Cal
State gets its first doctorate degree
By Katie Plourd
Online Forty-Niner
Managing Editor
President F. King Alexander announced Wednesday that Cal State Long Beach will
offer an independent doctorate of education degree (Ed.D) making it one of the
first California State University campuses to offer any type of doctorate degree.
CSULB will be accepting applications for the Ed.D. program set to begin in fall
2007. The number of students accepted into the 60-unit program has not been determined.
CSULB will accept students based on the needs of the community, according to
Alexander.
“
It’s a historic day for Cal State Long Beach, a historic day for the CSU
system and a historic day for students hoping and seeking to get an educational
doctorate, that live in our region, want to come to our region and be a part
of our region,” Alexander said.
Only private universities and the University of California were able to award
doctorate degrees before last fall when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Senate
Bill 724. The bill enabled schools within the CSU system to award a doctorate
degree and prescribe the standards such a program would require.
According to Jan Kehoe, superintendent-president of Long Beach City College (LBCC),
the CSU system has been fighting to show the state the CSU system and faculty
are capable of having a doctorate program for over 40 years.
One of the main criticisms against allowing CSUs to award doctorate degrees has
been the duplicity of doctorate programs at other universities.
The program, which works collaboratively with Long Beach Unified School District
and LBCC addresses local demands in the education system.
“
This program is very specific to the Long Beach community,” Kehoe
said.
According to Superintendent of Long Beach Unified School District Christopher
J. Steinhauser, with a doctorate program at CSULB, students will have the benefit
of being able to stay in the Long Beach community while they get their doctorate
degree, something he was unable to do.
Steinhauser received his master’s degree from CSULB but had to go to the
USC to attain his doctorate. He questioned why, at the time, they didn’t
offer a doctorate program at CSULB.
“
I didn’t see why they would make students leave the community for their
doctorate, while they had been involved with the community pre-doctoral
degree,” Steinhauser said.
Keeping students in the community will also enhance the local school district.
Over 75 percent of the teachers in Long
Beach come from CSULB, according to Steinhaser.
He also said better teachers in the community will improve the vitality of the
community itself
“
Long Beach is the sixth poorest city in the nation,” he said. “The
best known way to prevent poverty is through education.”
Affordability is another benefit the program offers students.
CSULB is the most affordable of 110 universities in California and will offer
a doctorate degree at an affordable price. This
will improve access students
in the area are demanding for doctorate degrees.
The goal, Alexander said, is to not only offer one of the best doctorates in
education in the nation, but for it to be affordable.
Alexander could not say if this would pave the way for other doctorate programs
to take place at CSUs, but it is his goal to prove other institutions, which
don’t think the CSU system can produce a quality doctorate program, wrong“In
an environment where higher education is universally needed by everyone it truly
gives us a leg
up,” Alexander said.
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