As others have said, this issue is popping up in our applicant pools. We had discussions of applicants who had online degrees (not necessarily UoP) and some on the committee argued for rejection on its face because of lack of trust of such degrees while others (myself) argued that you have to look more deeply into the particulars of that person's degree if the person looks otherwise well-qualified, as described below by Michael.
I have a relatively unique background in that my wife has a UoP Master's degree in Education. I watched her go through it and learned a lot about UoP that informed my perspective. First, some myth-busting: UoP is not an exclusively online institution, contrary to popular assumption. Nearly all my wife's credits were earned in classroom instruction in Salt Lake City. UoP has classroom buildings all over the country, basically leased office space fitted with classroom facilities. One term in which she was traveling for her employer (eBay) she was out of town and took 2 classes online (online classes were also more expensive than in-person classes, at least at that time). She told me some things that fit what we see in a lot of our undergraduate classes: Some very engaged students who really work the material and try hard (such as my wife) and others who were very willing to simply show up and get credits without much effort and occasionally even be a bit disruptive to the process. Disruptive because one of the main features of UoP courses are (or were at that time) peer learning/study groups. Slackers can be a real problem in any group work and it may be an even worse problem in UoP classes because of what I see as a 'one structure fits all' model such that all classes have the peer study group feature mandated. The students are often in cohorts that take classes together such that the persistence of some slackers can create ongoing issues for a cohort. So, what I learned is if you have a candidate from a for-profit university that gets to the point of the phone interview, you have legitimate basis for asking unique questions about their education, what they learned (rather than the assumptions we often make about what they learned) and about the characteristics of their dissertation work (maybe even ask for a copy of the dissertation). From that you will learn if they were the kind of student we generally expect our prospective faculty to have been. Paul On Oct 19, 2012, at 7:14 AM, Michael Britt wrote: > One of my listeners is currently getting her BA in psych from UoP and was > thinking of going on to getting a Master's and a Ph.D. from there. She's > worried about how these degrees from UoP will be looked upon by traditional > schools when she goes applying for jobs. I have to admit I might be more > than a bit curious as to exactly what classes she took and what field > experiences she had as part of the program (especially if it's a clinical > position obviously) and of course I'd look carefully at her dissertation to > see if it was good quality research. Other thoughts? How would you look > upon a candidate with a degree from UoP? > > Michael > > Michael A. Britt, Ph.D. > mich...@thepsychfiles.com > http://www.ThePsychFiles.com > Twitter: mbritt > > > > > > > --- > You are currently subscribed to tips as: pcbernha...@frostburg.edu. > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13441.4e79e96ebb5671bdb50111f18f263003&n=T&l=tips&o=21161 > or send a blank email to > leave-21161-13441.4e79e96ebb5671bdb50111f18f263...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=21173 or send a blank email to leave-21173-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
