Nova Southeastern University

I am 1/4 of the way through the Nova Ed.D. program in Instructional Technology and Distance Ed. I have been extremely impressed with the quality ofboth the program content and the faculty that administer it. I just returned from a Summer Institute at which Dr. Otto Peters delivered the keynote. If you are familier with classic and seminal theories re the foundations of DE, you know Dr. Peters.
I have nothing but good things to say...I'd be happy to share.

Tom

 

1.) Obviously not respected by Lewchuk but I wouldn't take his word on it. Check out the school for yourself. You will find that NSU grads do very well for themselves. Very nice campus, well respected in Florida, a large selection of programs that are fully on-campus, some online, and others a combination of the highly successful NSU short-residency education model. A brief overview of NSU's success can be found at: http://www.nova.edu/cwis/about-nsu/index.html

2.) An incorrect statement. Nova is a NON-profit university. http://www.nova.edu/cwis/urp/description.html

3.) I think this is the posters' typical bias against Nova's short residency doctoral programs. It obviously doesn't take into account the broad view of NSU, its programs, and its successes. Obviously, Nova graduates at all levels do quite well and compete well in the market place.


John
NSU '94

 

Lewchuk has contempt for Nova because it's a school in the United States. His bias against US schools would be humorous if it wasn't so pathetic.

Bruce

 

No contempt but potential Nova grads should realize that the school is generally not highly respected (even several Nova grads testified to this) and, of course, it is quite expensive. So you have an expensive degree that is not highly respected... not a great formula in my opinion which is why I would suggest anyone consider other alternatives. In some cases you may find there are no better alternatives, in which case you would obviously choose Nova (it is RA and many graduates have successfully leveraged their degrees). However, you may find that there are better opportunities available.

 

I apologize, I did know this but was thinking "non-state".

2.) An incorrect statement. Nova is a NON-profit university. http://www.nova.edu/cwis/urp/description.html

 

Obviously not respected by the number of individuals who contributed to the US News.

 

Hmmmm so are you suggest that the US News somehow has bias against US schools?

 

Non-state? What about that? Nova is not an Ivy League school, but you should also bear in mind that all the Ivy League schools, as well as most topnotch universities in the U.S, are private universities (non-state) too.

Ike

 

Considering that US News uses school-supplied information to generate its guide, I don't place much faith in their school rankings. They also don't take into account the local reputations of the school. For example, a school in Boston, Suffolk University (where David Yamada is a law professor), doesn't get a very good US News rating. However, it's very highly regarded in the Boston area.

Bruce

 

Of course, "NSI" should be "NSU."

John

 

Not bad for an institution that U.S. News and World Report ranks in the fourth tier (unfairly IMO).

Mark

 

With apologies to anyone who has read my comments about U.S. News on this board, I'll reiterate that the very criteria upon which the U.S. News rankings rely should be enough to show why many programs (DL or not) that cater heavily to non-traditional, adult populations do not fare well in the rankings.

The reputational factors, for example, are drawn from surveys of academics concentrated in more traditional institutions. They are much more likely to rank a Princeton or a UCLA or an Indiana University highly over a Nova Southeastern. Factors such as median test scores (SAT, GRE, GMAT, etc.) and high school/college GPAs of entering classes also weigh very heavily in the U.S. News equation. If you break down the criteria used by U.S. News and the relative weight placed on each one, it becomes quite easy to see why many DL schools suffer under this ranking system.

It doesn't mean that U.S. News is complete garbage. If someone told me that she was dead serious about working for a Wall Street law or brokerage firm and was considering which schools to apply to, I'd suggest that she study the U.S. News rankings very closely. But for most of the rest of world, our wants and even dreams do not require those particular markers of success, and consequently the meaning of those rankings should diminish somewhat.

One of the sad manifestations of the U.S. News rankings is that they contribute to a culture that holds up certain schools and certain destinations as "fast track" ideals, tacitly suggesting that people who do not make that first tier cut somehow have lost out or are less worthy and able. If you want to read some really disgusting comments, check out the Princeton Review discussion boards for law and business school applicants and see how some of these obnoxious little weasels define success and regard humanity. You'll see the high-achiever culture in all of its glory there.

Sorry for the rant, but I become concerned whenever I sense that people are becoming too "rankings conscious" in evaluating non-traditional institutions.

 

I'll go you one further: I think they're irrelavent. DL programs target working professionals looking to advance in their careers. This isn't exclusively true, but that's the main idea. And what any consumer considering a DL program should ask his/herself is, "Will the costs of this program--time, money, hard work, loss of leisure, etc.--be worth the expected gains after I graduate?" Sure, I'd rather graduate with a Ph.D. from the University of Texas over, say The Union Institute. But I cannot take the 3 or 4 years of full-time study to do it (assuming I could even get in). Even if UT is ranked higher in some poll, it doesn't matter. We might as well be talking about the Sorbonne. Mid-career professionals looking to do their degrees part-time have to set their sights on the available and the acheivable. Besides, for most of us a degree is a square-filler; it can't get you a job, but it can keep you out of one. An acceptable degree in an acceptable discipline, coupled with a track record of success, is what gets you the job.

I live in Norther Virginia. If I was setting out today to earn a doctorate in Education, my part-time choices in the local area would be few. I might be able to complete one with George Mason University; possibly with VA Tech (Go Hokies!) There may be one or two opportunities to do so in Washington, D.C., if I could stand the commute into the city for night school. But I suspect none of these would really be very much available without considerable flexibility on the part of my employer and my family. No, if I was just starting out to look for a doctorate, my short list would be the same one we always see: Union, Capella, Walden, and, of course, Nova Southeastern. And all the rankings in the world don't change any of that.

Rich Douglas

 

As long as you get accepted into Union, Nova, Capella or Walden etc., are you pretty certain of getting the degree? The University of Texas is not only hard to get into at the doctoral level, there is no guarantee that you'll successfully complete the degree. What about DL schools? I've never heard of anyone flunking out of Nova.

 

People do all the time. In fact, if memory serves (and sometimes it doesn't), one of the reasons Nova isn't considered more prestigious than it is is due to a high attrition rate.


Cheers,

------------------
Tom Head
www.tomhead.net

 

And how would you? This is not the kind of thing one takes public. However, Nova had quite a reputation in the DL community during the 1980's as an ABD producer. They were tough on their doctoral candidates. I met quite a few former Nova ABDs while I was a Union learner back then.

Rich Douglas

 

Perhaps the reason for the lower completion rate back then was that Nova tended to admit some very weak candidates into its doctoral programs.

 

Rbourg - My experience is that there was significant drop out rate in NSU programs, but that it was of a different nature than traditional schools. Where traditional programs "flunk" students (often in comprehensive exams or by faculty not accepting their dissertation work), NSU students are more likely to drop out of their own accord. Given the pressures of family and work, a fair number simply stop registering for classes. There were some students who NSU kicked out - typically for low grades, cheating or doing poorly on comprehensives. But more often than not they gave up.

The program director of the DBA program told me that he saw a fairly high correlation between GMAT scores and success in the dissertation phase. Folks with lower GMATs might make it through the course work - but then stumble when it came to doing an original piece of research.

Thanks - Andy