Industry Trends
Academic Expertise versus Industry Insight: You can have the best of both worlds with University of Phoenix
" Next Monday, I have a staff meeting with the Governor bright and early at 8 a.m. At 9 a.m., I meet with my own staff in the department, and am then busy until 5 p.m. attending other meetings and working in my office. After leaving work, I need to get on the highway so I can make it to campus to teach my criminal justice class from 6-10 p.m. Mondays are pretty full days for me."
The exhausting day just described is a normal one for Donna Burns, the Chief of Staff for Georgia's Department of Homeland Security who also teaches three criminal justice and criminology classes at University of Phoenix. "I've always enjoyed being in an academic environment, and I think my next career will probably center around teaching. I served in the criminal justice field for 25 years, and think students could benefit from that experience."
Burns is a member of the faculty at University of Phoenix, an institution highly regarded for providing quality education to working adults. Instructors like Burns have graduate degrees in the fields they teach, but also work as full-time professionals. This part-time "practitioner faculty" is lead by a team of full-time instructors that teach at over 130 campuses across the country, and provide guidance to their counterparts in the field.
"I've just finished training to teach a class for the University of Phoenix's FlexNet® program," said Burns. FlexNet® is a degree format that mixes traditional classroom instruction with online discussion and coursework. "The course I'll be teaching will extend over a five-week period. The class will meet on campus for the first and last weeks, and online for the other weeks."
Apart from this FlexNet® program, University of Phoenix also offers courses completely online or in a traditional classroom setting in the evening and weekends so working adults can earn a degree without negatively affecting their careers. University of Phoenix was accredited in 1978, and because those involved created a working model for non-traditional education, the institution has grown at a feverish pace. They currently have approximately 125,000 students enrolled in bachelor's, master's, or PhD programs either online or on-campus.
Educational flexibility is one of the factors that lead to growth within
