On Monday, 17 March 2014, The University of North Carolina Greensboro announced a new online degree program. While that alone is nothing remarkable – nearly every single public university has some sort of online degree program – the nature of the degree is. The new program is the United States’ first online Doctorate of Education Degree in Kinesiology.
This is not the first online doctoral program in the U.S., however. According to onlinephdprograms.org, there are eight online schools that offer a total of 174 online doctoral degrees. The UNCG program is quite unique for a number of reasons. Firstly, the nature of the subjet matter seems to be an odd choice for an online program. According to Wikipedia, Kinesiology is defined as:
Kinesiology, also known as human kinetics, is the scientific study of human movement. Kinesiology addresses physiological, mechanical, and psychological mechanisms.1
It seems as if Kinesiology would be difficult, if not impossible to teach remotely. Further, unlike the great majority of doctoral degrees, the UNCG program does not require a lengthy residency program. Rather, according to the release:
The only residency requirements for the new online program are a three-day orientation, a one-week summer visit to complete an oral comprehensive exam and prepare for the dissertation, and a three-day visit to UNCG to defend the dissertation once it is completed.2
As the education bubble is inching towards a violent burst, it seems as if universities are making a last ditch effort to grab as much money as they possibly can. What’s next? Online neurosurgery degrees?
