[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Response to Tom Eisinger re: Jobs Requiring CA



1/9/02

Tom and listservers,

      I believe that my message about the CA designation and SAA's employment bulletin listings speaks for itself.  If our profession and job recruiters ignore the CA as a proper qualifying credential, why are CA members championing it?  Perhaps, self-interest plays a large role in their support.

      Tom, your comment to me that I should *provide* (perhaps you really mean suggest) an alternative means that you have not been following this discussion and my earlier comments.  My concern  has always been that SAA promote and acredit graduate programs in archival study whether independent programs or located within history depts. or library schools.

        I believe that accredited archival graduate degree programs have done more than anything else to professionalize our field aver the past twenty years and to provide a common base of knowledge, just as the ALA acredited MLS has helped to professionalize librarians.  

     I am sympathetic to those listers who have said that they don't have the time or money or geographic capability to attend a graduate degree program and need a one-shot exam to provide them with a credential.  But how useful is an exam credential on its own?  It's not--ACA requires graduate education to become certified.

        So--should graduate programs require the CA exam even though students have taken exams and written papers and carried out internships in order to get the degree?  It seems nonsensical to do so.  Does anyone else see the absurdity of this circular argument related to advocating an exam after having completed academic study in a graduate degree program?  My earlier email about the Employment Bulletin's job listings is that evidently our profession agrees with me on this one.