Emerging Black Academic Elites ... (modified ... 4/4/13)

In previous notes on this blog, I have cautioned HBCUs against framing their continuing relevance to the nation's well-being in terms of their historically disproportionate contributions to the production of black graduates. For example, nowadays less than 10 percent of the nation's black American undergraduate students attend HBCUs; more than 90 percent attend non-HBCUs.

The current note shifts attention to the highest level, to the production of research-oriented doctoral degrees. Once again, my data comes from the IPEDS database maintained by the U.S. Department of Education ... http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/datacenter/

• Research-oriented doctoral degrees do not include professional doctorates, e.g., medicine (MD), dentistry (DDS), pharmacy (PharmD), law (JD), etc. These non-research degrees provide  students with credentials that confirm their acquisition of the academic training the need to become competent practitioners in these professions. By contrast, PhDs and other research-oriented doctorates indicate a student's capacity to make contributions to society's knowledge base via original research.

It will be seen that nowadays HBCUs educate less than ten percent of the black Americans who receive research-oriented doctorates; but readers may be surprised by the outsized role played by for-profit universities. For-profits have become a major training ground for America's black academic elite.

Table A. Sources of Black Research-Oriented Doctorates

Year	Source	N	Sum	% of Total	Max
AY 2008	HBCUs	4	51	9.2%	27
AY 2008	For-profits	3	108	19.5%	73
AY 2008	Total	66	554	100.0%	73
AY 2011	HBCUs	24	306	8.1%	55
AY 2011	For-profits	34	727	19.3%	223
AY 2011	Total	395	3768	100.0%	223

A few key points to note in the data shown in Table A include:

• As shown in the third and fourth columns, four HBCUs conferred 51 research-oriented doctorates to black Americans in Academic Year 2007-2008; three for-profit institutions conferred 108 research-oriented doctorates to black Americans; and 66 universities of all kinds conferred 554 research-oriended doctorates.
   
• For-profits conferred more than twice as many research-oriented doctorates to black Americans than HBCUs in AY 2007-2008, i.e., 108 vs 51. Indeed, one for-profit institution conferred 73 of these doctorates, more than any other university of any kind.
   
• In Academic Year 2010-2011, six times as many universities conferred research-oriented doctorates on black Americans than in AY 2007-08, i.e., 395 vs. 66; and the total number of doctorates conferred increased seven-fold, i.e., from 554 to 3,768.
   
• In Academic Year 2010-2011, for-profits again conferred more than twice as many research-oriented doctorates as HBCUs, 727 vs. 306. And again a for-profit institution conferred more research-oriented doctorates on black Americans than any other university of any kind, i.e., 223 (Note: Table B, below, identifies Capella University as this maximum provider.)
   
• In both academic years, for-profits accounted for roughly 19 percent of the research-oriented doctorates conferred by any university on black Americans, whereas the HBCU share declined slightly from roughly 9 to 8 percent.

Table B. Top 10 Producers of Black Research-Oriented Doctorates in Academic Year 2011

University	N	Type
Capella University Minneapolis MN	223	For-Profit
Nova Southeastern University Fort Lauderdale FL	174	Non-Profit
University of Phoenix-Online Campus Phoenix AZ	164	For-Profit
Walden University Minneapolis MN	111	For-Profit
Argosy University-Sarasota Sarasota FL	84	For-Profit
Howard University Washington DC	55	HBCU
Liberty University Lynchburg VA	55	Non-Profit
Argosy University-Atlanta Atlanta GA	50	For-Profit
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Ann Arbor MI	44	Non-Profit
Texas A & M University-College Station College Station TX	42	Non-Profit

Finally, there is a powerful, disruptive irony lurking beneath these considerations, especially at the higher levels of the academic ladders, an irony made all the more powerful because online programs enjoy such disproportionately high black enrollments.  Online courses and programs require stronger academic skills -- higher motivation, a greater capacity to study alone, better time management skills, stronger fundamental math and language skills, and stronger study skills -- than to achieve comparable success in face-to-face or blended courses. 

If colleges and universities hold students in online programs to standards of learning that are comparable to the standards imposed on the students in their on-campus programs, the members of the Talented Tenth emerging from these online programs are likely to be intellectually tougher than the traditional elites because they will have traveled rougher roads to graduation. To be sure, the traditional black academic elites will continue to look down on the online elites for a while ... until they find their gritty online brethren passing them on the equal terrains of the workplace at unexpectedly high speeds ... :-)

________________
Related Notes:

• FAQs About HBCUs
• But What About the Other 91 Percent???

