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College Groups Ask Education Dept. to Rescind Credit-Hour Rule

February 22, 2011, 5:55 pm

College lobbyists are asking the U.S. Education Department to rescind a rule that creates a federal definition of a credit hour. In a letter sent to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan last week, the American Council on Education and 70 other college associations and accrediting organizations argue that the rule will allow the federal government “to micro-manage campus academic programs,” and will ”homogenize academic programs,” and “sharply limit curricular innovations.” The groups also complain that the rule, which was finalized in late October, is “ambiguous” and will “impose enormous burdens” on institutions and accreditors.

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  • kerrykind

    Even more dangerous is the requirement that the states must begin to generate substantive oversight to institutions, which belies a lack of confidence in the current systems of accreditation (peer review). I suspect that the DOE will not roll back these mandates unless they are forced to by act of congress. The college associations, etc. would be wise to give primary energy to informing their congresspeople of the ramifications of this.

  • haohtt

    The U.S. Dept. of Education is ill-equipped to micro-manage the thousands of higher ed institutions in the country. Secretary Duncan is on a mission to increasing the size, scope and power of the USDOE bureaucracy; however, there is precious little to indicate that our students in both K-12 and higher education (and the rest of the country) are receiving much value from the existing $46 billion in (our) taxpayer funds going to the USDOE.

  • cerebellum

    Would love a link to the “federal definition of a credit hour.”

  • cdwickstrom

    Didn’t we beat this subject pretty well to death back in October when the regulations were first issued? Couldn’t be that “someone” wants a friendly, newly elected, member of the new Congress to tuck a little amendment into a piece of pending legislation nullifying the regs, could it?

  • Guest
  • kerrykind

    Works for me.

  • Guest

    Here is what American Council on Education said about the new federal controls on the definition of the credit hour on 02/16/2011. I agree.

    “The concern is not that accreditors are expected to examine institutional policies with respect to credit hours. They have and will continue to do so. Rather, the issue is that with little evidence of a problem and no evidence that Congress wants the federal government to intervene in this area, the department intends to use accreditors to extend federal authority over academic decision-making on local campuses.”

    The entire letter can be read here: http://www.intered.com/storage/deptofed/ACE_LettertoDuncan.pdf

  • Guest

    While it certainly could have been that kind of thing, its not the case here. read the entire ACE letter and it will be more clear: http://www.intered.com/storage/deptofed/ACE_LettertoDuncan.pdf

  • willismg

    Especially since conservative folks (now in power) are clamoring for getting the DOE out of the local public school districts.

  • fizmath

    The law is based on what is most reasonable and the culture. No one outside of the IP legal community and the RIAA believes in these ridiculous penalties for sharing binary digits, electronic blips over the internet.

  • sand6432

    So, I wonder what some of these commenters believe an appropriate penalty to be? A slap on the wrist? Tenenbaum knew exactly what he was doing and was taking a calculated risk that he would get away with it. He didn’t. Now he has to face the piper. Copyright law as it already exists provides wide latitude for “transformative use” of copyrighted materials, as the EFF and other amici on Tenenbaum’s side well know. Tenenbaum’s use was not transformative in the least; he just wanted something for nothing for his own entertainment. There was no larger purpose involved here that would serve the “progress of science and the useful arts.” Pure selfishness should not be reqarded with a minimal fine. The lesson needs to be learned.—Sandy Thatcher

  • gail3021

    Something just doesn’t add up here.  I don’t know of ANY faculty members who wouldn’t be delighted that their students got a full-time, tenure track job, even at a community college in this job market.  I believe it’s possible, but…

    Is it possible that your friend’s advisors are worried that she’s not nearly close enough to finishing  a defensible dissertation by the year’s end if she continues to work at the community college?   And that this is why they don’t want her to continue teaching there, this year?

    I am very proud of my graduate student who got a full time job at a community college, and who made a very good career there!  

    But I’ve also seen many dissertators who continue to carry heavy teaching loads while their funding runs out  and they turn in problematic (or no) chapter drafts, one funding year after another. 

    I can well imagine that if the department has limited numbers of funding packages, they would be more likely to give this scarce resource to the students they believe will actually finish by the end of the year.  If your friend’s dissertation does not seem nearly finished, and her advisors are insisting she stop teaching until she defends, this may well be a consideration.

    (Admittedly profs care about the prestige of their students’ placement—but we care much more about them actually finishing dissertations that are worth the Ph.D. degree).

