help me here!--so I'll have taken myself out of the pool of those gunning for online adjunct teaching. So you can take my spot.

P.S. - You leaning one way or the other now on doctorate? Just curious.

 

If I teach it will be because I want to do it out of passion for what I do. I love running my business and being an entrepreneur. So I do want to teach but it is not for the reason of being a full time faculty at some big university. I actually want to teach the online settingbecause you will get more carrer level adults that I will be able to share more of my expereince with in practical business sense rather then just text book work. That was one major plus about UOP. There was actually more practical work, assignments, chats, team work, interactive simulations etc. Now I am not saying UOP is all that I have had my own share of problems as well but I learned a great deal from many of my facilatators who where full time people in the field of things such as marketing and pr, business owners etc. So to answer your question now hehe I still do want to get a Ph.D but this is more so to for my own goals, growth, and still to possibly have open doors to other things such as full time teaching if things change over the years and as I get older being only 25 now. I like the challange and learning as well. Also, making contacts in acadameia is not so bad either espescially for my business being an online tutoring site for kids - college level. If you find those sites please do share I have booked marked them all and will keep looking at them as much as I can until I find someone who will need me.

Thanks,

Joe