Most recent FAQ added: 26 September 2007
Q: Is it necessary to have a master's degree to teach college?
No, not always, but it is a good general guideline. Most of the time, a faculty member teaching an undergraduate course is expected to have a master's degree and to have earned a minimum of 18 graduate semester-hours in whatever subject he/she is teaching, but there are exceptions. Someone teaching a course with a course number below 100 and that does not earn baccalaureate credit only needs to have a bachelor's degree. On the other hand, someone teaching a graduate level course is expected to have a doctorate or other terminal degree. More detail is available in the SACS's guidelines for faculty credentials.
Q: Is it necessary to list all of a faculty member's degrees in a faculty roster?
No, only those that establish the faculty member's credentials for the courses she/he is teaching this semester. In most cases, their highest degree should be listed but, if that degree is not in the discipline she/he is currently teaching, other lower level degrees in more relevant disciplines should also be listed. For instance, if a faculty member with an Ed.D. in higher education administration teaches a school counseling course, the doctorate alone would not be an adequate credential. But, what would be appropriate and highly desireable would be adding that she/he has an M.Ed. or an M.A. or an M.S. or an M.S.W. in counseling or merely specifying that she/he had also completed a certain number of graduate hours in counseling or clinical psychology or mental health practice as part of her/his doctoral study.
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Q: How much detail about a faculty member's degrees is needed in a faculty roster?
As much as necessary to demonstrate that the faculty member is adequately prepared for the course(s) he/she is teaching this term. There are only three pieces of information about each degree that SACS absolutely requires: (a) the title of the degree, (b) the discipline and/or specialty field in which the degree was earned, and (c) the name of the degree-granting institution. So, if these three pieces of information are enough to establish that the faculty member is fully qualified to teach the courses he/she is teaching, nothing further is needed.
The statement Ph.D. in mathematics, University of Illinois would fully suffice for a faculty member whose current courseload is four undergraduate courses in mathematics. But, it would not suffice, if the same faculty member was teaching a philosophy course with a PHI prefix entitled "The Epistemology of Numbers" or a music course with an MUS prefix entitled "The Mathematics of Music." There would need to be further explanation of how and why she/he was qualified to teach such a philosophy course or a music course.
Q: What are the guidelines for deciding whether a faculty member's degree and the courses he/she is teaching are within the same discipline or a justification needs to be written because they're in different disciplines?
Unfortunately, there are no clear and easy to follow guidelines for this. It all seems to be handled on a case by case basis. Ultimately, the final decision rests with SACS, but SACS does not give institutions or its reviewers any specific directions for making these decisions. There is no standardized list of disciplines that SACS recognizes, nor any record of approved cross-discipline credentialing. For instance, SACS will not tell you if someone holding a Ph.D. in statistics is qualified to teach mathematics or if a Ph.D. in mathematics is qualified to teach statistics. Instead, institutions are expected to follow the commonly accepted standards and practices of each discipline they teach, but they are left on their own to determine what these practices are.
The only consistent response we've heard from SACS staff members and from insitutions that have recently gone through reaffirmation is: "When in doubt, write a justification; it's better to provide an unnecessary justification than to be found wanting for not having one." This was made painfully obvious during our SACS orientation session in Atlanta (6/11/07) when the SACS staff members conducting the session said that merely listing the Ph.D. in history of a faculty member teaching a survey course in Russian history did not adequately demonstrate his credentials for teaching the course. They said it would also be necessary to cite his total credit hours earned in Russian history or other relevant areas, his research and/or publications related to this topic, other expertise enhancing activities, and/or his previous successful experience teaching this course.
Ultimately, department chairs have to use their best judgment in deciding which courses in their departments are so specialized that they require a special degree or other justification for the faculty members teaching them. But, at the very least, they should assume that any time the prefix of a course being taught differs from the prefix of the degree held by the instructor, some justification will be required.
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Q: Several of our introductory course are taught by faculty members with doctorates in what some people may see as a different discipline. Does each one have to be individually justified? Won't a single explanation suffice for all of them?
Yes and no. SACS expects a clear identification and/or explanation of each faculty member's qualifications for teaching each course he/she handles. And, since it's possible that some reviewers will spot-check credentials rather than read through the entire faculty roster from beginning to end, it's important that each faculty member's entry be complete and stand on its own without assuming that the reader has seen and remembered an explanation from a previous entry. However, this does not mean that each justification has to be unique. Boilerplate statements can be developed and reused as a justification for several different faculty members.
For instance, the following statement could be "pasted in" for any number of faculty members with physics degrees who teach multiple sections of the basic astronomy course.