  • robjenkins

    Hi, Gail. I appreciate your contribution to the discussion, but I don’t believe any of the scenarios you mention apply here. I don’t think this student is in any danger of not finishing. And I don’t think this department has issues with limited funding. I think they’re just trying to intimidate her into conforming to their idea of what a professor should be.

    I wonder how many graduate advisors realize that, in the community college world, it’s not at all uncommon for a tenure-track faculty member with a master’s degree to start and finish a Ph.D. program while continuing to work full-time throughout the entire four or five years. I know several people who have done it. That kind of puts into perspective this one student who just wants to teach two or three classes while she finishes her dissertation.

    Rob

  • gail3021

    Alas, *ALL* departments have issues with limited funding. At least, all humanities and social science departments.  I’ve been a director of graduate studies at a very well-funded  humanities Ph.D program, and even during the flush years of the 1990s, we had major issues with limited funding. It’s much worse now, even if it doesn’t appear so from the grad student’s point of view.

    It’s fine–excellent!— for students to start and finish a dissertation while teaching community college, if they take no longer than anybody else to do so, and if the dissertation is of the same high quality that the dept. looks for with everybody else . Who could object?   (or who could object, legitimately?) But a student who could write research and write high quality (i.e. eventually publishable) humanities or social science dissertation while working full time and finish in a total of 4-5 years would surely have to be very gifted and very well organized. Hopefully, she will have already convinced her advisors, with the excellent work she’s already turned in.

    If, indeed, the faculty working with the student are convinced that she will turn in a defensible dissertation by the semester’s end, even if she teaches 3-4 classes during her final two semesters then they are surely wrong to try to pull her funding.

    But are you certain that her chapter drafts have already been accepted as adequate, and that she’s nearly finished writing? 

     I’ve seen graduate advisors tearing their hair out, trying to convince dissertationg students who are not producing that they are in danger of losing their funding, unless they write more, better, or faster.   Students–always excellent students in the past–tend not to be convinced they’re in danger, until it’s much too late.

    One additional consideration: at many institutions, graduate directors are now threatened with reduced funding if their students don’t get their degrees within 5-6 years from beginning to end, total.  If students take longer–or worse, don’t finish at all– we get fewer grad packages from the grad school. This, too, may be a consideration

    My only point, here, is that what looks like one kind of pressure from the student’s point of view might not take all the considerations into account, from the faculty’s.

    But I agree that it’s really stupid to see community college teaching as less prestigious or valuable than R1 teching.

  • rebek56

    I hear of these people who teach full-time for multiple colleges. I doubt that very many of them have as their primary job teaching five sections of writing-intensive courses.

  • kjac5334

    While this is unfortunate for doctoral students, it has not impacted the ability of community colleges to recruit excellent faculty. At Florida community colleges, we regularly get more than one hundred qualified applicants for full-time faculty positions. The successful candidates usually have multiple years as adjunct instructors  at a community college. Typically community colleges are not impressed by a candidate’s research credentials. They are more concerned with their ability and experience in teaching. Adjunct teaching, therefore, is the training ground for community college faculty.

  • pterodactyl123

    I agree with several others that the student’s problems with her department are probably due to the fact that she’s not supposed to work at all, rather than due to the fact that she’s working at a community college. Research fellowships are usually very limited in terms of time frame, and quite specific in terms of the work that a recipient can/cannot do while receiving university funding. If this student has been adjuncting off-campus since she joined the department, that could be a problem for her no matter where she teaches. 

    Moreover, you mention in one of your comments to Gail that this student “just wants to teach two or three classes while she finishes her dissertation.” Are you kidding!? Two or three classes at a community college during the final year of writing a dissertation? She is never going to pull that off, and her department knows it even if she does not. By the way, my own R-1 advisor was thrilled when I landed a tenure-track job at a well-paying CC. He took me out to lunch and gave me the same royal treatment that he gives to all of his other advisees who get jobs. And he is still helpful and supportive years later, now that he probably realizes this is not a “stepping stone” for me.

  • rebek56

    While my dissertation took longer than it should have, I completed it while teaching five classes per term as a full-time community college faculty member. (And my wonderful dissertation director hosted a party for the entire committee at a local restaurant to celebrate, so perhaps my experience was unusually positive.)

  • big_giant_head

     That’s terrible. But why on earth would you think it’s the rule and not the exception?

