U of PHX DBA or Henley DBA

Would they laugh? At some point, I considered NCU, when I asked this question to my chair of the university where I teach , he made a search on the internet and he told me that it looked like an OK school. However, I found later on that he was referring to "North Central University" and not "NortCentral University". In few words, NCU is not known and very few people would know that it is a DL virtual school. Check both schools:

http://www.northcentral.edu/

http://www.ncu.edu

 

Just google, try "DBA Henley", or "DBA Henley" professor. There are many people out there with DBAs from Henley teaching at good schools, but I couldn't find any from the US.

 

Michael,

for me it is a matter of convenience at this point, plus my concentration of classes is a good fit for my work. The ability to take one class at a time and mosey along towards a PhD is nice and certainly less stressful than what some of what you folks are undertaking. If academia were my profession I would attend a B&M school, since even from the best of schools a DL degree is tough to overcome. Han touched on the Indiana State program. Great program but isn't mainstream enough for broad utility.

As for getting laughed out the door, perhaps in some circles. A friend of mine is the Business Dean at an AACSB school and we have had a few discussions on all the issues raised in this forum. If you want a reality check I would recommend everyone sit down with one of these folks. Outside of this forum I don't know anyone who knows NCU. Keeping in mind that NCU is offering an EdD soon I would imagine that those graduates will determine the acceptance and reputation of NCU, not the business graduates since most understand the limitations of the school and the degree and will employ it in other venues. If the EdD graduates find acceptance then we will have a yardstick to measure the potential.

Lastly, I don't think you will start any trouble, your question deserves consideration.

Kevin

 

Exactly.

 

Some people are finding their way out to academia with PhDs from NCU. Here is a sample:

http://www.alaskapacific.edu/faculty_staff/faculty_bio.php?id=74
http://www.devry.edu/uscatalog/general_admin_fremont.html
http://www.apus.edu/APUS/Academics/Faculty.aspx?Grad=True

 

I put the search term in google and found SDSU, didn't look any further, but it seemed there were others.

http://coursecat.sdsu.edu/9697/Faculty/Full/388_Full-Time17.html

 

MRW 142 wrote
“A final possibility is just to take your Pepperdine MBA and start applying for academic positions at four year colleges and community colleges…”

Very good point MRW 142. I highly suggest you try teaching at the college level before you invest your time and funds in an advanced degree. I teach at five schools and based on my experience – students are much different than they were ten years ago. You may want to experience this difference first and teaching as an adjunct is probably the best way to do it.

 

Pepperdine does offer a Ed.D. in organizational management which is essentially a business degree (at least that is how my former Fortune 20 employer looks at it)and the last I heard had about a dozen managers enrolled in the program. If you live in So. Cal i believe they meet about one weekend every month or so in the Culver City center.

 

Hi Han,

You don't have to look further because the guy at San Jose State appears to be the only person that teaches with a Henley doctorate in the U.S. However, there about twelve others teaching with Henley doctorates (DBA) in other countries. I also did a Google search. The guy at San Jose State actually listed a PhD instead of a DBA. Nobody here doubts that Henley is better than many US DL schools that are discussed here regularly. The reality is that US doctorates appear to do better than some foreign doctorates in the American academe, including doctorates from many decent schools.

Thanks.

 

I don't think there's any doubt that you're right to at least some extent, as one cannot deny that schools such as Grenoble, Henley, Manchester and Aston--even though ranked higher worldwide than the great majority of U.S. schools offering biz doctorates--are virtually unknown in our jingoistic country--unless it's Oxford, Cambridge, University of London or INSEAD, it doesn't exist. This is appalling coming from scholars--we live in a global economy, how can they be so narrow?

But can it really be a result of a hiring committee with PhDs and DBAs and administrators saying or thinking:"Oh, so you ONLY got your doctrate from Henley?--We're going to hire the candidate with a PhD from Northeast Southwest Smalltime State U instead, because he got his doctorate in America." Can you imagine how disillusioned you would be if similarly treated over there? "So you ONLY got your PhD from UC Berkeley?--we're going to hire the candidate with the PhD from Liverpool Polytechnical School of Business and Small Equipment Repair instead." Sounds kind of silly.

 

We can conclude that based on the evidence, however, I feel that the real reason is that very few americans would bother to do a DBA at Henley when it is a lot more convenient to do one at NCU, Nova, etc. Henley requires residencies in the UK that are hard to meet by the regular person in the US. Second, the DBA program in the UK is not really for academics but for business practicioners, there are DBAs working in academia but the primary goal of the DBA was to train practicioners and not scholars. Lastly, the program is very selective, meaning that only a handfull of people would be accepted and graduate every year compared with the tons of graduates from NCU, Nova, Capella, etc. I once looked at this program, at the admission requirements are not easy to meet and it looks that only few will be taken every year, so less graduates means less the chances that some would end teaching in the US.

 

This may (and I think is) true for industry, but is not the case in academia. It is not an AACSB degree, unless the dpeartment holds the accreditation, so if you want to teach (and the original posting wanted to), I would be hesistant to not enroll in an AACSB program.

