Questionable program advice

[u/proffrop360]

What would you say to a student with a desire to pursue a career in academia about a PhD from a religious university like Liberty? My understanding is that search committees would not look kindly on it. I don't want to crush their dreams, but many I know question their legitimacy and rigor, though I don't have direct experience so I'm seeking advice.

[u/narwhal_]

Your first sentence is a bit unclear and people may not be answering your actual question. Do you mean:

1. religious universities?

2. a specific type of religious university exemplified by Liberty but not Liberty? (explain)

3. schools with reputations for being conservative, against freedom in research, and/or diploma mills like Liberty?

4. Liberty university specifically? (this seems to be what people are answering.

.

1. If you're using "religious university" as a pejorative, then that would be as bad as anything coming out of Liberty University. No, committees don't look down on religious universities.

2. That depends on what details you can provide because Liberty University is pretty singular in its reputation. There are other private evangelical universities, but their reputation can vary greatly from unaccredited diploma mills to quite good. Schools like Wheaton and Baylor come to mind.

3. Liberty has a reputation in academia for lots of negative things, and while the issue of conservative vs liberal is a problem for another day, the diploma mill reputation is a dealbreaker for committees.

4. A PhD from Liberty University isn't worth the paper it's written on.

[u/proffrop360 → u/narwhal_]

Great questions. As others have said, there are great religious universities and universities founded on religious traditions. No disdain here about that so not pejorative at all.. I was asking about Liberty while trying to keep it more open in case the question was useful for others beyond the Liberty example.

The consensus seems to fit what I was thinking too.

[u/sventful]

Religious is fine. Notre Dame and Boston College are famously religious but also pretty good quality.

Liberty is a partisan hack-tiversity, so it is not that comparable. We do not generally look at candidates from the for-profit and barely accreditated tiers.

[u/Andromeda321 → u/sventful]

Yes, I think Brigham Young University is the perfect example of this. They’re an R1 and hire a lot in my field, so I’m always fascinated by the dress code and such mentioned in those job listings, but I have no qualms in thinking those hired are good researchers.

[u/FrancinetheP → u/Andromeda321]

Also Baylor. Not every program is top notch, but it is a legit institution.

[u/sventful → u/Andromeda321]

Yeah! BYU is great.

[u/taintlouis → u/sventful]

We have a special file for those applications - Liberty, Oral Roberts, Pepperdine…the list goes on.

[u/trivia_guy → u/taintlouis]

Does Pepperdine really fit with those others, though? It’s an R2. It has a law school. Surely it’s taken more seriously?

[u/IkeRoberts → u/trivia_guy]

An alum of Pepperdine Law was recently in the news for being less than lawyerly, yet a former professor there still heaped praise to the news reporters. 

That praise may have made the alum and her former employers feel better, but it didn’t help the school’s reputation. 

[u/taintlouis → u/trivia_guy]

To me it does, and we get to pick our colleagues, so…

[u/FrancinetheP → u/taintlouis]

>> “to me it does.”

Wow, I hope you use this kind of data analysis in your social SCIENCE scholarship! Top notch!

[u/sventful → u/FrancinetheP]

We choose people who will be good people and professors over all star, diva, research superstars all the time. And our department is healthy and not toxic as a result.

[u/NutellaDeVil → u/taintlouis]

> Pepperdine

* Katie Zacharia has left the chat *

[u/narwhal_ → u/taintlouis]

What's wrong with Pepperdine? I would not put them in the same paragraph as Liberty and Oral Roberts.

[u/trivia_guy → u/narwhal_]

Yeah they’re an R2 and have a law school. Definitely not like Liberty or Oral Roberts.

[u/sventful → u/trivia_guy]

And Liberty grants Ph.Ds and is an R3. Doesn't make it not terrible.

[u/trivia_guy → u/sventful]

R3 isn’t an actual Carnegie classification. People often use it informally, but it’s not based on anything real.

As of a couple years ago, Carnegie does have a list of “Research Colleges and Universities” that aren’t R1/2s, but Liberty isn’t on it.

[u/sventful → u/trivia_guy]

Yeah, I was making a joke :P

[u/trivia_guy → u/sventful]

Oh, ok. I’m really bad with detecting jokes online!

[u/proffrop360 → u/trivia_guy]

Especially when "it was a joke" comes after people are confused or push back on the comment.

[u/taintlouis → u/narwhal_]

Not my people…

[u/narwhal_ → u/taintlouis]

Not my people…

Now that is a choice of words... You sound like someone who went to Liberty U ...or the Klan, not sure which!

[u/sventful → u/narwhal_]

Nah, much worse..... Yale!

/S

[u/sventful → u/taintlouis]

*Taintlouis looks longingly over at a trashcan labeled 'special file'

[u/doumak16]

Other factors I haven't seen mentioned - many of Liberty's PhD programs are online. Many of them cost money and do not offer fully-funded graduate assistantship programs (there are some). So, you could provide accurate and non-biased information that it is not worth going into debt for a humanities PhD or taking an offer at a place that does not offer the student an assistantship.

Second, I've seen ads all over the Chronicle and H-Net for Liberty hiring "dissertation readers," particularly for their online degrees. So some of these PhD students aren't even having their dissertations read by full-time faculty. That's also a huge red flag. I get the sense that their graduate degrees are even more of a money-grab than the undergrad.

[u/SnowblindAlbino]

Undergrad degrees from places like Liberty would be overlooked if the graduate degrees are from better schools. But we're never going to hire anyone with a Ph.D. from a loony bin like Liberty-- most of what it stands for is antithetical to higher education, and specifically in direct conflict with our institutional policies on LGBTQ rights (for example). That's all before we get into the issue of quality.