The overlap of physics and astronomy is evident in the large number of institutions, including NKU, where a single department houses both disciplines. In introductory astronomy courses at the 100-level, about 90 percent of the course content is physics and history of science while the rest of it is the names and characteristics of the stars and specific applications of physical principles. There is, therefore, a long-standing practice that dates back at least 25 years at NKU and far longer at other institutions of having Ph.Ds. in physics teach these courses.
Generic justifications could also be developed for faculty members with political science degrees teaching public administation or criminal justice courses, for faculty members with biology degrees teaching environmental science courses, for faculty members with library science degrees teaching informatics courses, or for any number of other common cross-disciplinary or cross-specialization teaching assignments.
Q: If a faculty member's degree is in a different field than the courses he's teaching, is it enough to say he took a concentration of coursework in that field or is more justification needed?
If a graduate degree has not been awarded in the teaching field but the faculty member has taken coursework in that field, SACS wants a specific statement of the actual number of graduate hours completed and the name of the discipline or specialty in which they were taken, not just a vague statement about a concentration of coursework. It is not necessary to list each individual course that has been taken, but the concentration or area of specialization should be named/described in such a way that its relevance to the course(s) being taught is obvious. For example, a faculty member teaching a Communication Law course that is cross-listed as both a communication course and a political science course might have the following statement in column three of the faculty roster.
Ph.D. in Mass Communication, University of Iowa; coursework included 20 graduate hours in U.S. constitutional law, communication law, and first amendment topics courses.
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Q: If a course is cross-listed in two disciplines, does the faculty member teaching it have to have qualifications in both disciplines, or will one suffice?
In SACS's eyes, what you refer to as "a cross-listed course" is actually two different courses, one in each of two different disciplines, that just happen to meet simultaneously and be taught by the same person. Each of these courses must stand on its own academic merit, and each must have an instructor who is fully qualified within the context of the discipline in which it is offered. Thus, the faculty member must be qualified to teach in both disciplines.
However, the faculty member need not be qualified in exactly the same way or to the same degree in both disciplines. It is not necessary, for instance, to have two degrees or even two concentrations of graduate coursework. It's possible that the person's qualifications for teaching in one discipline may be based on a graduate degree while the qualifications for the second discipline may be based on independent research and scholarship.
Q: If an instructor's master's degree is in a different discipline than she's teaching, but she's currently enrolled in a doctoral program in the teaching discipline, is this acceptable?
It depends on how far she has progressed in her program. As noted above, if a graduate degree has not yet been earned in the teaching field, SACS wants a specific statement of how many graduate hours have been completed and the specific discipline in which they were earned, not just a vague claim that the person is enrolled in a degree program. The narrative should include the title of the degree being sought, the institution at which it is being pursued, and the total number of hours that have been completed at this point. For example, a faculty member with a master's in accounting but who is currently studying and teaching marketing might cite the following credentials:
Master of Accountancy, Northern Kentucky University; currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Marketing at the University of Cincinnati; 26 post-master's graduate hours completed, including 18 hours of marketing.
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Q: We have part-time faculty without graduate degrees who have been successfully teaching for several years. Is the length and quality of their service enough of an extenuating factor to let us continue using them as part-time instructors?
Mere length of service is irrelevant to SACS. So is the fact that hiring standards for part-time faculty have changed over the years. SACS's sole focus in evaluating faculty credentials is whether the faculty member is currently qualified to teach the courses he or she is teaching during the term covered by the faculty roster. But, this does not mean that these faculty members cannot continue to teach. Quite the contrary. Their teaching experience may be the best evidence of their qualifications to continue teaching. SACS doesn't care if they weren't qualilfied to teach back when they started. It only cares that they're qualified to teach now.
Assuming that they have been successful in teaching the course(s) they're now assigned to teach and that you have evidence such as student evaluation ratings, teaching observation reports by their peers, letters of appreciation from students, or other measures of what their students have learned, it should be easy to develop a narrative describing their past performance and justifying their current teaching assignments. Just be sure to include enough specific and verifiable details to make a strong case that shows substance and is not just empty verbiage. This might include some or all of the following: total years teaching experience and at what level(s), the number of times they've taught these specific course(s), total number of students they've had in these classes, average ratings on student evaluations, number/percent/other measure of students who continue on in your program because of taking these courses, any awards or recognitions they've earned for teaching, etc. And, be careful to phrase your explanation in terms that will be clear and fully understandable to reviewers from other institutions and with backgrounds in other disciplines.
Q: Does SACS consider someone who owns and operates a business qualified to teach business courses?
Q: Would an officer of a corporation be qualified to teach business courses?
