Concord EJD or JD acceptable Doctorate in order to teach college

[FalconJimmy]

I am interested in attending Concord for several reasons to include time and money.  My ultimate goal is to teach college courses and I see that Concord has an EJD as well.  Are either the  JD or EJD acceptable?  Concord is DETC and since it's part of Kaplan, I understand it is regionally accredited as well from what I understand.  Most schools require a regionally accreditied terminal degree such as a Phd or Doctorate.     Any information is appreciated.

Keep in mind that academics is its own little world and you have to know how it works.

You can teach at a junior college with a master's degree, but those jobs are rare.  I have heard from a juco president that if you get a masters in math or english, you can get a job easily.  Other subjects?  You sorta have to be lucky enough to be there when the guy who has the job now dies.

The terminal degree for a teaching credential is a Ph.D. or an Ed.D, or some variant thereof.  A JD is not really considered on-par with those degrees.  People make a grave error when they think that a JD is considered the academic equivalent of a Ph.D.  Yes, you can teach in a college of law... provided you went to a top 14, and preferably to 3 school and made law review. 

The best degree you could get would be a Ph.D. in criminology or something related to the field you want to teach.  A J.D. can teach law.  that's pretty much it.  Every once in a while, a college hires a JD to teach business law, but at most schools, you'd be lucky to see ONE JD in the school of business.  Maybe in the Crim Justice classes, you see a JD here or there, but that brings up the next problem or set of problems.

People who put in the work to do something the right way are generally not receptive to people who take shortcuts and try to get the same benefits.  An online EJD?  Okay, that's a problem.  Put yourself in the shoes of somebody with a JD who makes this hiring decision.  Yes, he might hire somebody with an EJD, but only after those who got real JDs were not available.  As you may have gathered, there is no shortage of JDs in the country.  Plus, a lot of them aren't suited to a career in the law and would love nothing more than a 9 month job with full-time pay and benefits where they teach 4 classes a semester.

You're trying to work a shortcut and it will be seen as such.  Perhaps your other credentials are so impressive they'll overcome a degree that simply screams "lazy and not particularly intelligent", but if that is the case, why get the EJD.

If you want to teach, get a real master's.  An EJD?  I'd think somebody with an online EJD was mentally ill.  why the hell would any sane person get that degree?

[jonlevy]

An EJD is good for nothing, attorneys will laugh at you for wasting time and money on it and no one else has any idea what it is.

You can try a JD but a Masters might be better, lot's of unemployed attorneys out there trying to claim their JD is just as good as PhD and they are qualified to teach everything from political science to history.  The JD however doesn't qualify anyone to teach anything except maybe law.  Also I would not get an online MA, even the online schools don't like to hire online grads as they are concerned about their accreditation.

[oceanblue57]

hi ,i have seen many posts from people like you  down grading any one trying to get ahead through on line education .Have you ever tried it and what schools did you graduate? RON A. BBA-MBA

[haus]

hi ,i have seen many posts from people like you  down grading any one trying to get ahead through on line education .Have you ever tried it and what schools did you graduate? RON A. BBA-MBA

oceanblue57,

Education is an odd thing, especially when it comes to the professional gains one can make from earning a degree. Its value is not solely determined by what you learn as a student, a large part of the value is how your education is perceived by others. I am not saying this is fair, I am just saying that this is how it is.

Online education will eventually come to the field of law in a big way, but it is not here yet. Until such time as the ABA accredits an online program, allowing its graduates to sit for the Bar it is going to remain ugly for online law programs. The increasing acceptance of online education in other fields will help apply pressure to the ABA, but they will hold for some time to come. Already we have major schools that offer degrees to be earned fully or mostly online, including Columbia, Stanford, & Harvard. I myself have earned a Masters degree from the Harvard (specifically a Masters of Liberal Arts in Information Technology from the Extension School at Harvard University). I completed 75% of my course work online.

As someone who is looking at possibly going back to school to earn a JD, I would love to see a reasonable online option to be available. Unfortunately that option does not seem to exist, and is unlikely to exist in the timeframe that I am interested in.

[jonlevy]

hi ,i have seen many posts from people like you  down grading any one trying to get ahead through on line education .Have you ever tried it and what schools did you graduate? RON A. BBA-MBA

I graduated from Taft and have been an attorney for many years and I am online faculty at two graduate schools so I know what I am talking about.  When it comes to law, there is really only one online game in the US and those are the California registered distance learning law schools and the odds are at least 5-1 or worse against succeeding.

[Maintain FL 350]

hi ,i have seen many posts from people like you  down grading any one trying to get ahead through on line education .Have you ever tried it and what schools did you graduate? RON A. BBA-MBA

Ron:

The OP's original post was asking whether a JD or EJD from Concord would be sufficient to land a college teaching position. He wasn't interested in obtaining the degree for puposes of self-improvement, but had a specific career goal in mind.

The fact is, an online JD (and especially an EJD) is basically useless for 99% of college teaching positions. Teaching positions are ridiculously few and far between, and the competition is brutal. I have several close friends who are academics, and even with PhDs from places like UCLA and U Chicago they spent years teaching part-time, adjunct, etc before landing tenure track positions.

There is a small, newly accredited law school near me whose library I sometimes use. They recently hired a new professor with a BA from Berkeley, JD from Yale, and who clerked for the 10th Circuit. Even at a small school, that's the caliber of applicant the OP would up against. A Concord JD/EJD simply won't cut it. It's nothing against Concord, or people who are trying to improve themselves, it's just that it's a buyer's market for academic positions and colleges can afford to be very, very picky.

[jonlevy]

I might add too that while I am online faculty, I also have a PhD from a regionally accredited school.

[cooley3L]

I might add too that while I am online faculty, I also have a PhD from a regionally accredited school.

Do you think that is the only reason you were hired?

[jonlevy]

No but without a PhD, it would have been difficult.

[cooley3L]

No but without a PhD, it would have been difficult.

Was the Regional PhD done online still? I ask since so many people like to pretend that all online is the same, and that it is not of the same value if Regional but online.