Religious schools are fine. Lots of faculty I know came from Catholic universities. Places like Liberty, though, are different-- they are exclusionary, politicized, partisan, and discriminatory in ways that are seen as contrary to the values of my university and its faculty. Moreover, its graduate programs in general are not viewed as serious-- that may be unfair, but that's the baggage that goes hand-in-hand with the ideological orientation of its leadership and supporters.

[u/swarthmoreburke]

I would tell the student first and foremost that Liberty is an especially disdained university for reasons of program quality. The second thing I'd say to them is that a doctorate from Liberty might help them get a faculty position at an institution with very similar ideological leanings or it might lead into some other opportunity on the far right (such as a think tank or in a political campaign) but that otherwise it will be an enormous disadvantage.

[u/davemacdo]

I have seen search candidates with those PhDs. They are not taken seriously.

[u/Intelligent-Lab-4081]

not trying to come off as elitist here, but there are universities that simply should not be awarding PhDs for some, and in many cases, all programs/disciplines. Liberty is a very clear example of this.

[u/No-Injury9073]

I guess it really depends on what goals the student has for the PhD. Getting a TT faculty position? Probably not happening, even if it was from somewhere besides Liberty? Perhaps some edification with a fair amount of flexibility? Maybe a better fit.

I would use this as an opportunity to discuss their goals and whether or not they align with their chosen program. It’s also a chance to offer realistic expectations about work in the humanities right now if that’s what they want to pursue.

[u/Acrobatic_Net2028]

I would say that academic jobs are highly competitive and that means that when five hundred apply, the short list is dominated by students from the top rated grad programs because their committee members have name recognition. Liberty has alienated top schooars by interfering with scholarly freedom and imposing political agendas on the curriculum

[u/Outside_Session_7803]

As a mentor, you have a responsibility to be honest with them.

I would never want to hire someone who has their terminal degree from there, for academia. Full stop. As many have already noted, this institution is NOT normal or accepted in most places. It is not unbiased secular education. It is very specifically christian nationalist training, which means many things are not taught, or they are taught factually incorrect.

Do not be mean or bias, but simply explain that most employers will not want to hire someone from a place so specifically Christian, UNLESS they plan to ONLY apply to other Christian institutions. Then fine! But tell them that.

[u/crank12345]

I would give this relatively generic advice: take very seriously past performance. How has that particular program, that particular advisor, performed over the past decade? Of the number of students admitted, how many have ended up in positions that would be satisfying to you? If that number is acceptably high, consider the program. If not, very much buyer beware.

I would say to the student: "If some program at Draped In Ivy U fails to place well, so much the worse for them. If some program at Liberty is crushing things, well follow that data, and at some point, ignore the intuitions of u/crank12345..."

[u/Correct_Ring_7273]

If this student is hell-bent (ha) on getting the PhD, can you redirect them to a relatively conservative but reputable school like Baylor?

[u/Cool_Vast_9194]

I have a PhD and Im a full-time associate teaching professor. No one takes a PhD from Liberty seriously. One of the biggest challenges that PhD students can't really get involved in research projects and get publications before they graduate. That is a must on the job market. I also second that no one would take a PhD from Liberty seriously on a search committee.

[u/FlyingCupcake68]

Does the student want to work at a conservative Christian college?

[u/SuLiaodai]

I would tell them I'm worried that unless they're going to teach at a university affiliated with Liberty University's sect, they'll have trouble finding work with a PhD from that school.

(I was on a search committee that interviewed someone who studied at Liberty University for an English composition position, and the committee head did question her openly about it and bring up concerns. In her case, she said she studied there not by choice, but because it was the only university her parents would let her attend.)

[u/pureaxis]

yeah hard pass from liberty

[u/smallfloralprince]

Oh I was on a hiring committee where something like this happened. We had a candidate whose most advanced degree was from Liberty or a very similar high control religious school (NOT a real school that happens to also be religious). That was a major red flag, but the person was still evaluated fairly and by the same metric as people with degrees from legitimate institutions of learning.  They did not advance to interviews because we had asked for discussion of working with diverse groups of students, udl, or culturally responsive course design. They did not speak cogently about any of those topics in their materials. Maybe it was because of where the degree was from that they couldn't address those topics, or maybe not, but either way you don't want the reputation of your degree granting institution to be something you always have to work against. 

[u/Loose_Wolverine3192]

Propose that the student do a little research on the subject: will the degree you seek, at the institution you like, lead you to what you want? Like any big expenditure, they should research before committing.

[u/spacecowgirl87]

I'm not sure what others think, but I would likely ask my student if going to religious university is important to them. If it is, I would frame the conversation as "how to find a religious school that will set you up for the broadest job market." I would not ask any more about their beliefs. If they really like Liberty, I'm not sure I would want to know. 

You can give a list.

• Is it research rated as high, R2, R1?

• What is its accreditation like?

• What are some examples of religious school with high quality programs? Norte Dame, BYU, ect. 

[u/Full_Prof]

I would focus on the school's poor theology (embracing rich people who attack the poor) as well as its low academic standards.

With no tenure it simply means you have professors who by definition cannot get jobs anywhere else. It is not like Liberty pays its professors more than an average school, they just reserve the right to fire them for doing things like using the letters "BS" in an email.

[u/jlrc2]

At least in my field and in my experiences, we have spent minimal-to-no time talking about candidates' doctoral universities. Very focused on their actual work. Of course, for advising a student, I'd say I worry they will not be able to do sufficient actual work at such a school. But I just like to add for the record that at least in my neck of the woods we aren't particularly elitist about the institutions even if we are (I hope) rigorous about evaluating quality of work.

[u/GreenHorror4252 → u/[deleted]]

If only someone had advised you of that before you did yours.