Depending upon the course they're asked to teach and how well their background fits it, such people may be qualified in SACS's eyes, but the vague, general statement about their backgrounds that was included in the question doesn't provide enough information to make a decision. Simply saying someone has "senior level corporate experience" or "has owned and operated their own business for several years" isn't enough. SACS wants to know more about the exact types of experiences they've had, what they actually did and for how long they did it. It will also want to know what their job title was/is, the ways in which this work experience relates to the course being taught, and the name and location of the company/organization where they gained this experience. The more closely their background matches the content and focus of the course(s) they're teaching, the more likely it is that SACS will consider them appropriately qualified.
Someone who has spent ten years managing a mid-sized retail grocery store may not be qualified to teach an industrial manufacturing course but could be very qualified to teach an introduction to business course, a business planning course, or a basic management course. Similarly, a CPA who would be well-qualified to teach a finance course or a taxation course, might not be qualified to teach a human resources course or a sales management course.
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Q: Is high school or lower level teaching experience an acceptable qualification?
As in all other cases, the most critical questions would be which course(s) would the person be teaching and how knowledgeable and qualified is he/she to teach that specific course content. Teaching experience in and of itself, whether it's at the college level or some other level, is not a sufficient qualification. It has to be combined with subject matter expertise. However, someone with appropriate subject matter knowledge who also has teaching experience below the college level would almost certainly be considered more qualified than someone with the same level of subject matter knowledge who had never taught.
The following example is a justification for someone teaching a freshman-level Writing Workshop with an ENG course prefix. In this example, the faculty member does have a master's degree but it is not in English which is his teaching discipline. In fact, his academic records do not include any graduate hours in English. The justification could be as follows.
M.Ed. with a concentration in history, Xavier University; This instructor has State of Ohio certification to teach history in grades 7-12 and to teach reading, writing and mathematics in grades K-8. He has taught reading and English for more than 30 years, starting as a reading instructor at Reading Techniques, Inc. in Cincinnati in 1971. From 1974 to 1979 he was a director/instructor for Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics Institute in Cincinnati where he primarily taught adult students. From 1979 to 1995 he taught language arts and social studies in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati elementary schools, and in 1996 he began teaching reading and study skills as a part-time instructor at the University of Cincinnati. He has been hired to teach developmental writing skills at NKU because of his past experience and a strong recommendation from the writing program director at the University of Cincinnati.
Q: Is it possible to justify someone without any degree teaching a course?
It's certainly not common, but it is possible to justify such a situation depending upon the nature of the course and the specific life experiences and background of the potential instructor. It is, however, necessary to present clear and persuasive arguments to support such a position. Here are two possible examples, both of which involve the performing arts.
First, consider a course in a highly technical craft area and an instructor who has taught but never taken a college-level course. Here's a possible justification.
This instructor is a professional staff member and the university's threatre shop foreman. He is a long-time member of the Stage Hands Union and is currently union-certified as a Stage Hand and as a Stage Rigging Trainer. According to union policies which are honored by most professional theatre companies and academic programs in the United States, all instruction in stage rigging and safety measures, whether it is done on the job or in a classroom, must be conducted by union-certified Stage Hands. TAR 464 Special Problems in Stage Rigging, taught by this university, is no exception. This instructor is, therefore, the most appropriate and best-qualified person available to teach this course. When he has previously taught it, the instructor's ratings on the university's standard student evaluations were, in item by item comparisons, consistently at or above the average of the other faculty members in this department and his distribution of final grades was typical of other 400-level theatre courses.
The second situation involves a current undergraduate student, albeit one with extensive professional experience, stepping in to teach a performance course. The course is DAN 426 Advanced Dance Seminar for upper division theatre majors and dancers. The instructor's academic credentials in column three might simply say:
Currently a candidate for a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theatre, Northern Kentucky University (133 total undergraduate hours completed as of summer 2007, including 82 hours in theatre).
The more compelling portion of the justification would be in column four and could be something like the following.
This instructor assumed her first lead role as an actress/dancer on Broadway in 1985 when she took over the role of Sillabub in CATS. In the 22 years since, she has had other lead roles in Broadway productions of Phantom of the Opera, The 3 Penny Opera, and The Secret Garden as well as performing in numerous Off-Broadway, regional and national tours. She is a long-time member of the Actors Equity Association and has taken 15 different acting classes offered by various theatre directors and producers. Her professional stage experience and her commitment to pursing a degree have brought an invaluable dimension to many of the classes she's taken and have been an inspiration to our students. Her mere presence and notoriety have also drawn new, high level students to our program. As an instructor teaching techniques she has already professionally mastered, she will further enrich our students and our program while having a personally-stretching, growth experience herself.
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Additional FAQs will be added as they are identified.