Grab Well-Paying Jobs with a Bachelor’s Degree in Business and Marketing

Will you ever expect to get a prestigious and high salaried job in today’s world without earning a valuable degree from a recognized institution? In reality, corporate professionals today look for candidates with rewarding qualifications who can work with confidence and perfection in managerial positions. Well, if you are in search of a course which will help you get exposed to a wide range of career opportunities, BA in Business and Marketing is your answer.

Job Opportunities are Plenty
 

Owing to the increasing number of business houses, the demand of individuals having a bachelor’s degree in Business and Marketing has soared to a good extent in the recent years. In fact, it has been found that students earning bachelors or master’s degree in this field have acquired positions like business analysts, school administrators, executive officers, accounts officers, marketing managers etc.

High salaried jobs

As far as the scenario of today’s job market is concerned, attaining a bachelor’s degree in business and marketing will increase the chances of grabbing jobs with good pay packages. Today, the majority of MBAs earn around $100,000 or more, and those with bachelor’s degree in business management can always expect to earn between $32,000 and $50,000 per year. Those who even build careers in accounting usually receive high pay packages.

Developing healthy business affairs

With a bachelor’s degree in business and marketing, you get the opportunity to enhance your knowledge in sales, marketing as well as investment opportunities. In fact, the valuable knowledge you earn from this degree program can be applied to your personal business affairs. Moreover, you will gain confidence in planning your own budgets instead of hiring an accountant and can even organize your personal business affairs.

                                                               Source: rdi.co.uk via Ivy on Pinterest

Job Designations youDeserve with a BA in Business and Marketing

·        Project Manager – A project manager plays a key role in handling all the projects dealt within a company. He requires understanding management concepts like scheduling and interpersonal communication.

·        Marketing Manager – A marketing manager is required to look after the marketing campaigns within an organization. He will be made responsible to determine the strategy of marketing campaign as well as the budget based on research.

·        Business Analyst – The role of a business analyst is to evaluate all the financial information a company uses for making decisions related to its business.

So, you see how a BA Business and Marketing degree can help you climb the corporate ladder in good time. Even if you are willing to earn it online, you can do so by choosing a recognized university and get going. Good luck!!

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. -- 2013

Fortunately for the rest of us, Dr. King was not just a man of great wisdom, but a man whose mastery of the written and spoken word enabled him to share his wisdom in a manner that made his sharing one of the unforgettable experiences of our lives. So on this day that we celebrate his birth, perhaps the best tribute we can render is to listen to some of what he said and read some of what he wrote, yet again:

• "I Have a Dream" ...
  
  
  
• Letter from a Birmingham Jail
  "6 April 1963
  My Dear Fellow Clergymen:
  While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms" ... Please click here for the rest of Dr. King's letter. Thank you.

Accounting and Financial Management Degree – the stepping stone to a successful future!

Image Courtesy: rdi.co.uk

Taking your career to the next level is a very popular choice. There is hardly anyone who does not like promotion and a remuneration hike. So besides performance, which are the others factors on which your promotion depends? Out of the many factors, the most prominent one is a proper educational qualification. With so many courses and certificates available nowadays, unless you have an accredited and recognised degree your competitor will surpass you and move ahead.

In the current scenario, more and more candidates are opting for bachelor’s degree so that in the future if the need arises they can opt for further advanced studies. So it is very necessary that you be clear about what you want out of your educational qualification and which career you want to pursue. Accordingly you need to get enrolled in the course so as to derive the maximum benefit out of the course.

Be sure to consider the following checklists before getting enrolled. Moreover if possible, it is always better to talk to the course directors, prospective employer in order to have a better understanding and grasp of the current and emerging market scenario so that you are able to take an informed decision. One of the “in-demand” course is Accounting and Financial Management degree from UK. You can visit the webpage which elaborates the course in details here. One of the sectors that has a high recruiting rate, a career in the accounting and financial sector has no looking back. In fact many of the top management in corporate houses are made up of people with a degree in this subject.

Undergraduate study checklist:

Image Courtesy: crc.uc.edu

In general, whenever you are opting for a course, do a thorough research and don’t forget to compare:

•  The educational institution’s reputations and the infrastructure with the facilities available. 
•  The institutions teaching’s and research ratings 
•  The course module and the study materials available. 
•  How the previous year’s students have fared and their career status, 
•  Whether the courses and degrees offered are accredited and acknowledged. 

