I like your idea, David. It makes good sense in terms of reforming graduate education. Many social sciences as you well know already have an article model of dissertation. It's true that our disciplin tends to privilege the monograph as gold standard but there is no intellectual reason I can fathom that that should be the case. Scholarship comes in many forms.
But if we're talking about structural reforms shouldn't we talk about the shift to non-tt labor for teaching? On some level, yes, students are taking fewer history classes. But in the bigger picture the shift is about two-thirds of teaching being done by tenured faculty to less than one-third today, isn't it?
We do have a decentralized system and I doubt we'll ever turn into France but it's also true that the whole damn thing is funded by the US and state governments. It would not be impossible to impose certain kinds of labor requirements on federal education funding. It already comes with lots of other kind of requirements which both explain and justify the proliferation of administrative jobs. Why not add some benchmarks about tenured faculty in a new deal for higher ed?
Thanks, François. The numbers are a bit skewed by the huge growth in for-profit and online-only universities, in which all the teaching is done by adjuncts (who are generally professionals doing the courses for extra money), but the point is taken. Agree entirely!
An interesting idea, David. I am working right now on a piece about Digital Humanities that makes a similar point that we need to think and work in more coordinated manner across the profession (perhaps through our scholarly societies) to address difficulties we all face in the humanities.
One note on your proposal: the stand-alone MA programs will need to be maintained because of how they fit into the continued training of secondary school teachers, but they should be designed for this purpose and not as presumed entries to Phd programs. Also, not quite sure where training for community college faculty fit into this. Some CCs hire MAs while others want Phds.
I like your ideas. On a separate but related topic, I’m not sure this problem can be addressed without considering the extent to which history is just not seen as a compelling subject--A problem for all humanities i realize.
You’re at a school that prides itself on humanities generally, and on senior faculty being committed, not just to graduate teaching, but to undergraduate teaching as well. that strikes me as unusual. Unless and until faculty commit to teaching history that reignites a popular passion for the subject the field will continue to be seen as weak in the eyes of academic administrators.
Thanks for the comment! I'm not entirely sure about this. Students I talk to at a variety of institutions see history as compelling. But they are worried about the future and want to study a subject that will lead to a secure job. No matter how compelling we make the subject seem, that will not change.
I am really troubled by the notion that the fact that "public universities that currently rely on graduate student labor" is a status quo that should continue in any way shape or form.
I think the whole thing is an exploitative racket, and the same applies to my wife's field of life sciences where the underpaid labor of eager beavers who are never going to make PI are essential to keeping labs operational.
That's why I am fully in favor of graduate student unionization. Of course, with enrollment in humanities courses crashing and many institutions gutting these departments, I suppose the question of history grad student exploitation will soon become irrelevant.
I like your idea, David. It makes good sense in terms of reforming graduate education. Many social sciences as you well know already have an article model of dissertation. It's true that our disciplin tends to privilege the monograph as gold standard but there is no intellectual reason I can fathom that that should be the case. Scholarship comes in many forms.
But if we're talking about structural reforms shouldn't we talk about the shift to non-tt labor for teaching? On some level, yes, students are taking fewer history classes. But in the bigger picture the shift is about two-thirds of teaching being done by tenured faculty to less than one-third today, isn't it?
We do have a decentralized system and I doubt we'll ever turn into France but it's also true that the whole damn thing is funded by the US and state governments. It would not be impossible to impose certain kinds of labor requirements on federal education funding. It already comes with lots of other kind of requirements which both explain and justify the proliferation of administrative jobs. Why not add some benchmarks about tenured faculty in a new deal for higher ed?
Thanks, François. The numbers are a bit skewed by the huge growth in for-profit and online-only universities, in which all the teaching is done by adjuncts (who are generally professionals doing the courses for extra money), but the point is taken. Agree entirely!
An interesting idea, David. I am working right now on a piece about Digital Humanities that makes a similar point that we need to think and work in more coordinated manner across the profession (perhaps through our scholarly societies) to address difficulties we all face in the humanities.
One note on your proposal: the stand-alone MA programs will need to be maintained because of how they fit into the continued training of secondary school teachers, but they should be designed for this purpose and not as presumed entries to Phd programs. Also, not quite sure where training for community college faculty fit into this. Some CCs hire MAs while others want Phds.
Agree entirely. Thanks for the comment!
David:
I like your ideas. On a separate but related topic, I’m not sure this problem can be addressed without considering the extent to which history is just not seen as a compelling subject--A problem for all humanities i realize.
You’re at a school that prides itself on humanities generally, and on senior faculty being committed, not just to graduate teaching, but to undergraduate teaching as well. that strikes me as unusual. Unless and until faculty commit to teaching history that reignites a popular passion for the subject the field will continue to be seen as weak in the eyes of academic administrators.
Thanks for the comment! I'm not entirely sure about this. Students I talk to at a variety of institutions see history as compelling. But they are worried about the future and want to study a subject that will lead to a secure job. No matter how compelling we make the subject seem, that will not change.
I am really troubled by the notion that the fact that "public universities that currently rely on graduate student labor" is a status quo that should continue in any way shape or form.
I think the whole thing is an exploitative racket, and the same applies to my wife's field of life sciences where the underpaid labor of eager beavers who are never going to make PI are essential to keeping labs operational.
That's why I am fully in favor of graduate student unionization. Of course, with enrollment in humanities courses crashing and many institutions gutting these departments, I suppose the question of history grad student exploitation will soon become irrelevant.