Credentialing Process

Step 1 – Potential Instructor formally applies to Palm Beach State College

All potential instructors should formally apply to the College to ensure eligibility to work in the United States and submit copies of their transcript through the online application system, Workday.

Step 2 – Prepare the Faculty Roster

For Credit, Developmental Education, and CCP Faculty - All faculty who teach Credit, Developmental Education and CCP courses must have a Dean submit to the Deans’ Council a completed online Faculty Roster form, listing relevant degrees, coursework, certifications, licenses, and verified work experience (if applicable based on credentialing criteria). The Dean should carefully review the candidate’s credentials to ensure strict compliance with the credentialing guidelines prior to sending the roster for a full Deans’ Council and VPAA review. When reviewing graduate transcripts which include both semester and quarter hours, each graduate course in the discipline should be listed on the online Faculty Roster form, with the appropriate placement of graduate semester hours in the credit hour column, using the conversion formula below. For individuals whose graduate transcript shows all quarter hours, a minimum of 27 graduate quarter hours is required for credentialing. Conversion of all credit hours should be made to semester hours when both types of credit have been taken. The online system will automatically compute these formulas on the form.

Formulae:
1 quarter hour = .667 semester hour
1 semester hour = 1.5 quarter hours

Example: An individual possesses a Master’s degree in the discipline with 15 graduate semester hours in the discipline, and a second transcript from another accredited institution with 5 quarter semester hours:

5 quarter semester hours x .667 = 3.335 equated semester hours
15 semester hours+3.335 = 18.335 semester hours

Additional Notes:

  1. Undergraduate classes taken as an undergraduate cannot count towards graduate hours in the discipline.
  2. Courses taken that are described as eligible for counting towards a Bachelor’s degree or graduate degree may be counted if the course is taken after admission into graduate school and if it is counted towards the graduate degree in the appropriate discipline.

For CCE and other noncredit Faculty:

All faculty who teach CCE and other noncredit courses (avocational and lifelong learning) must have the appropriate Dean and/or Associate Dean approve the completed online Faculty Roster form, which must include information on degrees and any relevant certifications, experience and/or licensures. This online form is submitted directly to Academic Services without a Deans’ Council review.

Step 3 – VPAA and Academic Deans Review – An Academic Dean will submit the roster for review through the Online Faculty Credentialing Database (OFCD) – log into the page at: http://intranet.palmbeachstate.edu/forms/facultycredentialing/default.aspx?fcpage=userlogin).

A unanimous “approve” vote must be recorded; if the “approve” vote is not unanimous, the credential must be reviewed during a regularly scheduled Academic Deans meeting. All applicants with foreign credentials (defined as awarded in a country other than the United States of America or one of its territories) must be evaluated by one of the Palm Beach State College approved foreign transcript evaluation and translation services on the following Web page: www.palmbeachstate.edu/academicservices/information-and-reference/Faculty-Credentialing-Tools.aspx

The VPAA has final approval of Credit/Developmental Education/CCP faculty rosters.

All faculty must meet the stated credentials in this manual. In exceptional cases, faculty not meeting the stated criteria may be considered for appointment using the following guidelines:

Exceptions to stated faculty credentials occur in two cases:

  1. The faculty member has outstanding professional experience and demonstrated contributions to the teaching discipline, which may be presented in lieu of formal academic preparation.
  2. The faculty member has training in a closely related discipline and the competencies needed to teach the course objectives were covered in the related disciplines.

In these cases, the Dean and/or Associate Dean must provide documentation as to how the faculty member’s experience and/or education allows him/her to teach the objectives in the course, using the Justification and Exceptions form, located online at: www.palmbeachstate.edu/academicservices/documents/Justification.doc

This information must also be copied into the online faculty roster through the OFCD.

Step 4 – Loading Faculty Credentials on the PantherNet System - After the credential has been approved by the VPAA and the Academic Deans for Credit/Developmental Education/CCP, or by a Dean or Associate Dean for CCE/avocational, the department sends the approved request to Academic Services. The faculty member will then be loaded onto the PantherNet system by Academic Services (provided that the person has been processed in Workday by Human Resources).

Step 5 – Official Transcripts sent to Human Resources - The faculty member is responsible for ensuring that official transcripts are sent to Human Resources. If the Human Resources office has not received the adjunct’s official transcript in the initial term in which they are teaching, they cannot continue to teach in subsequent terms at Palm Beach State until such time the official transcript is received. This is College policy and must be followed.

Faculty Roster

All faculty will be credentialed using the online Faculty Roster form through the OFCD system. The paper roster form in the appendix is only to be used to review faculty credentials of full-time candidates before they are granted an in-person interview. The paper roster is submitted by the Dean or Associate Dean to the VPAA for review.

Discipline Credentialing FAQs

  1. Can lawyers, individuals with Juris Doctorates, teach political science, criminal justice or business law?

    To teach political science, an individual must have 18 graduate semester hours in political science; a Juris Doctorate can teach business law (BUL) and criminal justice law (CJL) courses.

  2. Can social workers teach sociology?

    A Master’s degree with 18 graduate semester hours in the discipline, specifically sociology, is required to teach this subject. Social work clinical courses cannot count towards meeting the graduate semester hour minimum. In most cases; a M.S.W. does not have the credentials to teach sociology.

  3. Are guidance counselors eligible to teach psychology?

    A Master’s degree with 18 graduate semester hours in the disciplines of psychology or counseling psychology is required to teach this subject. Graduate hours in educational guidance counseling may not be applied.

  4. May graduate courses in Mathematics Education, with a prefix of EDU(C), count towards the requisite graduate hours in mathematics?

    Mathematics Education graduate courses may be counted as graduate hours towards the discipline of mathematics only if the course title strongly suggests that graduate mathematics discipline content was covered. Courses with emphasis on pedagogy or teaching methods cannot be used to qualify an individual to teach college level mathematics. Please see Appendix B for courses from Nova Southeastern University that will count towards the 18 graduate semester hours in mathematics.