Image Courtesy: alaskaswcds.org

How can your accountancy and financial management graduate study help your job application?

•  A proper degree in this course reflects your skills and expertise gained. 
•  The unrelenting effort put in the completion of your dissertation or thesis is a very apt example of dedication, your organisational skills, and the ability to do independent research and project management – particularly if you are managing it along with your part-time work, and other responsibilities. 
•  Your online presentations along with your compatibility of participating in online group discussion in addition to working on group assignments is a reflection of your co-operative skills as well as your communication skills will also develop for the better. 
•  The various facilities available in the university will help you in participating in extracurricular activities and you can also network with so many people in the different in the online discussion sessions.

Confessions of a MOOC Dropout

A.  Mea Culpa
I am a MOOC dropout. There. I've said it. Now the whole world knows that I have become one of the millions of MOOC dropouts, the 80 to 90 percent of MOOC enrollees who don't finish their courses. No doubt the dreaded High Demons of MOOC will burn a scarlet "D" in the middle of my forehead while I'm asleep tonight ... :-(

OK, just kidding. But I really am deeply disappointed that I couldn't complete the "Health in Numbers: Quantative Methods in Clinical & Public Heal Research" (PH207x) course offered by the Harvard branch of the edX consortium that I enrolled in last October. Although the course officially ends at 11:59 pm this coming Friday evening, I threw in my towel this morning because I knew that I only had about a 40 percent chance to obtain the required passing grade of 85, despite the fact that I entered the final exam with a 93 average based on nine weeks of detailed homework assignments.

B. Why I Enrolled
As readers of this blog may recall, in real life I am the Director of Howard-Online, an initiative that was launched two years ago to develop plans that would enable Howard University, a prominent HBCU, to offer a comprehensive array of online and blended degree & certificate programs for non-traditional students. So, of course, I was fascinated by MOOCs.

• The MOOC MOOC
  I enrolled in my first MOOC last spring, the so-called "MOOC MOOC" which was a MOOC that explained what MOOCs were really all about ... Correction: the MOOC MOOC explained what the pioneers who developed this exciting course delivery methodology a few years ago were trying to achieve. To my delight, the MOOC MOOC was one of the most satisfying learning experiences I ever had in my life.  Believing that one good MOOC deserves another, I was on the lookout for a MOOC that would deepen my understanding of this powerful new educational medium.
   
• Policy Notes on this Blog
  Readers of this blog are aware that I sometimes publish notes that analyze the latest data related to policy issues of importance to the HBCU community.  As the years have gone by, I have found myself becoming more and more concerned about issues that would require the application of far more powerful analytical procedures than simple tabular summaries. Sooner or later I would have to brush up on regression analysis and other multivariate statistical techniques ... but my career path since graduate school had required more knowledge of operating systems and applications development ... Of course I would have to review basic statistics before swimming back into the advanced techniques at the deep end of the pool.
   
• Harvard's Introduction to Biostatistics
  It occurred to me that if I reviewed basic statistics in the context of sociology or economics, the contexts in which I had first learned statistics many decades ago as a graduate student, that I would find myself nodding "Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah" in false boredom too often because I might be confusing barely remembered concepts with current understanding. Perusing the list of courses offered by the edX consortium, Harvard's introduction to biostatistics caught my eye. I was only vaguely familiar with the public health issues that would be analyzed. And having used SPSS and SAS off and on for the last few decades, I had never heard of Stata, the statistical package the course would use. All in all, the course would provide the challenges I needed to stay alert as it moved across once familiar statistical ground.

C. What Went Right
There were many good things to be said about this course, including a few of the things that went wrong. The "wrong" things were useful reminders that MOOCs are still very new animals in the education zoo, animals that have not been fully tamed yet ... :-)

• Well Organized + Competent Instructors
  The course was well organized. Its syllabus laid out clearly defined learning objectives and provided a detailed summary of the topics that would be covered each week. The statistics module was taught by the author of the course's excellent textbook in statistics. The epidemiology modules were taught by a professor who was a highly experienced analyst of public health issues.
   