 

True, but convenient is not always better. Apples to Apples need to be compared, and I would not consider the two in the same category.

Very good point.

 

Why doesn't some decent--it doesn't have to be Harvard--U.S. University like the University of Florida or Nebraska or Arkansas-Little Rock or Clemson or some other program with an AACSB-accredited distance MBA take the next step and offer a distance DBA or PhD and end all such discussions? They have the faculty in place; they have the doctorate programs already established.

From what I hear--and feel myself--the demand is there in spades for this particular degree by distance. The technology is there, the degree would lend itself reasonably well to the format, and there is this supposed Business Doctorate shortage brewing which will allegedly only get worse in the coming decade.

This is truly a matter of supply and demand, and I'm wondering when the professors who teach these supply and demand concepts to our future business leaders will rouse from their sleep and notice the elephant trodding about their room and do a bit of rent-seeking in this market themselves? It's almost laughable. Then again, perhaps they're crazy like a fox, maybe they want an ongoing shortage of qualified AACSB PhDs--sure is good for the average wages for business profs and doesn't exactly hurt the job security, either--but then again, I'm just a cynical attorney trying to break through the glass ceiling into academia

 

I don't disagree with your conclusion. You might be right. Like I suggested in my post, Henley is definitely more reputable that most US DL schools. Apart from stringent admission requirements, some other issues that could dissuade Americans from pursuing Henley (and foreign schools) doctorates might be related to tuition re-imbursement, student loans, etc.

 

This is a good point, but I think things are changing. I know that there is someone in the Grenoble program that helps the US students get financial aid (US), though the school is in France. I don't know all the details, but I thought an interesting development.

 

Mrw142 - I suspect there are other factor in play here. Whereas U.S. DL schools take lots of students (Nova has some 500) and use lots of adjuncts, most traditional schools have small programs that are very selective and are quite labor intensive with full-time faculty. Among other things, traditional programs typically involve high quality research - the kind that DL programs don't or can't do.

Want proof on this? Browse a top journal (Journal of Finance, MIS quarterly, etc.). See how many DL grads publish there. Answer: 0.

Traditional programs aren't sleeping - they don't accept the DL formula as a valid way to produce scholars and teachers. Most traditional programs, for example, are looking for students in the top 15% on the GMAT. Most DL programs don't require the GMAT and if they did, would take most anyone with dollars. Further, traditional programs require students to serve as graduate slaves for their faculty. Part-time and distance students need not apply. One good friend of my talked with the folks at the University of Nebraska about attending part-time. Their answer - if you sign up and start trying to attend part-time we'll through you out.

As for supply and demand - realize that PhD students in traditional programs aren't very attractive economically. Departments may need some grad students for research or teaching assistants, but they can't accomodate hundreds of grad students. The only way part-time programs make the economics work is by doing things that traditional programs won't do - failing to meet AACSB standards, using adjuncts and not maintaining close faculty / student interaction.

I don't blame the traditional schools for their perspective. While I see a place for U.S. DL programs, their place isn't the same place as traditional schools. Want to be a big name faculty member at a top school? Plan on paying your dues - 5 years of full-time study at another top school. Are you a mid-career person looking for a possible career change? DL may work for you. But don't confuse the two - a 3-4 year part-time DBA/PhD program isn't going to prepare you a life of research and teaching like a traditional 5 year, full time program. The degree may be the same, but the experience is quite different.

Regards - Andy

 

A question to the forum - does anyone know the success rate of students who enroll in Henley (or comparable British schools)?

I'm intrigued with the idea that U.S. students could pursue a high quality DBA at a British or Australian school. The things I wonder about is the likelyhood of success. With respect to American schools, in my experience the probability of success is fairly high - if you're willing to "stick it out". Relatively few students are told to leave. But what's the deal in the Brit/Aussie schools?

Regards - Andy

 

Andy,

I totally agree with you. The mentality of some of this board is to find the cheapest and fastest DL DBA/PhD and still be able to land a full time position in a top University. The point is that you cannot have it all. However, even a full time PhD from a good University does not guarantee anything, I have seen many PhDs from good Universities working as adjuncts and community colleges since they are not able to land a tenure job in a University. I wouldn't mind to do a five year program if that would give me a good position but the fact is that there is no guarantee in life. I would rather do a part time DBA by DL that I know has its limitations than to put my self in debt with the bank and end with a Doctorate that might give me exactly the same job. Five years of your life is a lot to give and my experience is that it won't guarantee anything.

On the other hand, I have received one offer for a full time tenure track position in Mexico with my DBA done by DL. So I think that DL DBAs from decent schools can be an asset for some places where the market is not as saturated as in the US or Canada.

 

Re: Re: U of PHX DBA or Henley DBA

I can't tell for the rest of the Aussie schools, but the sucess rate is about 10% for the University of Southern Queensland. At least this is what we were told on an email sent by the dean. The school is trying to change things by adding mandatory residencies. The idea of these residencies is to guide students and to filter out the not so serious students.