I'm kind-of mystified what the objections to these new requirements are. 18 hours of coursework, or alternatively, at least have to explain your experience. That's a pretty low bar for being able to profess on a subject. If I were taking a course, I would certainly hope the professor had at least 18 hours of graduate coursework on a subject.
The rules these people are objecting to literally make an exception for them to explain that 50 years of teaching a subject counts as credit. If they can't do that, is it possible they shouldn't be teaching the subject?
Why shouldn't professors have a minimum requirement? It sounds like before these bare minimum rules it was a free-for-all.
> I have learned that English and philosophy have much in common. Both disciplines emphasize effective and clear communication, critical thinking, and the analysis and interpretation of texts,”
This quote is laughable. Those things are common across all academic disciplines. This justifies a music teacher professing about medicine with no experience at all.
Interesting approach, and may be valid for some fields. I feel that most of science is about discovering falsifiable objective truths, though the specific set of potential truths that are chosen for research activity is definitely influenced by those in power.
This is more of a problem at smaller schools. At the "majors" (MIT/Harvard/Columbia) such cross-discipline work is unremarkable, if not necessarily common. Stanford, to my surprise, appears to me to be more bureaucratic in this regard.
And very small institutions don't care: they make their own way (and may not be able to afford a huge faculty).
If you're above tiny but not a marquee name then accreditation is vital to your survival. You don't do anything to mess that up!
A similar conundrum exists in UK universities. It was decided that all university lecturers (professors in US parlance) should have a teaching qualification regardless of experience in actual teaching. The solution was to create a series of new post-graduate certificates in teaching, the requirements of some of which are fairly easy to fulfill if one does actually have academic teaching experience, e.g. 10,000 words one's teaching philosophy plus a few classes.
[+] [-] dahart|9 years ago|reply
The rules these people are objecting to literally make an exception for them to explain that 50 years of teaching a subject counts as credit. If they can't do that, is it possible they shouldn't be teaching the subject?
Why shouldn't professors have a minimum requirement? It sounds like before these bare minimum rules it was a free-for-all.
> I have learned that English and philosophy have much in common. Both disciplines emphasize effective and clear communication, critical thinking, and the analysis and interpretation of texts,”
This quote is laughable. Those things are common across all academic disciplines. This justifies a music teacher professing about medicine with no experience at all.
[+] [-] Top19|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] trevyn|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cnnsucks|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] orionstein|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gumby|9 years ago|reply
And very small institutions don't care: they make their own way (and may not be able to afford a huge faculty).
If you're above tiny but not a marquee name then accreditation is vital to your survival. You don't do anything to mess that up!
[+] [-] pcrh|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phoenixProgram|9 years ago|reply
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