• Stata Freebie
  The course provided a free version of Stata to which access would expire when the course ended. But I came to like this statistical package so much that I will use my course discount to purchase a permanent copy for my personal use. Although Stata contains some modules that are customized to compute the particular statistics favored by epidemiologists, it is a powerful, easy to learn, and easy to use package that could be used to analyze policy issues in just about any context.
   
• High Speed Audios
  The videos had a really neat feature. One could watch/listen to them at normal speed (1.0 X), at slower speed (0.75 X), at faster-than-normal speed (1.25 X), and at high speed (1.50 X). I quickly became addicted to the high speed option. No, the speakers didn't sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks. The technology merely deletes all the pauses we make in normal speech between sentences, words, and syllables. After a couple of sessions at high speed, I found myself crawling up the walls inside my skull if I tried to listen to the instructors at normal speed. While listening to the course videos, normal speech suddenly seemed sooooooooo S .... L .... O .... W ...
   
• Annoyances
  One of the things I found "wrong" about this course was its use of lecture capture technology for its videos. As everyone knows, lecture capture enables an instructor to record lectures in a face-to-face class and make them available for subsequent viewing online. OK, that's the sales hype. But in the context of online courses, lecture capture is just a crutch for "older" instructors who don't feel comfortable delivering their lectures by looking into the cameras on their laptops. 
  
  In this course, the instructors stood behind a podium and "preached" to a camera. There were no students in the room. (The videos sometimes reminded me of Congressmen on C-Span declaiming eloquent policy pronouncements to the TV cameraman in an otherwise empty chamber of the House of Representatives.)  Occasionally the instructors turned to point to "stuff" they had written on the blackboard behind them -- just as they would have done if they were lecturing to a classroom full of students.
  
  Here's what bugged me. After I see what an instructor looks like at the start of a lecture, I really don't need to see his face at any point thereafter. I would prefer to listen to his audio while seeing a clear image of the "stuff" on the board. Instead, the camera in this course would show a clear image of the instructor pointing to "stuff" on the board behind him that was out of focus. From time to time, the screen just showed the "stuff" he was talking about ... but that's what it should have been showing all of the time. In other words, as a student I want to see the learning objects, not the instructor's happy smiles or furrowed brows ... :-(

D. What Went Wrong ... for Me
I misread the syllabus ... and the instructors changed the rules:

• The syllabus said that there would be eleven homework assignments, but that the lowest two grades would be dropped ... so far, so good.
   
• Given that the course began in October 2012 and ended in January 2013, it spanned the Christmas holiday. (No class during Christmas week.)  I worked hard enough every week for the first nine weeks  that I ran a 93 percent average on the first nine assignments.
   
• I (mis)read the syllabus to mean that the homeworks would count for 60 percent of the grade and the final would count for 40 percent. This meant that I only needed to earn a 73 on the final exam to earn the 85 required to pass the course. And the syllabus stated that we would have five days to do the final exam. No sweat.
   
• As the holidays approached, developments occurred on my job that would require me to work during the holidays. No problem for my course grade because I was running such a high average. No sweat, even if I didn't have time to study the material in the course's last two or three weeks. What could they possibly ask about this material that I couldn't learn well enough to answer a couple of questions in five days?
   
• I didn't finish my current work assignment until this past weekend. When I logged onto the course on Monday, I received two shocks:
  
  -- First, over the holidays the instructors had decided to only give the students three hours for the final exam, not five days. Their announcement indicated that felt that students shouldn't need more than three hours. Just three hours.
  
  -- Second, I realized that I had misread the syllabus. Homework would only count for 40 percent of the grade; the final would count for 60 percent. This meant that I would have to receive a 79 on the final to earn the passing 85 minimum ... in just three hours

I spent a few hours yesterday cramming the last modules of the course that I had not studied before. But this morning my job "interfered" with my studies again. My two year planning project had entered its endgame just before the holidays and the stakes are high, too high for me to risk spending all of my reserve energies trying to compensate for misreading the syllabus of a course that I'm not taking for credit.

As I tossed in my mental towel, I wondered how many of the millions of other MOOC drop-outs had faced similar choices between their jobs and their non-credit MOOCs or between their family obligations and their non-credit MOOCS ... and had made the same choice that I just made.

_____________________
Related Notes:

• MOOCs in Brief (July 2012)
• Video Introductions to cMOOCs for HBCUs (August 2012)
• HBCUs and MOOCs (May 2012)
• The MOOC MOOC and HBCUs (August 2012)

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