  • big_giant_head

    I have sat on several search committees at a CC, and promise you, the only reason we would ever turn up our noses at someone like that is if the person seems to looking at us as a hobby or a fallback position. To teach for a CC, a person needs to be able to demonstrate the ability to handle the workload–teaching 5 or 6 sections per semester–and not freak out when there’s no time allowed for research. I’m not saying people in that demographic can’t do this, just that they often don’t grasp the need to prove that they will be able to.

  • big_giant_head

     Dude. Chill.

  • robjenkins

    I was going to say, before rebek56 beat me to it, that I’ve known several people who have finished their dissertations while working full-time at a community college. And that includes not just teaching but advising, serving on committees, etc.

  • pterodactyl123

    Well, it’s certainly possible to finish a dissertation while teaching or working full-time. But the issue with this student seems to be that she still receives departmental funding, which gives her department the ability to limit the type/amount of work she may perform. If she did not receive any money from her program of study, her employment at the CC would not be an issue. If they are funding her to finish the dissertation, then that is what she should do. Furthermore, if the CC is serious about offering her a TT job, they should be willing to wait a year and fill her teaching assignments with adjunct labor in the meantime. 

    The big question is how much departmental funding she receives. Is it enough to live on? It seldom is, even at the top schools. If adjuncting at the CC is paying her bills, then what I’ve said above is not very realistic. But if she simply wants to teach 2-3 extra courses so that she can keep her foot in the door at the CC, that seems like a big risk. What is she doesn’t finish the dissertation and then has to support herself solely on adjunct wages the following year? What if the CC suffers budget cuts and can’t fulfill its expressed desire to hire her? If she focuses on the task at hand and finishes the PhD, she has a lot more options.

    In her conversations with you, the student also seems to make a number of unsubstantiated statements: “Nobody ever comes right out and says that, but it’s pretty clear.” “We can’t talk about it openly.” If no one ever says it or talks about it, I am not sure how clear it can be. It sounds like the student is speculating about the obvious: the department wants her to finish what they are paying for–namely, her research. 

  • robjenkins

    I get all that, ptero. I don’t doubt that you know more about this sort of thing than I do, and I don’t doubt that you’re right on many counts. But what gets me is that (according to the student, I know, but that’s all I have to go on) the department seemed perfectly content to turn a blind eye to her extra-curricular activities at the community college until they learned that she might view those activities as a potential career. Then they suddenly clamped down and started issuing threats. That seems to me neither fair (given their earlier winks and nods) nor wise (given the current state of the job market).

  • pterodactyl123

    Well, if her department really did clamp down on her extra work because they don’t want her to end up working at a CC, that is truly pathetic and absurd. Placement rates are placement rates. Surveys generally ask how many of your students are able to land full-time positions in academia, and not if those positions are Ivy, R-1, or CC. If a department has students who are able to land tenure track jobs before finishing their dissertation, that is to be commended. 

    I hope this student follows her heart and pursues her plans to teach at a CC. I am delighted with my decision to go this route. I like my students and colleagues, I’ve been able to start a family (which would have been highly unlikely if I were aiming for tenure at a research university), and I am doing well financially. And I often feel like I am making a genuine, positive difference in the lives of some of my students. Meanwhile, I know quite a few graduates from my prestigious PhD program who are adjuncts or not working at all, and who would jump at the chance of TT job at a community college. I wonder if your friend’s advisors realize what a rare and wonderful position she is in?

  • wise1inmo

    I have to chime in too. I know that even among my cohorts, I teach a great deal. Yes, I am in the final year of writing my dissertation (Political Science) with a great deal of quantitative work. But this year alone, I have taught 12 courses (3 institutions) and traveled between satellite campuses.  That’s in addition to having office hours, etc. at my home institution. Grueling perhaps, but I’d say it was all the drive time I spent between teaching that was the only ‘unproductive time’ that if I could change, I would have.

    However, I have excellent course evals.  My dissertation work, while sometimes slower-paced than I’d prefer, is making steady progress and already has very good feedback from committee members. And summer is soon! I am only teaching one course-it leaves plenty of “me time” and time to write.
     
    In all – teaching while writing your dissertation is certainly not for the faint of heart. But for those, like me, who genuinely want to teach, and moreover, genuinely want to complete their dissertation work, it is definitely possible. It just depends on the person and what their goals are.

  • lootdude

    sigh

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