Spring Break
Requirements Optional
Joshua Seiden
Issue date: 8/20/07 Section: Forum
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The folks in Jefferson City sure have our best interests in mind.
In an act reeking of sheer altruism (sarcasm intended), the Missouri State Legislature passed a law geared toward placing more legislators in teaching positions. A summary of Section 173.475 of Senate Bill 389 states: "A public college or university shall not reject an applicant for a faculty position based solely on the lack of a graduate degree if the applicant has an undergraduate degree and has served at least eight years in the General Assembly." This overrides any current institutional requirements.
Nowhere in the text of the full bill is it stated that the undergraduate degree must come from an accredited institution. Technically, a legislator toting a diploma obtained from a now-defunct online degree mill has the same shot at a teaching position as a Ph.D. from an Ivy League school. It's a bit disheartening for those who made the sacrifices necessary to successfully complete a rigorous graduate program.
Legislators backing the bill cite real-world experience as their selling point. The bill's primary champion, St. Louis-area legislator Sen. Tim Green, D-Spanish Lake, was quoted in a July Associated Press report as saying, "The books don't teach about the influence of special interests. They don't teach about campaign contributions."
Green is partially right. My college algebra book didn't have much to say about campaigns and elections, nor did the required reading for British Literature II.
However, one of my Political Science professors assigned "The Interest Group Connection: Electioneering, Lobbying, and Policymaking in Washington," a book whose title is fairly self-explanatory. This was just one component of the empirical literature we explored in the course. Were Green to visit Amazon.com and enter "special interests"+"campaign contributions" into the search window, he would likely discover that such books do indeed exist.
The importance of employing educators with relevant field experience is not lost on me, but the legislators who pushed this bill are downright disingenuous on multiple fronts.
In an act reeking of sheer altruism (sarcasm intended), the Missouri State Legislature passed a law geared toward placing more legislators in teaching positions. A summary of Section 173.475 of Senate Bill 389 states: "A public college or university shall not reject an applicant for a faculty position based solely on the lack of a graduate degree if the applicant has an undergraduate degree and has served at least eight years in the General Assembly." This overrides any current institutional requirements.
Nowhere in the text of the full bill is it stated that the undergraduate degree must come from an accredited institution. Technically, a legislator toting a diploma obtained from a now-defunct online degree mill has the same shot at a teaching position as a Ph.D. from an Ivy League school. It's a bit disheartening for those who made the sacrifices necessary to successfully complete a rigorous graduate program.
Legislators backing the bill cite real-world experience as their selling point. The bill's primary champion, St. Louis-area legislator Sen. Tim Green, D-Spanish Lake, was quoted in a July Associated Press report as saying, "The books don't teach about the influence of special interests. They don't teach about campaign contributions."
Green is partially right. My college algebra book didn't have much to say about campaigns and elections, nor did the required reading for British Literature II.
However, one of my Political Science professors assigned "The Interest Group Connection: Electioneering, Lobbying, and Policymaking in Washington," a book whose title is fairly self-explanatory. This was just one component of the empirical literature we explored in the course. Were Green to visit Amazon.com and enter "special interests"+"campaign contributions" into the search window, he would likely discover that such books do indeed exist.
The importance of employing educators with relevant field experience is not lost on me, but the legislators who pushed this bill are downright disingenuous on multiple fronts.
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